Here at +Rasmussen we try and live up to our standards of 360-degree leadership, those being: leading yourself, leading others and being led. This understanding and philosophy of leadership, which we also consult and train upon, is at the core of being a successful leader and displaying effective leadership behavior.
What do we mean by “leading yourself”?
In our practice when talking with leaders, leading yourself has a variety of meanings and applications. Amongst many more, these are keeping your mental and physical balance, balancing all areas of life, questioning and finding your own purpose, acting with self-efficacy, accepting and integrating feedback, sensing and working with your own emotions constructively or not falling into the trap of becoming arrogant, and staying grounded. All these are viewed as essential for good self-leadership. While this is important for each and every individual in your organization, it is naturally even more relevant for leaders at the top of organizations such as CEOs. Upper management is typically facing higher amounts of workload, strain and uncertainty – while at the same time bearing the expectations of making far-reaching decisions and carrying overall responsibility. A deeper dive into those “surrounding topics” of self-leadership and balance will be content of a different article – here, we take a different angle and first look.
One promising way of approaching and handling these demands from a systematic perspective is the concept of self-leadership described in science and academia. We can only go as far as a quick dive into this topic here, but a brief summary and moving from practice to science - self-leadership is defined and described more narrowly as: “a process of influence” and “the leadership [influence] that we exercise over ourselves.” [1] Based on theories of self-regulation[2], motivational theories (e.g., self-determination theory[3]) and social cognitive theory[4], self-leadership is described as a set of strategies that is most commonly grouped into behavior-focused strategies, natural reward strategies (motivational) and constructive thought-pattern strategies. Those are:
What do we mean by “leading yourself”?
In our practice when talking with leaders, leading yourself has a variety of meanings and applications. Amongst many more, these are keeping your mental and physical balance, balancing all areas of life, questioning and finding your own purpose, acting with self-efficacy, accepting and integrating feedback, sensing and working with your own emotions constructively or not falling into the trap of becoming arrogant, and staying grounded. All these are viewed as essential for good self-leadership. While this is important for each and every individual in your organization, it is naturally even more relevant for leaders at the top of organizations such as CEOs. Upper management is typically facing higher amounts of workload, strain and uncertainty – while at the same time bearing the expectations of making far-reaching decisions and carrying overall responsibility. A deeper dive into those “surrounding topics” of self-leadership and balance will be content of a different article – here, we take a different angle and first look.
One promising way of approaching and handling these demands from a systematic perspective is the concept of self-leadership described in science and academia. We can only go as far as a quick dive into this topic here, but a brief summary and moving from practice to science - self-leadership is defined and described more narrowly as: “a process of influence” and “the leadership [influence] that we exercise over ourselves.” [1] Based on theories of self-regulation[2], motivational theories (e.g., self-determination theory[3]) and social cognitive theory[4], self-leadership is described as a set of strategies that is most commonly grouped into behavior-focused strategies, natural reward strategies (motivational) and constructive thought-pattern strategies. Those are:
