The Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership

We started the month of August with a posting called Alaka‘i, Chiefs and Indians. Tim Milburn, mentor extraordinaire for student leaders, (and for us post-college lifelong learners) thrilled me with this comment:

Rosa:

One of my favorite posts that you've ever written is the 12 RULES FOR SELF-LEADERSHIP. I keep it on my cell phone and pull it out to read on occasion. It is some timeless advice. I hope that you will include a link to that for your readers this month.

One of the FIRST things that I coach, teach, and mentor student leaders on is LEADING YOURSELF FIRST. This sets the tone for every other type of leadership that one is involved in. I look forward to your posts this month and join you in waving the banner for being the best leader of ME that I can be.

Mount Rushmore Monument by dean.franklin on Flickr.

Tim, your wish is my command!

It took me a bit of getting to (this is the final posting for August on the topic of self-leadership, see the others indexed here) because I wanted to reformat it a bit for you: I had three reasons.

1. To simply reprint a repeat of what you already have wouldn’t have been as much fun, don’t you think?
2. During August we have talked about the growing process of self-leadership, and I have saved the “Twelve Rules for Self-Leadership ~ Redux” for a reformulation within this vantage point of growth, and growing into the self-motivated leaders we can be with the Hawaiian value of Alaka‘i to guide us.
3. Third, and most important of all, I wanted to leave some open space. We can start with my twelve rules as kick-off type of suggestions, but I believe that a person’s growing process needs to be self-authored as well. We all know that when it comes right down to it, our motivation is an inside job, and we are more likely to commit to a plan (and to decisions) of our own design.

Therefore, this is what follows: I have brought back my Twelve Rules for Self-Leadership in a newly ordered line-up, one which corresponds to the short version definition we have been using for self-leadership in the Alaka‘i-valued way:

TO SELF-LEAD:
Think, learn, grow.
Arrive.
Articulate. Stand tall.

I have left the same numbers of the old list so you can refer to them if you like, but they serve no other purpose. The total in our self-leadership growth plan will be up to you; it may end up to be a list of 15, 18, 21 or something in between, for you need to decide what you will add:

~ What do you need to do to Think, learn, grow? into your strongest personal statement of self-leadership?

~ How do you want to Arrive and be recognized for consistently arriving that way?

~ What will it take for you to Articulate and Stand Tall consistently, and throughout your leadership life to come?

HOW-TO HINT: What are the values you want to work on?

Ready? We will be calling this The Your Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership.

Your Self-improvement Targets of Self-Leadership

TO SELF-LEAD: Author your own Growth Plan.
Here are some of my suggestions, taken from my Twelve Rules of Self-Leadership. Add to it and author your own growing process into being a self-led leader. Our definition once more:

“Self-leadership is the growing process of arriving at your own choice, an arrival you will stand up for and articulate exceptionally well, feeling you are prepared to both defend it and inspire with it.”

Think, learn, grow.

3. Take initiative. Volunteer to be first. Be daring, bold, brave and fearless, willing to fall down, fail, and get up again for another round. Starting with vulnerability has this amazing way of making us stronger when all is done.

5. Learn to love ideas and experiments. Turn them into pilot programs that preface impulsive decisions. Everything was impossible until the first person did it.

6. Live in wonder. Wonder why, and prize “Why not?” as your favorite question. Be insatiably curious, and question everything.

9. Actively reject pessimism and be an optimist. Say you have zero tolerance for negativity and self-fulfilling prophecies of doubt, and mean it.

11. Be a lifelong learner, and be a fanatic about it. Surround yourself with mentors and people smarter than you. Seek to be continually inspired by something, learning what your triggers are.

Is there anything you want to add?

______________________________________________________________________________

Arrive.

1. Set goals for your life; not just for your job. What we think of as “meaning of life” goals affect your lifestyle outside of work too, and you get whole-life context, not just work-life, each feeding off the other.

4. Be humble and give away the credit. Going before others is only part of leading; you have to go with them too. Therefore, they’ve got to want you around!

8. Believe that beauty exists in everything and in everyone, and then go about finding it. You’ll be amazed how little you have to invent and much is waiting to be displayed.

12. Care for and about people. Compassion and empathy become you, and keep you ever-connected to your humanity. People will choose you to lead them.

Is there anything you want to add?

______________________________________________________________________________

Articulate. Stand tall.

2. Practice discretion constantly, and lead with the example of how your own good behavior does get great results. Otherwise, why should anyone follow you when you lead?

7. Honor your personal dignity. There are some things you don’t take liberty with no matter how innovative you are when you lead. For instance, to have integrity means to tell the truth. To be ethical is to do the right thing. These are not fuzzy concepts.

10. Champion change. As the saying goes, those who do what they’ve always done, will get what they’ve always gotten. The only things they do get more of are apathy, complacency, and boredom.

Is there anything you want to add?

______________________________________________________________________________

Your additions may not come to you right away, but they will. Copy this, add a bunch of white space in between each line, print it, and play with it. Remember that leaders are idea people; they create and articulate visions of the future that the rest of us get wildly excited about. Sometimes they are innovators and inventors. At other times they are adventurers, explorers, and yes, even copycats.

However they are copying cool cats. They do not xerox; they copy only the best parts and fill in the blanks with their own unique touches of creativity, playfulness, and their close your eyes and jump impulses of bravery. And then, when they have that tremendously exciting idea they are willing to stand up for and articulate to the rest of us they do, and they do NOT let it go until we “get it” too.

Start right here, start right now.

You have my full permission to hereby copy my best. Tim was not the only one who liked my twelve rules; they have been among THE most copied writing I have published online in the past four years. [This has the number 1 spot: The Daily 5 Minutes: 9 Questions]

But again, if you are ready for Alaka‘i and for self-leadership, you won’t stop at the copying; close your eyes and jump!

Jump by Erathic Eric on Flickr.

Do you have questions (perhaps on why I placed any rules where I did)?

How about suggestions on what could be included? Share them with the rest of us!

The comments are open, and I would love to hear from you.
We Ho‘ohana together, Kākou,

~Rosa

Comments

[tim]

I love this revision. I am going to print it out (with lots of white space as you've suggested) and get busy making it my own. The whole idea of adding value to other people depends on the idea that you have something to add. You can't give what you don't possess. I want to keep learning and leading myself so that I never come to the table emptyhanded!

[Rosa Say]

"The whole idea of adding value to other people depends on the idea that you have something to add. You can't give what you don't possess."

Exactly Tim, so well said! Thank you for this comment, and for the trackback you have sent me from your own site; I greatly appreciate your sharing this with the student leaders that you are coaching. Please let me know if I can continue to help you in any way.

[Ulla]

Rosa,
"set goals for your life, not just your work" - that's it! Work is only a part of our life. There is also our health, our social relations, our creativity, even our home, our cultural activities. Staying in contact with the people we like could be general goals; calling a dear friend or relative once a week on a sunday could be a sub-goal.

[Rosa Say]

Ulla, you make a great distinction between goals and sub-goals too: Though they seem smaller in magnitude they end up being bigger, for often the sub-goals are the ones which are ACTIONABLE. Sub-goals are the ones leading to the actions that serve as incremental progress daily, adding up in a significant way in as little as a week's time.

A good way to look back at your Weekly Review when you answer the question of "where did the week go?" What we think of as baby steps can translate into quantum leaps that we look back on saying, "hey, that wasn't that difficult after all." Then we have the optimism with which to look at the next project and break it down in similar fashion, bypassing procrastination.