Leading Yourself: The Foundation to Next-Level Leadership
In leadership, your most challenging employee is often the one staring back at you in the mirror. Listen to this article here.
Yup, I said it. Before you can lead teams, drive results, or shape culture, you must first master the art of leading yourself. For CEOs, C-suite leaders, and business owners, this is not a theoretical exercise - it’s a daily discipline that sets the tone for your entire organization. At this level you no longer have a direct supervisor tasked with developing you and the available feedback from those around you dwindles the higher you go.
Leonardo da Vinci once said:
“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself; you will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself; the height of your success is gauged by your self-mastery, the depth of your failure by your self-abandonment. Those who cannot establish dominion over themselves will have no dominion over others.”
I like to say, we cannot know another more than we already know ourselves.
Why Leading Yourself Matters
As leaders progress in their careers, they often reach a point where working harder or “doing more” hits a ceiling. This is a finite strategy – time will be the barrier. The next leap isn’t about volume; it’s about multiplying your impact by “being more.” Generating more from others through your mere presence. This shift-from action to identity - is the essence of self-leadership.
Self-leadership is about knowing your values and principles, managing your time and energy, practicing self-awareness and all-in accountability, and continuously learning and adapting. Companies that ignore this leadership domain risk creating accidental leadership cultures, where development is left to chance and inconsistency reigns. By contrast, organizations that invest in self-leadership build intentional cultures-where every leader models the behaviors and mindsets they want to see at every level.
A Brief Story: The CEO Who Couldn’t Let Go (this may or may be about me….)
Consider the story of a CEO who prided herself on being the first in and last out every day. Her work ethic was legendary. She was up and emailing by 6am and wouldn’t stop until 11pm. She had to be copied on almost everything and would send back suggestions to support the team. However, her team was burning out and progress was stalling. If you dug deeper, you’d find she was caught in the trap of “doing more.” When this CEO got the much needed outside perspective and coaching she needed, she was able to shift focus to “being more.”
She first started by identifying her intentions for leading. She found her ways of being that were most impactful to others and learned the painful lesson of what ways of being she was doing that were holding others back. Her new being included delegating, reflecting on the intent/impact relationship, and trusting. She not only achieved balance for herself and others but also unlocked creativity and higher levels of performance and ownership across her executive team.
Over a few decades in leadership I have found there are several core competencies core to leading yourself.
1. Self-Awareness: Knowing Your Strengths and Blind Spots
Self-awareness is the foundation of self-leadership. It’s the ability to see yourself clearly-your strengths, weaknesses, triggers, and tendencies. Leaders who lack self-awareness often fall into predictable traps: micromanagement, poor listening, or reactive decision-making.
A leader I coached was unaware of how his abrupt no-nonsense communication style affected his team. He thought that getting the work done was most important outcome (people appreciate cutting the ‘B.S.’). Through feedback and self-reflection, he learned to pause, ask clarifying questions, and invite counter views - transforming his relationships and elevating his results.
Consider:
Schedule regular reflection time-journaling or debriefing after key meetings.
Seek 360-degree feedback from peers, direct reports, and mentors.
Identify one blind spot and create a plan to address it.
2. Prioritization and Delegation: Urgent vs. Important
Are you leading from what’s urgent, or what’s important? Too many leaders spend their days firefighting and not fire preventing. They trade making progress on strategic goals for ‘getting through my list.’
Self-leadership means ruthlessly prioritizing what matters most-even when it’s uncomfortable.
A business owner I respect dearly realized she was spending hours each week on routine tasks such as monitoring the to-dos of her direct reports. Once this was brought to the surface she could empower her managers and focus on HER big initiatives. She reclaimed valuable time and accelerated her team’s abilities to execute.
Takeaways:
Use the Eisenhower Matrix to sort tasks by urgency and importance.
Block “think time” on your calendar for strategic or project work.
Delegate or eliminate low-value activities. (If another person CAN do it, they SHOULD do it)
3. Accountability: Owning Your Impact
True leaders own 100% of their actions and outcomes. Accountability is a 0 or 1 (+ or -) concept. You are not sometimes accountable or 50% accountable. It is yes or no.
Further, leaders don’t blame circumstances or others - they take what I call 'all-in accountability.' Not a la carte accountability. This is where you pick and choose what you WANT to be held accountable for. That’s low stakes and won’t get you to the next level.
I like the share the story of when I was a CEO working on a campus. I had about a 4-minute walk to my car. I prided myself on walking – talking – texting – emailing – eating my breakfast and any other multi-tasking I could think of.... I felt 100% sure I was being accountable to all my obligations as a CEO.
Here’s what I missed. This was a 4-minute walk across a campus where I had the opportunity to connect with employees. I was not being accountable for the impression I was leaving on them. OUCH!
Takeaways:
After setbacks, accountable leaders ask: “What is my role in this outcome?”
Share personal lessons learned openly with your team. Be human.
Set clear personal commitments to improve and review them regularly.
4. Listening and Learning: Staying Curious
Leaders who listen more than they talk foster trust, innovation, and engagement. They approach every conversation with curiosity, not certainty. I love the concept of inviting and encouraging debate (AKA healthy conflict) as a leader.
Proverbs says, “He who speaks first, appears right.” Are you the first one to talk in a meeting? Do you give your opinion first as a leader and then ask the question, ‘what do the rest of you think?’ If yes, this pattern is a sure-fire way to get false agreement and insulates the leader from vital information needed to make the best decisions for the company.
A CEO I worked with instituted “listening tours” with frontline employees. The insights he gained not only improved morale but also sparked process improvements that saved the company money and prevented turnover by proactively addressing issues raised by employees.
Takeaways:
In your next meeting, speak last and ask open-ended questions.
Regularly solicit feedback: “What am I missing?”
Make skip level meetings a norm within the company.
The Ripple Effect: Self-Leadership is a Strategic Advantage
When leaders master self-leadership, the effects ripple outward. Everything you do as a leader is watched. As you lead yourself better those around you see it.
Everyone wins when a leader gets better!
Teams become more engaged and autonomous.
Decision-making improves at every level.
Executive time is freed up for strategy, not firefighting.
The organization becomes more resilient, innovative, and aligned.
Perhaps most importantly, self-leadership creates a culture where growth is expected, mistakes are learning opportunities, and everyone is empowered to lead-no matter their title.
So, Where Do You Stand?
Leading yourself is not a box to check. It is a lifelong pursuit. It’s the foundation upon which all other leadership development rests. As you reflect on your own leadership journey, ask yourself:
Are you leading from urgency or importance?
How well do you know your strengths and blind spots?
Are taking 100% accountability?
Do you lead from a place of curiosity or expertise?
Ready to take the next step? In the next article, we’ll explore how to lead others - translating self-mastery into relational influence that drives teams and organizations forward.
If you have a story about your own self-leadership journey, or a question you’d like to see addressed, I invite you to reach out. Let’s keep the conversation going.
