Lisa Earle Mcleod / Contributed photoWho is your leader? There’s an assumption that your leader is your boss. While that may be hierarchically true, placing the future of your career in someone else’s hands takes you out of the driver’s seat. In reality, you’re in control of your own behavior.
In today’s environment, the ability to lead yourself is crucial. Even in huge companies, high achievers are regularly praised for their self-starter mindset, steadfast motivation, and ability to get things done, despite a massive org chart. No matter what chaos is around them, they manage to lead themselves toward success.
Here are three tips to develop your own self-leadership:
Motivate yourself. To develop self-sustained motivation, it’s critical that you connect emotionally to the larger purpose of your work instead of just the task. Paint a mental picture of how your work impacts your colleagues, your organization’s customers, and the communities you serve. This will help you sustain your mojo. Ask yourself questions like, who is counting on me to do this well? How will this impact them? How will this enable my organization to thrive? How am I personally growing from this even if it’s tough or boring? We all face tedious tasks but looking for the end game for either your own development or the improvement of the world will help you push through when your boss isn’t around.
Set strategic goals. Self-leadership requires that you do more than what’s asked of you today; you have to set strategic goals. A strategic goal might be: Improve my ability as a leader, increase organizational innovation, or accelerate our competitive differentiation in the market. Strategic goals are all about looking into the future and deciding where you want to focus your attention. They’re more complex than tasks you’re being assigned and they require more than just checking a box that you did it.