| Leadership Mastery-How To Begin With Yourself Personal Development-Leadership Development |
 |
 |
 |
| Written by Mike Taylor |
| Tuesday, 30 March 2010 15:25 |
|
Have you ever heard that in order to effectively lead others that you must be able to lead yourself first? The greatest leaders of all time have all been people who had mastered the art of personal leadership and have been able to set an example to inspire others. So how do you begin to lead yourself properly and develop the characteristics of a true leader? If you are ready to take control of the most influential person in your life, which is yourself, there are three basic principles you must begin with. Once you understand and master these, leading others will come naturally. The first key to personal leadership is to understand where you stop and where others begin. Too many people, even in being proactive, waste their energy being responsible for the perceptions, actions, emotions and opinions of others. This is a sure way to surrender your own ability to lead yourself and it's a dead end in the attempt to lead others. Begin by examining all of your motives and actions and seeing if you are in fact overstepping your limitations and trying too hard to change things which are not your responsibility to change. The second step is to get proactive in relation to the things which you want to make happen instead of the things which you want to avoid. Simply being proactive is not enough, you have to take action based on where you want to be in five or ten years instead of thinking ahead simply to manage the potential problems which life may send your way. This is the key difference between people who are successfully proactive and those who are simply managing their life by what they believe that life is going to give them. The final step is to create a well written action plan which allows you to measure your results but which is flexible enough to where you can adjust it as you move towards your goals. Any plan which does not have this kind of flexibility is destined to fail eventually and then you are stuck with the painstaking process of revising it. Not only that, if the action steps are small and measurable you will have an easier time correcting course as you move towards your long term goal and this will inspire you to persevere when things get intense. With all of these in place, you will soon develop the most important characteristic of a leader and be well on your way to leading others. That one characteristic is a having a direction which inspires and motivates you to stay focused and productive. The world is much quicker to get out of your way and even to follow you if you demonstrate that you know where you are going. Not only that, this kind of personal leadership will ensure that people will be more apt to forgive you when you fail. Then you will see that leading others is a natural result of personal leadership. About the Author: StrengthsMapper is a powerful add-in for Mindjet's MindManager mind mapping software program. StrengthsMapper allows users to create mind maps of personal strengths and team strengths. Create leadership development posters to share and communicate your best strengths. Managers can cultivate team building and analyze team dynamics. Increase strength and vitality of teams. Visit www.strengthsmapper.com |