There are multiple perspectives as to what Personal Leadership is all about. Some perspectives blend how to influence others through your own discipline as the primary focus. Some perspectives are that personal leadership is solely about leading yourself.
I was compiling a comprehensive tip on personal leadership best practices on the benefits of taking on a personal leadership perspective and I came across the following 12 rules for Self Leadership posted back in 2007 by Rosa on https://lifehack.org:
“1. Set goals for your life; not just for your job. What we think of as “meaning of life” goals affect your lifestyle outside of work too, and you get whole-life context, not just work-life, each feeding off the other.
2. Practice discretion constantly, and lead with the example of how your own good behavior does get great results. Otherwise, why should anyone follow you when you lead?
3. Take initiative. Volunteer to be first. Be daring, bold, brave and fearless, willing to fall down, fail, and get up again for another round. Starting with vulnerability has this amazing way of making us stronger when all is done.
4. Be humble and give away the credit. Going before others is only part of leading; you have to go with them too. Therefore, they’ve got to want you around!
5. Learn to love ideas and experiments. Turn them into pilot programs that preface impulsive decisions. Everything was impossible until the first person did it.
6. Live in wonder. Wonder why, and prize “Why not?” as your favorite question. Be insatiably curious, and question everything.
7. There are some things you don’t take liberty with no matter how innovative you are when you lead. For instance, to have integrity means to tell the truth. To be ethical is to do the right thing. These are not fuzzy concepts.
8. Believe that beauty exists in everything and in everyone, and then go about finding it. You’ll be amazed how little you have to invent and much is waiting to be displayed.
9. Actively reject pessimism and be an optimist. Say you have zero tolerance for negativity and self-fulfilling prophecies of doubt, and mean it.
10. Champion change. As the saying goes, those who do what they’ve always done, will get what they’ve always gotten. The only things they do get more of are apathy, complacency, and boredom.
11. Be a lifelong learner, and be a fanatic about it. Surround yourself with mentors and people smarter than you. Seek to be continually inspired by something, learning what your triggers are.
12. Care for and about people. Compassion and empathy become you, and keep you ever-connected to your humanity. People will choose you to lead th em.”
From a different perspective the following is a perspective less about self discipline in service of leading others – and instead with a focus on leading yourself – AND as a by-product of that role – inspire others.
Here is my own summarized List of 5 best Practices I would come up if I was to summarize :
- Be Focused. Be strategic enough to set goals with a holistic view and still be mindful enough of the wonder of the present moment and be comfortable with the uncertainty that brings.
- Love. Love ideas, love people and love learning and the art of practicing to learn
- Be Open and Flexible. Be open to change and hold multiple-perspectives at once. Make choices from a place of awareness.
- Tell the truth. Be courageous and authentic in your bold self expression.
- Remember we are all ONE. Treat everyone and everything with that awareness in mind.
No matter which perspective you prefer, I invite you to pick a practice and bring more of that practice into your daily life.
What practice might you be interested in bringing some additional personal focus?
