By the very nature of their role, as those responsible for investment decisions, the strategic direction of their organisation and the management of resources and performance, existing leaders have created success in their career, which begs the question: why do they need to be concerned about self mastery?
From my work with a wide and varied range of existing leaders, I see five key reasons why self mastery is important in whatever level of leadership you are at:
1. Retention and Engagement of People
Retaining high performers and lifting the level of engagement within the workforce takes resilience, consciousness, agility and insight – into what makes you tick as a person and as a leader and then you are ready to find out what makes others tick. Existing leaders may have fallen into habits that do not bring out their best or the best of others and without the consciousness that self mastery brings they continue to use them, often to the detriment of their team.
2. Enable Innovation and Collaboration
Many business leaders are referring to the importance of “disruption” and this requires trust and courage within the people who work together – if this requirement is met you have a deeply engaged workforce. Here, we emphasise the importance of existing leaders refreshing their self mastery so they bring consciousness to building trust and unleashing the courage to be real with others and encourage others to unleash their courage when sharing new ideas and challenging thoughts.
3. Succession Pipeline
Existing leaders are responsible for securing the succession pipeline and this requires conversations with younger leaders to support and encourage their growth and development. To engage in these kinds of conversations at a real level requires strong levels of self mastery within existing leaders.
4. Push and Pull between Vulnerability and Power
Existing leaders have proven track records and well constructed habits that have enabled such success. It makes logical sense why they resort to power when leading the business – it is the armour they have learned to wear to achieve the expected results. However with the age of the knowledge worker this approach is diminishing in its effectiveness and we see the importance of engagement to high performance.
5. Developing Cultural Excellence
Organisations continue to seek cultural excellence; with existing leaders intellectually appreciating culture links strategy to execution. Intellectual acknowledgement differs from “using” the actual leadership behaviours that enable the development of such cultural excellence. It requires well developed self mastery in each existing leader as they have to be the drivers of the culture.
