Self-leadership literature review
Existing literature defines self-leadership as having a developed sense of who one is, what one can achieve and where one is. In addition, all this is coupled with an individual’s ability to influence their communications, emotions and behavior (Brayant & Kazan 2013, p4, Ladkin & Tylor, 2010, p3). A further study indicates that as a characteristic or personality, self-leadership is a skill for leading individuals across all perplexing and performing circumstances that come before goal setting, striving, and accomplishment (Curral & Marques, 2009, p 167). According to Brayant and Kazan (2013, p5), self-leadership is the basis of all leadership development programs since it is the solution for the complex, ambiguous, volatile and uncertain universe. The reason for this review is to analyse the importance of self-leadership alongside its other roles.
There are three principal domains of self-leadership and they include behaviour-focused and natural reward strategies alongside constructive thought pattern (D´Intino et al, 2007, pp. 56-59). Behavior-focused strategies relate to expanding individual awareness and comprehend self-observation, goal setting, reward, castigation, and self-prompting. Self-awareness is the first step in getting rid of unproductive behavior patterns (D´Intino et al, 2007, p57). Natural reward strategies are used when a person engages essentially in activities and is inspired by the mission itself. Constructive thought patterns comprises of optimistic and routine ways of thinking on opportunities and difficulties (D´Intino et al, 2007, p58).
In self-goal settings, people always tend to set targets with the desire to achieve them by reprimanding and rewarding themselves in the process (D`Intino et al, 2007, p 59). Additionally, behavioral changes and goal achievements are greatly influenced by environmental cues, a process that is referred to as self-cueing. According to Schunk and Zimmerman (2012), by setting sharp and well-defined goals, one can always measure and take pride in the achievements of those goals (Schunk & Zimmerman, 2012, p 10). Research on expert’s performance, revealed that developing a high level of skills involves measured practice that entails dreary efforts to improve specific traits of one’s skills.
A study conducted by Pieterse, Van, Schippers and Stam (2010) revealed that self-leadership is highly influenced by innovative behaviors. In several work organizations, the executives believe that self-innovation gives the highest possibility for growth in business. However, they do have not been able to improve the performance progress in this area (Bryman, 2013, p 12). According to the studies, although this information is historical, the problem still exists in the recent years. Self-leadership is about learning how to lead other people other than themselves (Schunk & Zimmerman 2012, p 6). In the innovative progression, it is clearly seen that self-leadership skills are fundamentals for exhibiting innovative behavior (Pieterse et al, 2010, p 89)
In the employment sector, self-leadership is the process whereby employees inspire and direct themselves to gain anticipated behaviors (Hmieleski & Ensley, 2007, p 115). Although people are encouraged to complete assigned duties, not everyone is in a position to display innovative behavior. An analysis conducted by Hmieleski and Ensley (2007) shows that this is due to the lack of self-navigation which is the basic element in self-leadership concept. Individuals with high self-leadership skills can easily achieve great levels of self- direction and inspiration, and people learn how to lead themselves in the process (D´Intino et al 2007, p11) (Schunk & Zimmerman 2012, p17). For instance, constructive thought patterns become critical in the first phase of innovation process – distinguishing a problem and creating fresh concepts and solutions (D´Intino et al, 2007, p72).
Everyone has a natural need for autonomy and a natural need to choose their behavior (Luthans & Youssef, 2007, p44). In essence, human action, shrewdness, and autonomy are hypothetically linked in a theory of human need. Self- control and self- regulation are connected with morality; therefore, the ability to utilize control through choice is an initial condition of respect for persons (Luthans & Youssef 2007, p46). The need for autonomy refers to a person’s desire to get involved in activities of their choice. Individuals with a need or tendency to act independently, take responsibility, and make decisions about their work have been categorised as employees with the highest need for autonomy (Den & Belschak, 201, 2 p85). According to Curral and Marques (2009), the need for autonomy expounds the anticipations about making independent choice, participating in decision making and taking autonomous action.
Virtually, everyone can ascertain the goals they would like to accomplish, the things they would wish to change, and those they would wish to achieve. However, people do understand that converting these ideas into reality may not be easy. (Den and Belschak, 2012, p88) found out that for one to achieve these goals and become a successful self-leader, self-efficacy should be greatly involved. People with a high self-efficacy always view challenges as tasks to be grasped. Furthermore, they tend to develop a deep interest in all the activities they participate in as well as, quickly recovering from setbacks and disappointments.
Self-efficacy refers to believing in a personal capability to achieve desired results or effect by an individual action. Den and Belschak (2012) further argued that self-efficacy is gradual and only develops over time through experience. In addition, they stated that self-efficacy expounds on the behaviors people are likely to engage in, the duration in which they will persist and how much effort they will put in to achieve their goals. People with great self-efficacy are most likely to overcome hardships that come with self-initiated changes. Moreover, they are likely to be persistent in achieving those goals (Den & Belschak, 2012, p88). Therefore, it is safe to say that people with self-efficacy tend to have better self-leadership skills as they tend to effectively deal with problems in the face of failure (Nielsen et al, 2009, p8).
Self-leaders are continuously developing self-awareness, confidence and self-efficacy (Johansen, 2012, p3). For self-leadership to occur, it means that an individual has met his or her survival needs such as food and shelter. Additionally, the individual has now begun to focus or look for the meaning of their existence (Johansen 2012 p5, Hmieleski & Ensley 2007, p10, Bryant & Kazan, 2013, p6). The first skill to self-leadership is to stop and set back from the things that prompt people’s reactions. The second skill is to consider our intentions for wanting to engage in something (Johansen, 2012, p7).
