What does it mean to lead yourself and is it a prerequisite for leading others?

I recently heard someone give this advice to a group of students, “You have to be able to lead yourself before you can expect to lead others.”

 

Everyone nodded along like it was sage advice. But I wondered, “what does that even mean and is it true?”

 

Lucky for me I have a platform designed to asked exactly those kinds of questions.

 

Kevin Wash answered the second half of the question first with a strong yes. He believes that being a leader requires leading by example. Anything else is hypocritical.

 

Kelle Jacob agreed saying she believes that leading yourself means having a vision. Too often people are running on autopilot and checking boxes rather than being clear about where they are going.

 

Michael Sicuranza came in with conceptual agreement – The best leaders do all the things Kevin and Kelle talked about. Then he pointed out that there are lots of examples of people who didn’t practice what the preached and weren’t very great people. And yet, they managed to maximize leadership, gotten people to follow them and created success both personally and professionally.

 

My experience working with high powered, successful people – On paper it looks like they are “leading themselves” but that often isn’t what is actually going on.

 

What do you think? What does it mean to “lead yourself” and is it a prerequisite for leading others?

 

Connect with the panelists:

Kevin Wash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevin-wash-23b90915/

Coach, mentor, author, trainer, and speaker running a consultancy business specializing in sales for international property development. Based in Spain

 

Michael Sicuranza: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsicuranza/

CEO of Affinity Wealth Management where they focus on helping small business and corporate executives make better choices with their money

 

Kelle Jacob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelle-jacob-0912a523/

She is a Master level Holistic Health, NLP, EFT, and Hypnotherapy Practitioner and the founder of ASRI Wellness, she helps high-performing professionals on the verge of burnout create better habits.

 

Dr Robyn Odegaard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynodegaard/

AKA Mental MacGyver. My doctorate is in organizational business psychology with a concentration in sport and performance. I provide luxury level, high performance support and coaching to executives, founders, celebrities and athletes.

 

Want a summary of Quick Hits plus the links to the LinkedIn pages of each of the panelist in your in-box every week? Let me know where to send it: https://drrobynodegaard.com/quick-hits-notifications/

 

#QuickHits are designed to exercise your brain by letting you listen in on an unscripted conversation to get other people's thoughts on pertinent subjects. If you would like to join a conversation or have a topic you would like to hear discussed, please message me. https://www.MentalMacGyver.com