I recently had a conversation with a colleague who was talking with me about his team’s performance appraisal process. In full transparency, he pointed out that his team really didn’t consistently do performance reviews, and when they did occur, they weren’t all that useful. He even pointed out that when asking his team about his personal performance, they were reluctant to share. As we talked, a couple of things jumped out at me:
- First, leading a team well starts with leading yourself well.
- Second, leading yourself is way harder than it seems.
This Tool Can Help
Tendencies that Undermine
The whole idea of the tool is to recognize that I have certain tendencies that undermine my ability to influence or achieve my goals. Once I identify those tendencies, I can put markers in place to change the patterns of behavior surrounding them. We can never get rid of our tendencies, but, through increased self-awareness, we can lead our selves down a different path with intentional changes to our patterns of behavior.
The keys to this tool are the infinity loop and the dotted line between tendencies and actions. We never really graduate from the school of self-awareness; therefore, we are always learning more about our selves as we take steps to improve our effectiveness and influence with others. Also, the real growth in self leadership is the dotted line. Do we have the courage to change our behavior once we notice when our tendencies kick in? When we do, we start a new journey of leading our selves well. Once that happens, we find that our conversations with other grow more effective and authentic.
This simple tool that you can use and share with others is a great starting point to knowing yourself to lead yourself. Let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your leadership story.
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