Article 08: Eight (8) Ways To Win At Self Leadership
The previous blog discussed the 7 ways leaders can fail at Self Leadership. In this month's blog, I will cover 8 ways leaders win at Self Leadership and provide my final thoughts on Phase 1: Self Leadership before moving to Phase 2: Situational Leadership.
Before beginning your journey to becoming a Purposeful Accountable Leader (PAL), you must master yourself. Self-leadership is the foundation transformational leaders are built. Without it, you will not progress on your leadership bridge, building out the 6 Phases Of Leadership (POL). Either you learn to master yourself, or the world will learn to master you. Throughout my 15 years of experience, I have reflected on what has helped me continue my leadership journey and extend my bridge. To progress to Phase 2: Situational Leadership and be successful, relentlessly improve yourself. Here are 8 ways leaders win at Self-leadership.
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
-Aristotle
Find Your Strengths
We all have unique strengths, but few of us take the time to discover them. For example, my top five strengths are empathy, focus, competitiveness, discipline, and connector. These top five strengths have taken me 35 years to learn. Knowing your strengths allow you to interact and eventually lead others. Still, more importantly, it will catapult your leadership potential when starting off. People often focus on weaknesses and try to fill the gap, but remember from the last blog that weaknesses only separate high performers. Olympic athletes train their whole lives in one discipline to become the best in the world. Starting off, they have natural strengths that coaches foster. Those strengths then blossom into exceptional talent. However, once at a high level, they must focus on improving their weaknesses because the standard of excellence is high.
To discover your strengths, deliberately create time to think about past experiences. What are the common threads that made you successful? A great way to take your self-study times to the next level is by hiring a coach to help guide you on the journey. Second, take psychometric assessments and see if those match up with your personal self-study times. I recommend the Clifton Strength Assessment, with over 34 possible strengths categorized in four bins. Finally, elicit feedback from others you have worked with. How do they view your strengths? Doing these three things will give a solid understanding of your strengths. Be careful because your strengths will evolve, and it's important to revisit them often. Do not let the labels define who you are; instead, use them as a tool to improve.
Discover Your Passion
What is your Christmas morning? Ask my wife, and she will tell you I am a "Clark Griswold" when it comes to the holidays, but nothing compares to Christmas. To me, Christmas represents what is best in this world. The decorations are joyous, the smells are overwhelming, and the theme is kindness. If I could re-live Christmas morning and the joy it brings to my family and others each day, I would do it! That is what I mean by Christmas morning. Each day, you wake up refreshed, excited, and ready to make a difference and love what you do. Learn to do what you love so well that others will pay for it.
There is no magic formula to discovering your passion. When that day comes, your passion will find you. However, here are three ways to find your passion. First, be vulnerable and fast forward to the end of your life. What do you want them to say when you die and others speak your name? What do you want to be remembered for? Chasing money and new toys is a hedonic trap and will only lead you away from your true self. Another way to get vulnerable is by asking those who know you the closest in life, willing to provide constructive candor.
Second, spend time reflecting and writing down your thoughts. Are you noticing a theme in my leadership style? I spend a lot of time thinking and reflecting because it allows me to see into the past, present, and future. A great habit to develop is creating time to journal each day; it will serve you well in life. Finally, what is your why? Passion is a feeling, but the why is the motivation to take action. My why is building better leaders. I have seen what poor leadership does to great men and women. I refuse to let that cycle happen. What is your why?
Create Accountabiltiy Systems
You must hold yourself accountable to hold others to the standard you expect as a leader. Discipline is not possible 100% of the time; you need a Ranger Buddy "Military term for an accountability partner." Your Ranger Buddy could be your wife, coach, friend, mentor, or even a system that holds you to a standard and provides support when times get tough. I like to think of a Ranger Buddy as a tree: someone or something deep-rooted and unaffected by the changing seasons. Trees can be leaned on in tough times and provide shade when you need a break. How you maintain accountability does not matter. What matters is finding the tree that works for you.
Be careful of selecting accountability partners. You need to find people who push you consistently outside your comfort zone and are unwilling to hear your excuses. For example, suppose your goal is to improve your physical fitness and choose to skip a workout. In that case, your accountability partner must hold you to the standard. Your tree should push you to meet your goals but also understand the enemy gets a vote. Life will happen, and your tree should bend with the wind, but it is ultimately there to ensure you do not give up on yourself.
