Self Mastery: The Leader's Secret Weapon

"One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself." ― Leonardo da Vinci

With the popular notion of “servant leadership” floating abroad the reaches of the internet, it isn’t a surprise that most leaders are taken aback by the notion of focusing on themselves. 

Unaware if their current performance is average or elite, they are confused altogether...

And how could they not be?

While on their incessant search for the holy grail of leadership, organizational heads leave no rock unturned in hopes of discovering the secret sauce that will irreversibly transform them into a “successful leader.”

Yet, unfortunately, that one thing doesn’t exist.

Self Mastery Means Understanding Yourself 

As much as all the hard-working, self-sacrificing managers of this world would love to find the solution to their leadership dilemmas, they ought to look no further than themselves.

Because here is the “truth” about leading others: 

Leadership isn’t about what you try to do.
It is unarguably about who you ARE. 
We are not born to be leaders.

Yet, there are couple of events or prerequisites that often transform ordinary people into extraordinary leaders. 

Extraordinary Leaders Are Driven By Purpose

We must first be had by some great and worthy purpose that won’t let us go.  A relentless, both suffocating and life giving vision of the world—that the leader has no choice but to seduce others with to join his/her cause.

A key reminder, here, that no great and worthy purpose was ever accomplished alone.

So learning the qualities of what leadership calls for could be of use to you if you are currently “had” by the grips of a worthy vision of the future.

Extraordinary Leaders Are Driven By Necessity

Second, the leader finds himself or herself under the extreme demands of powerful necessity.

Most modern leaders abhor the discomfort and the struggle of true necessity, yet more ordinary people have been molded into efficacious and influential leaders due to nothing other than unescapable nature of it. 

When we MUST do a thing, if we are capable, the thing gets done!

Extraordinary Leaders Master Themselves

Which brings us to the crux of this article: you can only accomplish what you are capable of accomplishing as a leader.

The most important way to improve our leadership capacity is to master ourselves.

To master ourselves means to master:

• Our emotions and our feelings
• Our thoughts
• Our words
• Our deliberate action (or abstinence from it)

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words, 
Your words become your actions, 
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.”
― Gandhi  

So, before we fool ourselves into thinking that we can change others around us, let us not forget the importance of changing ourselves to what our cause and purpose requires of us. 

Extraordinary Leaders Recognize The Need For Competence

Are you currently on your own path of accomplishment looking to see what real leadership is all about and what Self-Mastery looks like in the real world? 

Download the eBook below and unlock your true self-leadership potential.