Modern leaders face numerous challenges and increased demands on their time and resources. To effectively navigate this complexity requires us as leaders to embrace simplicity and prioritize self-leadership. It’s tempting to put all our focus on leading others, functions, or organizations; yet it’s essential to understand that our personal and professional development are intertwined (each of us is one person, albeit in various contexts). How we lead ourselves impacts how we lead everywhere else.
At the core of self-leadership are where you look, or your attention, and how you see, or your perception.
Self-leadership through attention
Attention is a learned behavior. We all know people who focus on the doom and the gloom. Sometimes, perhaps, rightly. Other times, it is a habit of the mind developed over time. In 1890, the pioneering psychologist William James wrote one of my favorite sentences ever: “My experience is what I agree to attend to…only those items which I notice shape my mind.” How might you agree to attend to the positive, as well as the negative?
Attention takes work. Like all behavior, attention takes energy and practice; and like any other skill, the more you practice, the easier it gets. Our brains are extraordinary, with extraordinary energy needs; at a resting state it requires nearly 20 percent of your daily calories. The pool of available attention is finite, and the demands upon it are vast. Nobel Prize laureate Herbert Simon coined the term “attention economy,” calling it the “bottleneck of human thought” and noting that “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Does that sound familiar in your life?
Self-leadership through perception
Perception is a learned behavior. Like the doom-and-gloomers, we all know people who leap to conclusions. Our brains are chock full of dozens of cognitive biases. One is the Anchoring Bias, which explains why we tend to rely heavily on the first piece of information we perceive (such as list price, or a first impression). Learning to see beyond the obvious, the assumed, and the automated requires reflection. How are your perceptions driven by the facts versus by others’ interpretations?
Perception takes work. Viktor Frankl wrote another of my favorite sentences: “Everything can be taken from [someone] but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Choosing how I see things—especially when times are tough, situations are difficult, and the stakes are high—requires putting space between what you see and what you think. What kind of attitude do you want to cultivate?
A story of self-leadership
An anecdote from a Fortune 100 CEO made a lasting impression on me. In conversation, they recounted a story about a member of the C-suite, who, while achieving results, was leaving people feeling unsure of themselves, due to the way his direction was being delivered.
The CEO had a decision to make: do they keep the person on the executive team?
The CEO recounted their thinking: a yes or no could be easy. Getting results? Of course, he stays. Negatively impacting people and culture? Absolutely must go. The third way, changing behavior, they knew would be hard and potentially complicated. Interventions could be long and costly. Yet, knowing the teammate for years, they paid attention to the great stories of him positively impacting people’s lives as well as the negative incidents involving that leader.
Next, the CEO told me how they perceived the situation. Sometimes the flip side of a strength is a weakness; the CEO was able to see, in the qualities that drove results, which could be reframed to lessen the negative impact on others.
The result? Through candid conversation with everyone affected, they were able to guide the situation to a healthy resolution for all. They helped the executive lead self by shaping where he looked and how he perceived. This changed the behavior of the executive team member and improved morale of the overall team. The business results remained strong, and the culture strengthened.
And for this top CEO leading a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, the moral of the story came in the form of a letter written by their team member’s children. “Dad,” it began, “I’m not sure what you have been doing, but I want you to know that I see a big change in you…”
Conclusion
Self-leadership is critical for how we show up as leaders of teams and organizations. It’s about every modern leader asking themselves, Where should I look, and how might I see? The intentional cultivation of your attention and perception are behaviors that take practice—a lifetime of practice. Yet through self-leadership, we can create better lives for all we influence.
Looking to deepen your self-leadership journey? Check out The Importance of Learning to Load Share as a Leader to learn more about the value of interdependence.
