The Toughest Person to Lead is Always Yourself

If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that the toughest person to lead is ourselves. Most people don’t need to worry about the competition. Other people aren’t the reason they lose. If they don’t win, it’s because they disqualify themselves.

That’s as true for leaders as it is for anyone else. They are often their own worst enemies. Why is that?

We Don’t See Ourselves as We See Others

People sel­dom see themselves realistically. Human nature seems to endow us with the ability to size up everybody in the world except ourselves. I'll start with the Mirror Principle, which advises, “The First Person We Must Examine Is Ourselves.” If you don’t look at your­self realistically, you will never understand where your personal difficulties lie. And if you can’t see them, you won’t be able to lead yourself effectively.

We Are Harder on Others Than We Are on Ourselves

Most people use two totally different sets of criteria for judging them­selves versus others. We tend to judge others according to their actions. It’s very cut-and-dried. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions. Even if we do the wrong thing, if we believe our motives were good, we let our­selves off the hook. And we are often willing to do that over and over before requiring ourselves to change.

Keys to Leading Yourself

The truth is that to be successful in any endeavor, we need to learn how to get out of our own way. That’s as true for leaders as it is for anyone else. Because I have known for many years that the toughest person to lead is me, I have taken step help me do that. By practicing the following four thing, I have tried to lead myself well as a prerequisite to leading others:

1. Learn Followership

Civilization is always in danger when those who have never learned to obey are given the right to com­mand. Only a leader who has followed well knows how to lead others well. Good leadership requires an understanding of the world that followers live in. Connecting with your people becomes possible because you have walked in their shoes. You know what it means to be under authority and thus have a better sense of how authority should be exercised.

In contrast, leader who have never followed well or submitted to authority tend to be prideful, unrealistic, rigid, and autocratic. If those words describe your leadership, you need to do some soul searching. Arrogant leaders are rarely effective in the long run. They alienate their followers, their colleagues, and their leaders. Learn to submit to another person’s leadership and to follow well, and you will become a more humble and effective leader.

2. Develop Self-Discipline

Each of us is “monarch” of our own lives. We are responsible for ruling our actions and decisions. To make consistently good decisions, to take the right action when needed, and to refrain from the wrong actions requires character and self-discipline. To do otherwise is to lose control of ourselves to do or say things we regret, to miss opportunities we are given, to spend ourselves into debt.

As King Solomon remarked, “‘The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”

A man without decision of character can never be said to belong to himself. He belongs to whatever can make a captive of him. When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves. That begins when we do what we should no matter how we feel about it.

3. Practice Patience

The leaders I know tend to be impatient. They look ahead, think ahead, and want to move ahead And that can be good. Being one step ahead makes you a leader. However, that can also be bad. Being fifty steps ahead could make you a martyr.

Few worthwhile things in life come quickly. There is no such thing as instant greatness or instant maturity. We are used to instant oatmeal, instant coffee, and microwave popcorn. But becoming a leader doesn’t happen overnight. Microwave leaders don’t have any staying power. Leadership is more of a Crock-Pot proposition. It takes time but the end product is worth the wait.

Leaders need to remember that the point of leading is not to cross the finish line first. It’s to take people across the finish line with you. For that reason, leaders most deliberately slow their pace, stay connected to their people, enlist others to help fulfill the vision, and keep people going. You can’t do that if you re running too far ahead of your people.

4. Seek Accountability

People who lead themselves well know a secret, they can’t trust themselves. Good leaders know that power can be seductive, and they under­stand their own fallibility. To be a leader and deny this is to put yourself in danger.

Over the years, I’ve read about many leaders who failed ethically in their leadership. Can you guess what they had in common? They all thought it could never happen them. There was a false sense of security. They thought they were incapable of ruining their lives and the lives of others.

Learning that was very sobering to me, because I shared the same atti­tude. I thought I was above such possibilities, and that scared me. At that moment, I made two decisions: First, I will not trust myself. Second, I will become accountable to someone other than myself. I believe those deci­sions have helped to keep me on track and able to lead myself and others.

Lack of accountability in our personal life will certainly lead to problems in our public life. We saw that time and time again with high-profile CEOs a few years ago. A Chinese proverb says, “When you see a good man, think of emu­lating him; when you see a bad man, examine your heart.”

Many people feel that accountability is a willingness to explain your actions. I believe that effective accountability begins way before we take action. It starts with getting advice from others.

The willingness to seek and accept advice is a great indicator of accountability. If you seek it early before you take action you will be less likely to get off track. Most wrong actions come about because people are not being held accountable early enough.

Leading yourself well means that you hold yourself to a higher stan­dard of accountability than others do. Why? Because you are held respon­sible not only for your own actions, but also for those of the people you lead.

Leadership is a trust, not a right. For that reason, we must “fix” our­selves earlier than others may be required to. We must always seek to do what’s right, no matter how high we rise or how powerful we become. It’s a struggle we never outgrow.