‘Self-Leadership’:
a prerequisite to reach your full potential and put it at the service of yourself and the organisation
How aware or unaware are you experiencing life? According to Marleen Boen, self-leadership in these disruptive times, is one of the key competencies of successful people in successful organizations. We have a way to go to get there!
What do we understand under ‘self-leadership’? Marleen Boen of Training and Coaching Square: ‘It is about creating awareness on your capabilities, what you want, what you dare and choose, in line with your values and purpose. I often hear: ‘I knew it, but I was not able to do it.’ I see existential crisis because we are not sure what philosophy we are following. I see lots of doubt: are we not making things more difficult by wanting our choices to be more aware? And, are we allowed to be self-aware without being considered arrogant? In short, there are many thresholds to cross to get to real self-leadership, based in self-observation and self-reflection. It is a key dimension for everybody that wants to be successful in an organization. Not just for top management or middle management, for all individual employees. If we don’t start to evolve on this topic, we risk to get stuck in a culture of ‘blaming’ and ‘victims’.
Ratio, Emo and Intuo
The advice of Marleen: integrate the 3 human centers of our brain: rational thinking, feeling the emotional and the intuitive. Marleen: “if you succeed at connecting these 3 centers, fueled by your values and purpose, then we are talking about real self-leadership. Today however, we adhere too much to the idea that humans are only rational. The insights Daniel Goleman came to on the topic of EQ in 1996 are only now being considered important in the professional context. Burnout and psychological problems occur, because humans are not purely rational. The key to successful leaders and HR teams when dealing with ‘human capital’ is investing in the rational, emotional and intuitive power of humans. This will strengthen organizations to be thriving in the 21st Century.
What is preventing more self-leadership?
Self-leadership is not yet considered a priority by many at the moment. Marleen: ‘a growth path towards self-leadership is not only ‘fun’, it is a bumpy ride and lots of roadblocks appear. Dealing with those roadblocks in a conscious way is better than running into them at a less convenient time later on. Self-leadership demands that you really consider these roadblocks and deal with them. It is a journey that is best walked together with important stakeholders and potentially a coach. “
In short, the journey to self-leadership is a discovery journey. Time to get started, according to Marleen Boen: “Research what are your drivers, desires, values, USP’s and your purpose and kickstart the process. Get the right support for your journey, by different analysis from the toolkit at the Coaching Square. We would use the Enneagram model to speed up the process. This questionaire, combined with a coaching journey is a quick accelerator in the journey into self-reflection.”
In four articles, Marleen will zoom in on the dimensions that will make organizations successful in the 21st Century: Agility, self-leadership, Possibility Thinking and Trust. As a conclusion to this series, she will share her vision on humans and organisations in the upcoming 3 to 5 years.