Some individuals, even family members, do not want to see you succeed. Why? Because your growth is scary, it forces them to reflect on their life choices. Instead of facing those feelings, they attempt to prevent you from moving forward. They see you fail and say, "See, I told you." However, they do not understand that PALs never truly fail. PALs keep pushing forward, improving their position with each failure. Those failures are the mortar used for your journey across the leadership bridge. Find the individuals who will pick you up, dust you off, and ask, "What did you learn?"
Joshua K. McMillion
Show me your friends you spend most of your time with and I will predict your future.
Develop Your House of Leadership
Dr. Flatter, the founder of 2 Roads Leadership, created a concept called the House Of Leadership or HOL. The HOL is your personal leadership philosophy but is visually placed into a metaphoric house. We all have a leadership philosophy based on our strengths and weaknesses. Most leaders never have an opportunity to reflect on themselves until they are in a leadership position. Your HOL is unique and will change. Find the time and reflect on the leader you choose to be.
Start with leaders you dislike or do not respect. Just like individual failures, a transitional leader "toxic" can be a powerful lesson on what poor leadership looks like. My career has seen horrible, average, great, and exceptional leaders. Some of the most impactful lessons were from leaders that wielded authority as power. I knew what type of leader I chose never to become. Start asking and observing your leaders about what they do and how their team reacts. Are they a winning team that produces results, or are they a losing team with poor morale?
Be ready to change your HOL as you progress on your journey across the leadership bridge. It has taken me over 35 years to develop and learn what type of leader I want to be and the principles that make my HOL. PALs remain curious and coachable and understand there is always more to learn. It is crucial to write down your HOL and review it often. In a future blog, I will walk you through how to develop your HOL and do a deep dive into my personal HOL. If you want a copy of my personal leadership philosophy, simply subscribe to the MLC newsletter.
Be Selfish
Before you advance to the second phase of leadership, learn to show up for yourself daily. A common misconception with leadership is that self-care becomes unobtanium. This is because the mission comes first. Failing to show up for yourself consistently will result in leadership burnout. Taking the time daily to center yourself is an investment in both you and your organization and family. Choose to show up for them fully present. I am a full-time Army officer and run a leadership coaching business; if I can devote one to three hours a day for self-care, you can. Learn to balance your work, family, and self.
Another vital lesson before advancing to situational leadership is the power to say no. A meaningful way to enforce this is by creating a do-not-do list. Review what you do in a given week, then determine what moves you closer to the long-term vision. Once you identify tasks, meetings, or activities not connected to your progress, remove them from your to-do list and place them on the do-not-do list. I guarantee there are areas in your life that can be optimized to help prevent burnout.
Finally, to consistently show up, you need to develop sustainable habits that can be repeatable in any situation. I will use my morning routine as an example. Each morning I show up for myself by waking up at 0400 to read at least 10 pages of a non-fictional book, take time to journal, and reflect on my vision. Once I complete my reading, I spend another two hours on physical fitness. I do other routines, but my morning routine allows me to show up for myself and is sustainable. Find habits that serve you. I will provide a deep dive into my morning routine and framework in a later blog.
Master Time Management
As you progress on your leadership journey, one common theme remains consistent. Your time will decrease as your responsibility increases. To effectively manage your time prioritize tasks. I try to keep it simple stupid (KISS) and use the classification of rubber and glass balls I learned from a great leader. Any task you give can be classified as a rubber or glass task. If not completed by the suspense given, rubber tasks will continue to bounce. Be careful with rubber tasks because they are easy to forget; eventually, they stop bouncing. The second classification is glass, which can no longer be attempted if the task is dropped. Once you classify the tasks, start tracking them. Who owns the task? When is it due? How are you holding yourself accountable? If you can start this early in your career, it will serve you well. Reach out if you would like a free version of the accountability tracker I use called Daily Rocks.
Determine ways to reduce the number of daily choices to prevent decision fatigue. Decision fatigue was created by Roy F. Baumeister and explains the mental and emotional strain resulting from increased decisions will impact the leader's ability to make effective decisions. When I ran an organization of over 200 Team members, I learned the number of decisions made daily reduces the quality. As you grow into a transformational leader, limit the number of daily choices. You can do this by fostering mission command in your organization, but to achieve this in your personal life, you need to de-clutter. Determine what daily decisions you make and find creative ways to simplify them.
