To be a leader you have to lead yourself first. This is one of the trademarks of true Leaders. Every time you’re with someone who manages himself/herself perfectly under any circumstances you know you’re talking someone big. It’s hard to resist responding back to a bad intentioned comment, or rude words, and it’s even harder if you’re in a position to lead, where it’s easy to be prey of your ego.
It’s difficult to connect with your values and elaborate the most appropiate answer to respond in certain circumstances. But you have to do that in order to become a great leader. Read that again: to become a GREAT LEADER. I’m not talking about being a leader only, but a great one. The higher your expectations, the higher you’ll get.
I’ll share with you a couple of things you should manage in the best possible way in order to lead yourself.
Handle Your Emotions
Sometimes it’s Ok to show your emotions and express your feelings freely to let your team know who you are and how you feel. But there are times when not showing your emotions is the right thing to do. Specially when showing your emotions lowers your team morale or affects them badly.
The key is to think if showing your emotions will be good for your team or not. That means, you have to be “big enough” to consider your team before you consider yourself.
Manage Your Time
To become a great leader you need to manage your time. A day has only 24 hours, you can’t put anymore time in it. So, if you a have a really tight schedule, you should start considering to stop doing the less valuable things of your agenda, and passing that tasks to someone who can help you. The other way is simply stop doing the less important things in your life. Remember, a day has only 24 hours, you can’t strecht it. It’s fixed.
LEADERSHIP ACTIONS
1. Commit yourself to wait at least a couple of seconds before responding to anything, in that way you will have a chance to not answer the first thing that comes up to your mind. And you will show “self-control”. This is specially useful in complex situations.
2. Take a look at your agenda and try to delegate, better yet, eliminate activities that suck up your time, and energy.Â
Don’t forget:Â To be a leader you have to lead yourself first. And by the way, I think it’s easier to juggle. 
Be Alert, Be A Leader. 
Leadership
13 comments
Exactly, Ken! That’s the surest way to get your team perform at its best and improve the productivity and efficiency of your organisation. Everybody is happy to work under a great leader who controls his emotions.
Nice one there, Ken.
I think it’s a great topic. It reminded me of what I studied in my class with my instructors about leading myself first. I think it was very effective,useful and informative. I am always waiting for the topics of leadership from this site. I would like to thank Ken for putting such a nice topic on the site.
Looking forward for more………………
Thanks
Sharif-
how i lead my self ?
I absolutely agree with you, Ken. To my mind we always should begin to improve ourselves at first. But to lead ourselwes sometimes is more difficult than to lead others. To be successfull means to be able to lead yourself. Thanks for the interesting materials.
Dosya.
people in every place talk about leading your-self as it’s very easy but can I lead people with good resalute without leading my self 100% ? I expect answre from who leading him self successfully … and it’s very good information even for the reall life
to become a great leader, without leading your-self..the important is, you just know how to control your-self and do the things that you have to do as the leader ..”without offending them”..think about the things..you do this thing it because your just wanted to help them not as a leader..”as a friend”..even though there are times that they were mad at you..
Dear Ken,
leadership is, by definition, a relational space, a phenomenom that happens between a leader and his/her followers. Unless someone suffers from a multiple personalities disorder (which some say has been described thoroughly only by Hollywood scriptwriters), “leading oneself” is a contradiction in terms, albeit all those “self leadership” courses that are offered by the thousands are tempting!!!! The name of the game is INTEGRITY, walking the talk, coherence…, but ony a few would attend a workshop that proposes we deal with values, honesty, sheer old fashioned decency, whereas “Leadership” sells!!!
TO BE A GREAT LEADER YOU SHOULD SET AN EXAMPLE
ALL GREAT LEADERS SHOULD HANDLE THIER EMOTIONS WELL
GREAT LEADERS SHOULD THIER EMOTIONS
GOOD LEADERS SHOULD HAVE SOME INBORN CHARACTERS
why do some leaders do not have emotions at all
LEADERS SHOULD MOTIVATE THEIR WORKERS
Good points Ken;
This is the first and foremost requirement of a leader to lead himself /herself first .
Leaders must be able to pull their reins themselves . HOWEVER there are situations when a leader is either confused or slightly demotivated himself/herself .Therefore an effective leader should HAVE a guru or mentor ,who must be able to sort the leader’s problems out and put him him/her back on the RIGHT track .
Remember , when a doctor is sick he/she becomes the most difficult patient on earth.
I like those tips! Great Leaders must indeed lead themselves first before thinking about leading others. It is a matter of bringing your personal experiences to bear while trying lead others to lead themselves in the Super Leadership Style. I completely agree with those maxims!
Keep Soaring with the Eagles and Nest in the Highest of Mountains!
Elisha Agaba
Thanks for these important points Ken.
But a person who can be said he has successfully led himself is the one who has known to give his ways to GOD– a supreme leader of the universe.
Thanks!
R.K.
i have observed that without proper time management leaders cannot succeed
leaders should plan thier time wisely to reach thier objectives
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