Research & Insights – Developing Self Mastery
Exploring self mastery is critical to any person who leads others. It is a personal foundation, creating clarity around what is important to you and providing the courage, conviction and confidence to be the kind of leader you want to be.
In this newsletter we look at:
- why self mastery is necessary
- why we recommend it as a method for improving your own and your organisation’s performance
- the importance of starting the self mastery journey, both for our future leadership population – the millennials – as well as existing leaders
- some of the pitfalls to look out for and some of the difficulties that are faced by both emerging and existing leaders.
What is Self Mastery? A Case Study
Self Mastery can be a difficult process to both explain and understand. When coaching a young man, this analogy was used to help him understand the concept.
Why Self Mastery is Necessary
Leaders can often lack the interest and purpose to invest the time looking at themselves. They question the relevance of such indulgent time – how will it make them a more effective leader, improve the productivity of their team, increase the bottom line returns and ultimately all eviate the tension they currently operate under? They seek the holy grail of quick fixes – things they can do, tasks they can complete………….and instead they are asked to dive deep on what makes them tick.
This is generally a place of great discomfort, frustration and even confusion – and it is exactly where they need to be if they are serious about stretching their leadership capability to realise benefits for themselves, for others and for the business.
Self Mastery as a Millennial
Waiting until you have been promoted to a leadership position should not be the first time you think about what kind of leader you would like to be or what direction you would like to develop in. No organisation can, will or should take responsibility for your learning and development nor would they grow you in a way that is completely aligned with your personal goals and dreams. This is on you and the first step to take to be ready on every level for that moment is self mastery.
Self Mastery for Existing Leaders
Existing leaders make the investment decisions, determine the strategic direction of the business and manage the performance of all resources to achieve the bottom line targets – so why do they need to be concerned about developing and enhancing their self mastery?
From conversations and experiences with both existing and emerging leaders we can summarise our findings into 5 critical reasons.
The Top 5 Mistakes made when Developing Self Mastery
Striving towards self mastery is a brave and challenging lifelong adventure. While there are many benefits to be gained, there are also mistakes that are all too often made. Here are the top 5 and how to avoid them.
The Top 5 Reasons why Developing Self Mastery is Difficult
Beyond the mistakes made are the difficulties faced when striving to develop or hone self mastery and here we outline the “top five reasons” experienced by both emerging and existing leaders.