When we talk about leadership in ministry, we often think about how an individual leads others. However, we give much less attention to how well the person leads him or herself in a healthily balanced way and, even more importantly, acts as a positive role model for team members to emulate.
These personal “people” skills are extremely important when a person is appointed to a leadership role in which a team is to be led. Unfortunately, many people are appointed to leadership roles because they are seen to be successful in ‘practical’ skills and they are therefore able, at least in theory, to take on more responsibility that involves leading people. But a person’s ability to lead will typically only be seen after they have been appointed to the new role and we therefore need an earlier indication of how well they may fare.
Self-leadership is therefore a really good early indicator we have so let’s look at what this means in practice. In the list below I will describe ten discrete areas that are important to look out for specifically:
Humility
Humility is usually defined as a modest view of one’s own importance or rank in the world. This is important to self-management because it helps a person to maintain a realistic perspective on life and helps them to appreciate the role of a leader as a servant to others.
Resilience
No one likes hard knocks and setbacks when they occur but some people are more resilient and can bounce back from them than others. The more an individual shows they can do this personally the more they can apply this when leading others.
Ethics/Morality
If an individual demonstrates poor personal ethics or morality (for example thinks that taking workplace stationary home is OK) this will translate poorly into a leadership role.
Courage/persistence
The courage of your convictions and then persistently following through on personal work is often very observable in individuals. When strong there is an excellent basis for dong the same in a leadership role.
Emotional intelligence
Although this is a much talked about topic these days being “emotionally mature” can be honed and developed as a leader. It becomes the basis for positively treating different team members and their varying emotional needs in intelligent ways.
Openness/reflectiveness
The simple question to ask here should be “is this individual open to different or alternative views when presented and do they think or reflect carefully on the information?” This is a trait every leader needs to develop and it can be started through reading widely to gain the broadest possible perspective.
Pressure/stress management
If an individual cannot handle personal pressure or stress reasonably well, then this is likely to be much more difficult given the additional stresses added by a leadership role.
Self-awareness
Self-awareness is a combination of accepting who you are as a person and wanting to continue to improve over time. The more an individual is already doing this, the better leader he or she is likely to be.
Self-confidence
Confidence is the ability to be assured and in control in quickly changing or unfamiliar circumstances. The need for this characteristic deepens considerably in a leadership role.
Integrity
Integrity is about keeping promises and being fair-minded. If an individual is already doing this with colleagues and friends they have more ability to continue to do so with team members in the future.
Although some of the above areas may be in need of development for some people, the hope would be that at least a majority of them would be seen to be reasonably strong (and in some cases quite well honed) in an individual who is being considered for a leadership role.
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