Reimagine Leadership

To grow ourselves as leaders in today’s environment, we will need to reimagine how we view leadership. 

Leadership is personal

Everyone is a leader. We are each expected to lead ourselves. Therefore, leadership is not an option; it’s a personal responsibility. How we handle that responsibility determines how we fit into the world around us.

Personal leadership or self-leadership involves making choices that affect you individually and others close to you. Those choices range from your eating habits to taking a step to further your career. Each option requires a decision from you. The sum of those decisions determines how you lead your life and impacts your family, your relationships, and your profession. 

We can no longer view leadership as leaders and followers since we ask ourselves and those we lead to consider our individual leadership responsibilities. Since everyone is a leader of themselves, we are leading leaders even in the most basic scenario.

Influence empowers Leadership

Leadership is influence, and by definition, that Influence is the capacity to affect or direct someone’s behavior.

We need to see leadership, not as our influence with others but measured first by our influence over ourselves. The strength of our influence over ourselves determines the consistency of our self-discipline and, ultimately, our integrity. Our self-leadership integrity is the power we have over ourselves and an attractive characteristic of the influence we have with others.  

Your leadership’s strength is affected by your ability to create and maintain influence with those you lead or intend to lead. We are often influenced by those who display the traits and qualities we would like to emulate. The stronger your influence over yourself, the more impact you will have with others.

Strong leadership starts at home. We are each responsible for leading ourselves, which involves making decisions on what we believe and what principles we will adopt to guide our lives. 

Our intended character is the sum of the values we choose to accept as our own and the principles we adopt to support those values. Our self-leadership discipline determines our integrity in living out our beliefs and our promises to ourselves. Our actions measure our character, not our thoughts. Remember the old saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Integrity empowers Influence

Integrity is like “influence insurance.” In reality, it is you being what you appear to be regardless of who you are with or the circumstances you face. Integrity is being who you say you are and doing what you say you will do.

Your integrity in leading yourself determines your value to others and your self-respect. 

It is not so much how you lead others but how you lead yourself that inspires others to join and follow you. When you have integrity, you are respected and admired.

Integrity can also be the fallen soldier in our character. When he falls, it is our loss. He is the discipline that pulls us to our feet when we would instead relax and put off our responsibilities. It is because of him that others trust us and feel they can depend on us. When he is healthy, our influence and self-esteem are growing. When he trips and falls, so does our credibility with ourselves and others. The power of influence is the perception of integrity and determines the credibility of our leadership.

People follow character

People will follow you as far as they can believe. Our self-leadership habits will offer those we lead an authenticity to allow them to follow without hesitation and doubt. We are answering the question, can I trust my leader? 

Some will follow you as far as they have to. 

 It’s their job or your position that requires it. 

Some will follow you because of who they are.

 They feel a responsibility.

Others will follow you because of who you are.

They know they can become more by learning from your example; they respect you.

Without integrity, leadership is temporary regardless of the leader’s influence, skills, accomplishments, or charisma. People want a leader who is real. One who is strong enough to live in the reality of who they are. Our leadership value will always be questionable until our integrity proves our dependability.

Leaders are not required to be perfect but expected to be honest about who they are regardless of the challenges they face.

When we live outside of the beliefs that we represent, others become wary of trusting us. Again, our character is displayed by our actions, not our thoughts. For example, someone who believes and talks about good health yet lives an unhealthy lifestyle is living a lie. As is one who portrays being friendly and compassionate at work and home is short-tempered and disrespectful. 

Leaders are subject to a higher standard

Those you lead initially see you as who you represent yourself to be. But, over time and with experience, your followers will see you as who you are. Make sure that who you are is not a disappointment.

Outstanding leadership comes from those who have enough influence over themselves to act according to their beliefs and principles. As leaders, we should accept the responsibility of setting and living an example that others can respectfully follow.  

Your character is a reflection of the influence you hold over yourself and is displayed by your actions. Understanding how to lead yourself is not just important to you. Whether you are a leader professionally or not, you are important and your character is always in view. People are always watching your actions and reactions. It often feels as if everything we do is being scrutinized. It is, but not for the reason you would think.

People are not watching you to catch you doing something wrong. They are watching you to see how they measure up. There are even people you don’t know who are watching you. It is not to judge you. They are watching you because you influence them, and they have decided to see you as a role model. To them, you are a passive leader that contributes to helping guide them in their self-leadership journey.

No one wants to admit that they are looking at others as role models. But everyone, even if only out of desperation, looks to others for inspiration or guidance from time to time. They also want to know if you are real, have integrity, and if you have to deal with the same issues and pressures that they experience. This is another reason why personal leadership is important in both active leadership and passive leadership roles. If someone is struggling with something and they find out one of their leaders or chosen role models has the same challenge, it can empower them to endure.

Everyone wants a leader; they can respect enough to want to emulate. Remember, if you cannot influence yourself enough to follow the habits that support your own beliefs and principles, why would you assume that others would or should follow your lead? 

Personal leadership integrity is crucial for long term success. Training someone in leadership skills without mentoring their character development is like patching a ship that is already sinking. Leadership failures do not happen by the strength of temptation, but by the weakness of character. A strong character does not allow corruption to get in its way. 

People don't become great because they do great things.

People do great things because that's who they are.

Character and influence create opportunities we will not see from any other sources. 

Coming up: “How to grow your influence.”