Innovations in Self-leadership #1

In this new Leadership and Innovation series I'll be focusing on how leaders can maximise their effectiveness in a healthy way. If you understand how people tick, you can quite naturally increase your influence. This is one of the most important skills a leader can develop - and not just with other people. If you want to be a more effective leader, you'll want to know how to lead yourself too. So why don't we start with you? 

Leadership is like charity – it begins at home.

I want to share with you some of the tools I use with senior leaders to put them more in charge first of themselves. It’s no good being the boss if you don’t really feel like you’re in control. When we can be in control of ourselves it’s a whole lot easier to come across as authoritative to others. When everybody knows you’ve got yourself under control you’re a much more credible leader. You being out of control may be spectacularly entertaining once in a while but long term it probably undermines your authority.

Some time ago I drew up a list of six things leaders could do which would help them lead themselves and others. I divided these into two skills a week so people could focus on building their skills step by step. This went down so well that people started asking for copies they could have as reminders. For the next three posts I’m going to share these with you. So if you want, you can try out some of these skills week by week.

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Effective leaders don’t just know how to lead others; they know how to lead themselves. This gets to be an especially valuable skill when the going gets tough. This is when you find out who’s really got what it takes to be a leader. It’s also the time when you particularly need to know how to manage your own state. So that’s where we’re going to start.

Learn how to change your state

Imagine thinking of all the worse things that could happen to you personally and professionally. This will definitely impact your internal state! What’s actually happening when you do anything like this is that your thoughts are changing your neuro-physiology and creating new sensations which you experience as, say, anxiety – particularly at about three o’clock in the morning!

Suppose you could actually change your internal state. Then you’d be able to lead yourself to a more resourceful place. This does not mean thinking ‘happy clappy’ thoughts. It does mean knowing how to address what is going on so that you can get back in control of yourself. You can do this once you start working with what affects how you feel physically, mentally and emotionally.

Would you ever seriously recommend to someone that to have their best ideas they should sit hunched up for hours at a time and go from one sedentary meeting to another, preferably for something like six hours a day? Yet this is what a lot of leaders do to themselves

Whatever your state right now I want to ask are you loading the dice in your favour?

If you’re agitated being able to burn it off in activity is a very useful strategy. Putting that energy to work physically can actually fire off new thinking and convey a message that when times are tough the boss is pretty dynamic.

Conversely you know how sometimes you feel lethargic after lunch? Well, food and the time of day can certainly influence your mental and physical state. You may not be able to have a 10/20-minute siesta but if you ever can you really should. It’s the equivalent of hitting the reset button for your brain and your body. People always emerge with fresh ideas and a clearer head.

There are lots of ways you can change your state for good or ill. Each of us has a way of making it better or worse for ourselves. So, for example, I can make it worse for myself quite easily. I just need to be sleep deprived, running behind schedule, have low blood sugar because I haven’t had time to eat properly and be underprepared for the next meeting. Knowing that this can really do me in, I can take charge and make sure this doesn’t happen: I stack the cards in my - and my clients’ – favour by attending to these triggers. In other words, I need to manage myself before I start advising others how to lead effectively.

So start checking what are the positive and negative triggers for you? What makes you feel more alive, more energized, more optimistic, more resourceful? Make sure you have more of this in your life. This will also help you do something really important. It will help you build resilience.

Build resilience

You can be absolutely certain that in the course of your life you will experience unexpected demands emotionally, physically and financially. And, some of these will take you to the limit. The art of successful living is not to avoid anything that might take you out of your comfort zone, but to be able to bounce back when you’ve been wrong footed or even knocked down.

Being resilient presupposes that you’ve suffered some setback, some mixture of shock, self-doubt and disappointment. If you haven’t there’s nothing to bounce back from. You don’t need to be resilient if nothing ever phases you.

Leaders are both more effective and more inspirational when they can acknowledge setbacks for what they are and then show that they and the team can bounce back.

The concept of recovery time in sports shows us how this works. Run an impressive lap and one of the things a sports coach will want to know is how long does it take your heart to return to its normal rate. The faster your recovery time, the fitter and more resilient you are. This is a principle that holds true not just for running but in life generally.

It’s not that things don’t test us: it’s how quickly can we recover. This is the difference that makes the difference.

If you’re going to build resilience you need to know what strengthens you personally. This varies enormously from one person to another. Self-leadership means knowing what does it for you and making sure you’ve put this is place. (It’s often something I work with CEOs to clarify). In my case I know that regularly working out with a trainer always makes me more resourceful so I have this scheduled in. There have been many, many times when it’s been just about the last thing I felt like doing. But one hour later I always emerge physically, emotionally and mentally more resilient.

So what will improve your recovery time? Start with the simple things. Are you getting enough sleep? Are you nurturing yourself – be it with good food, good friends or good feelings? 

Having covered the basics do some fine tuning. Remember some really difficult times when you bounced back. Ask yourself, what gave you the strength and inspiration to want to try again? This is what’s going to build your resilience.

Get more of this in your life - now.

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