The final part of taking control of your time is planning out your day. It is challenging when you first start because unforeseen events will occur. The purpose of planning your day is not to follow the plan perfectly but to help you optimize how the time is spent. A great way is to create bins within your day. For example, each morning from 0400 to 0700 is personal time. From 0800 to 1700, is dedicated to the Army. From 1700 to 2000 is family time; finally, 2000 to 2100 is personal time. Do my weekdays always go according to plan? No, but I have learned it keeps me focused and intentional. Be present and purposeful when at work, with your family, or showing up for yourself. If you can plan out your day, it will allow you to master your time and continue the leadership journey.
Figure Out Your Pillars
To become a PAL, determine what is most important in your life. What areas do you find the most fulfillment? We all have areas weighted more than others and are essential to achieving a harmonious life. You must sit down and think about what brings you true fulfillment to lead well. I am not talking about passion; this is broader. What pillars of life will you measure your success on? Before leading others, understand the areas most essential to reach a harmonious life.
The founders of Oola, Troy Amdal and David Braun, use 7 pillars in their framework to help others reach a balanced life. Those pillars are called the 7 F's: Faith, Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends, Field, and Fun. The book Vivid Vision, a great resource to plan your vision, has 5 of those same F's. However, the most critical pillars should be determined by you and not influenced by others. What areas in life inspire you? For example, the areas that inspire me are Faith, Family, Fitness, Field, Finance, Fun, and Freedom. Maybe you have the same areas, but the point is to determine what inspires you.
Can you guess how to determine the areas that fulfill you? By creating deliberate time to think. One universal fact about leadership is deep reflection will unlock most of the answers we seek. We all have the answer inside us, but we need quiet to allow wisdom to flow. Another powerful way is to hire a coach. Yes, I am a coach, but I also have a coach. Having someone who can tap into level 4 listening, "transformational listening," and evoking deep awareness is powerful. Once you determine your pillars, start setting short, middle, and long-term goals around them. I will walk you through how I plan my goals for 1-5-10 years in a future blog.
Joshua K. McMillion
Determine the pillars you want success in then create a plan to gain freedom.
Create Discipline
Regardless of position, rank, or title, any leader will fail if they are missing discipline. Discipline is a principle in my HOL, and I will wage it is in yours too. You have done the hard work and developed accountability systems, but now it's time for deeds, not words.
I define discipline as mental toughness. PALs can push beyond what is comfortable and into their growth zone because of the burning desire to achieve the vision. Discipline is easy to maintain in the short term but increases in difficulty the longer you go. Eventually, your body will accept the new habits as the norm. Try this exercise. Combine your hands and overlap your fingers like you're praying. Notice how your fingers naturally fell into place? Now, move your fingers in one position to the front or back. How does it feel now, unnatural? If you consistently commit to overlapping your hands that way, eventually, it becomes the new normal. It is on you to remain disciplined, but there are ways to help.
PALs establish routines that help keep them on track. When I was in my first rifle company command of over 150 soldiers, I ran a daily meeting at 0545. That meant waking up at 0430 to show up for me. Waking up at 0430 also allowed me to be mentally and physically switched on, ensuring the organization was operating efficiently. I also needed to unlock the compound for my soldiers to get in and start their day. Creating a routine is all about setting the conditions. For example, I would not leave work unless the Daily Rocks were ready to go. Before I went to bed, I ensured my clothes were laid out, and lunch was prepared. Routines take time and are uncomfortable at first, but it becomes routine once you tap into discipline.
Final Thoughts
At its core, Phase 1: Self-Leadership is about showing up for yourself. PALs understand they need to show up for themselves. Showing up for yourself is not selfish; instead, it's the truest form of servant leadership. If you can invest in yourself and recharge your batteries, you can add extreme value to your team, which is multiplied by the organization. That value is compounded when you progress throughout your leadership journey. Invest in yourself, understand your strengths, determine the leader you want to become, and begin to inspire others through your actions. Share in the comments below, or feel free to send me a personal message. Use the 8 ways leaders win at Self-leadership to inspire you to become a more PAL. We all have greatness inside, but it's up to us to forge those abilities. Become the leader your team needs!
After Action Review
What is your accountability tree?
What do you need to stop doing to optimize your time management?
How are you showing up for yourself?
My Mission: I will end toxic leadership practices by equipping leaders with transformational leadership skills.
Together, we will impact 1 MILLION lives!!!
Every day is a gift, don't waste yours!
Joshua K. McMillion | Founder MLC | Founder MLC
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