Know Thyself
Everybody leads. But not everybody leads well. Wherever you are in life, organization, and family you are leading. Why not seek to do it well? Now, God’s idea of success and the world’s idea are very different. The world’s concept of great leadership is also skewed from what God sees. There are many factors that go into leadership at any level, but there are certain things that every leader can know about themselves that will help them take their next steps in leadership growth. It is a part of the lifelong learning that should be taking place in your life as a leader. Here are four things you should know well about yourself to be a great leader.
Personality
There is no shortage of personality profiles, methods, letters, and ideas out there. Don’t waste time arguing with someone regarding which is the best. They are all giving you aspects that will help you identify and develop a deeper understanding of your own personality. Are you a doer? A thinker? An organizer? Having an understanding of your personality will help you know how you will approach leadership in any given setting. Your personality does not dictate whether or not you can lead. It tells you how you will most naturally approach leading. It will also give you insight into what areas will be more difficult for you to master because they are not going to come naturally to you. Given your responsibilities, or career, there could be things that you must learn how to do simply because they are part of your job even though they aren’t your strength. A mentor, or coach, can help you learn how to incorporate those things into your routine to grow as a leader. Again, gaining an understanding of your personality makeup will be an invaluable tool to you as you grow, lead, and parent.
Motivations
There are a lot of names you could put in here for this aspect of yourself. This title could be spiritual gifts, for instance. And that would be okay, but this focuses on the motivational gifts found in Romans 12 rather than the full gamut that you might find out there in a list. A leader should know their motivations. When a stressful situation arises, a big decision, or even your daily interactions with people happen, your motivations tell you how you will react in that setting. Will you trend towards mercy and seek to make someone feel better? Will you bring together the group, assign tasks, and create an organizational plan? Will you just jump in and start helping? These things are all based on your motivations in life. Again, these don’t determine whether you are capable of leading, but help you know what your angle will typically be. Your motivations are a key part to understanding yourself. Building this understanding will allow you to learn to incorporate the other motivations into your responses and even develop the ability to see them in your team. Personality tells you how you will lead and motivations tell you how you will respond in situations.
Experiences
Your experiences are yours alone. Where have you been? What have you done? What has happened in your life both good and bad? All of your experiences come together inside of you to develop a sort of intuition. That is, of course, provided you take intentional time to reflect and learn from your past experiences whether successful or failing. Your experiences play a big part in your leadership. You need to be honest about them and learn what you can from them. Your experiences don’t create or define truth, but they help you identify what really is true when you see it. They can be deceiving though, just because one idea worked over here doesn’t mean it will work the same over there. There are many reasons for success and the environment can play an important role. Your experiences are important to your leadership because they play a role in shaping who you are as a person. They can have very positive impacts and can also have very negative impacts. Take time to look at your past and how it challenges you to be who you are now. What is good in that and what is bad in that?
Baggage
Everybody has it and everybody brings into their relationships, both personally and professionally. Baggage is the negative emotional responses that hang with people through their lives and is usually due to very negative experiences. Some baggage erodes your willingness to trust. Some creates deep rooted fears about certain decisions. Some baggage will impact how you respond to criticism, or how you give critical feedback. Don’t deny it. You have it. No real need to flaunt it either. That doesn’t help anything either. Your baggage will weigh you down if you don’t learn healthy ways to deal with it. Acknowledge it. Be open about it when necessary. Develop a system to help yourself overcome it when it tries to pop up into your leadership. Find what works for you. Every person is carrying baggage. How you carry yours can help you become an even better leader.
Who are you leading right now? At work? At home? Knowing yourself is vital to doing the task of leadership well. If you have never taken the time to dig in and learn about yourself this is a great time to do it. Your future will be all the brighter for it.