The Pandemic and the turbulence that followed have impacted leadership in many ways. One of the challenges leaders have faced is the need to change some of their behaviors. Remember Charles Darwin? One of his most compelling lessons was, “It is not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one most adaptable to change”. As leaders at all levels continue to juggle the demands they face, they must keep their behavior in check and change as necessary.
To lead or modify their behavior, leaders must successfully exercise one of the key elements of Emotional Intelligence, Self-Management, which incorporates self-awareness and self-regulation. Self-management is about emotional awareness and understanding one’s thoughts and feelings without bias. To continue one’s growth and development, we can only change our behavior when we learn how others perceive us and the thoughts and feelings we experience as we work on change.
Self-management is critical for leadership in today’s business environment. I will share just a few of the important reasons for this.
- Adaptability and Agility: Today is about rapid change, uncertainty, and complexity. A leader must be decisive, agile, and adaptable to the next challenges.Being skilled in self-management allows leaders to remain accountable, focused, and resilient while setting the course for their team.
- Decision Making: Self-management enables leaders to make well-informed decisions. It allows a leader to reflect on their emotions and behavior. This makes it easier to remain organized, stay on top of priorities, and maintain clarity of purpose.
- Building Trust: Self-management allows a leader to demonstrate consistency and transparency. The team will see their leader as credible, reliable, and having integrity. We know these are a formula for success.
- Learning and Development: As leaders, we must continue to learn and grow. Self-management allows us to self-reflect, learn more about ourselves, regulate our emotions, and stretch our capabilities. We will seek feedback, learn from this, and change our behavior accordingly. A coaching exercise I use to have someone understand their impact as a leader is to think about the personal qualities they wish to bring to the leadership role. The exercise asks one to envision what they would want a gathering of their people to say about what it is like to work with them and what they may fear they would say about them. The exercise goes on from there intending to reveal one’s strengths and weaknesses through self-awareness and self-management.
My experience makes the case that as we manage others, we work on mastering managing ourselves. For example, think about swimming. We cannot save someone in trouble if we have not learned to swim well ourselves. Leadership is not about being a hero. It is about being a quality guide capable of bringing your team through the challenges they face. To be effective, leaders need self-management. This will enhance their self-control to keep their behavior in check; increase their conscientiousness to be organized, on track, responsible, accountable, and committed; strengthen their ability to empower others; help them to build stronger relationships; and make them more inspirational.
In summary, we must understand ourselves, have an accurate vision of who we are, know our strengths and weaknesses, and use all these to go forward effectively and successfully. Put challenges in perspective by asking yourself, “What is the worst that can happen? How do I want this to turn out? How will I feel about this later?” Self-management helps you answer these questions. However, understand it is not just about personal efficiency; it's about equipping yourself with the skills and mindset needed to navigate the complexities of today's business landscape, inspire your teams, and drive organizational success.