Every organization must work towards setting visible self-leadership objectives with the capacity to measure accomplishment in the advancement of self-leaders and progress in invention (Lovelace et al, 2007, 43). One of the best ways to develop self-leaders is by ensuring that there are super leaders who play the role of modelling self-leaders. A well trained self-leader with a high ability to innovate ideas, strategies, and is highly aware of leadership concept is in a good position to mentor others with lower innovators perceptions (Lovelace et al, 2007, p45). According to Johansen (2012), leaders have always served as role models who set suitable ways of conduct for self-leadership. Any organizations goal and mission should be to support self-leadership goals and values. Most people tend to acquire and embrace self-leadership concepts from their admired and respected role models (Baumeister, 2013, p22). An organization with self-motivated leaders is most likely to perform better in terms of revenue generation and service delivery.
In every high performing organization, self-leadership is greatly recognised as power and decision making is equally distributed throughout the organization. This is because; the management trusts everyone’s ability to lead and make sound decisions (Blanchard, 2010, p31). By not limiting power to the top hierarchy, participation, collaboration and team work becomes the organizations daily routine (Blanchard, 2010, p32). People with great self-leadership qualities stand a higher chance of getting frequent promotions and appraisals from the organizations management and their quality of life constantly improves (Lovelace et al, 2007, p48).
The awareness in self-leadership and training is rapidly becoming of more importance as the open innovation environment develops in numbers and great significance (Hattie, 2014, p212). Individuals have to undergo proper training and education in order to change their mind-sets and behavior for them to achieve self-leadership qualities (Hattie, 2014, p121). Today’s economic conditions are driving organizations to build a workforce that is driven by self-leadership conceptions for progress and achievements (Hattie, 2014, p 94). Developing employees with the continued possibility for innovation requires a significant commitment to skills development that would enable employees to change the view of their innovative skills and to form self-efficacy around innovation (Baumeister, 2013, Pieterse et al, 2010, D´Intino et al, 2007).
The main distinctive character of an authentic leader is that he or she is anchored by his or her own profound self-awareness (Klenke, 2007, p 12). Self-concept can, therefore, be regarded as the awareness that an individual has on himself. The self, as an information assembly, helps individuals to establish and give significance to their way of conduct (Klenke, 2007, p11). In addition, it is presumed here that the self is perspective reliant and variable. Hence, several authors (Baumeister, 2010, Pieterse et al, 2010, D´Intino et al, 2007, Den & Belschak 12) have affirmed that a person’s general self is characteristically signified as groups, whereby, each signifies a distinctive self or individuality. . For the aims of this review, the terms self and self-concept are synonymously used (Klenke, 2007). Self and identity, as psychologically used in literature, are spontaneous theories that can be referred to as how an individual views himself.
Another interesting analysis of self-leadership is categorized into public and private display of self. In the literature of self-development, (Baumeister, 2013, p 19) emphasizes that self- conceptions are characteristically made of interferences made through social evaluations and contemplative assessment. It is, therefore, important to distinguish between how a person views himself from social identity. (Ladkin & Taylor, 2010, p17) suggested that how a person identifies himself comprise of self-categorization based on an individual’s exceptional characteristics that includes personalities and qualities, which stipulates how a person is different from other people. (Baumeister, 2013, p.23) further elaborates that there exists a feedback twist cycling from an individual’s behavior to observation and perception from others. A perception of an individual on how others perceive them, to interference on one’s self. In other words, Baumeister (2010) points out that behavior has significances on an individual’s private concept of self.
A self-leader is typically in a position to influence others to gain his or her likings, acquiescence, respect or change in attitude (Nielsen et al, 2009, p.66.). In most scenarios, the person and the others have different constraints, goals, values and priorities. The person always tends to be engaged in self-persuasion, mostly to build their self-leadership skills (Nielsen et al, 2009, Johansen, 2012). People with high self-leadership skills can leverage their expertise or use their status to positively influence others. This is because they are always focused on what is important, they know and understand what they want to achieve, they can clearly describe, and elaborate it to others (Baumeister, 2013, p. 27).
According to (Manz, 2011, p4), Individuals should emulate the leadership skills of Jesus if they intend to become wise and effective leaders. An empowering approach to self-leadership pulls followers to central point and discourses how a leader should expedite and unleash other people’s ability (Manz, 2011, p 5). Here, the author mainly focused on interpersonal prescriptions for empowering others that were pioneered by Jesus in the scriptures. The author does not by any means, intent to convert readers but to enlighten and prepare aspiring self-leaders with the power of wise historical teachings.
In conclusion, self-leadership is the basis for any individual’s growth in life performances. People with high self-leadership qualities have gained respect and have become highly effective to the society as they are often seen as role models to many. Organizations are keen on employing and retaining workers with self-leadership qualities as it has become the key to organizational growth. In addition, employees with self-leadership qualities have an added advantage over their counterparts as they can easily get promotions and appraisals. By embracing self-leadership, everyone is capable of achieving their life goals and live life according to their desired standards.
References
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| Bryant, A., & Kazan, A. L. (2013). Self-leadership: how to become a more successful, efficient, and effective leader from the inside out. New York: McGraw-Hill. | |
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