Written by: Florence Dambricourt, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If this is the first article of mine that you’re reading, thank you! My name is Florence Dambricourt. I’m an author, coach, and public speaker. I work as an accelerator of changes, helping people to build clarity on where they want to go, and with it, how they can have a fulfilling story. And yes, I work a lot with self-leadership, a must-have competency of the 21st century.
Leadership? It’s around every corner, every motivational speech, every training, especially in the corporate world. Become a Leader! Unleash the Leader in you! A true invitation to anyone of us to become a leader.
But I keep making the math. This is not possible. Assuming we listen and go for it, we all become leaders. Who will be left then for us to lead… but sheep and cows <laughs>.
Unless… we start by leading ourselves <smile>.
Welcome to the world of self-leadership
“But what is self-leadership?”, Ash* asks, “And what does that mean to have it? What can that do for me?” “Great news, Ash,” I replied quietly, “you already have some self-leadership. You even use it every day when you do something as simple as deciding what to eat for breakfast, or what shoes to pick up in the morning. Now, when you develop your self-leadership even more, it acts as an anchor, or a safety buoy. Imagine,” I pause a moment, “when everything spins around you like crazy, at work, outside of work, having a really strong anchor keeping you afloat, whatever waves coming your way?” “That would be cool,” Ash nodded after a while, “It so often feels like… how to say it… that if one thing were to move away, everything could fall apart.”
I think we all have known that feeling.
Balancing it is indeed one thing self-leadership will do for you.
One simple reason to develop your self-leadership
Have you ever come across this quotation from David Swindoll “Life is 10% what happened to you, and 90% how you react to it”.
Self-leadership is what you use to influence these 90%. See it as an umbrella of competencies and skills, and when everything spins around you, going way too fast, self-leadership is the strength that can keep you grounded by anchoring yourself in a strong sensation of who you are, what you can do and where you are going. Neat, right?
And yes, this is my one simple reason you want to act on developing your self-leadership. This possibility you will give yourself then to develop this strong anchor or safety buoy which will keep you afloat whatever waves you are facing.
A brief history of self-leadership?
The word appeared in the 1980s with the work of Charles Manz, an American professor of leadership, who saw self-leadership as an extension of management theory. He actually connected self-leadership to skills associated with the “Servant Leader”, and tied it to his notion of “Super Leadership”. Developing your self-leadership was like becoming a superhero of leadership.
Nowadays self-leadership has been recognised as something bigger than an extension to management theory, and a McKinsey report from June 2021 clearly lists self-leadership as a “must have competency of the 21st century for the future of work.” You can check the report here. Of course, I agree <laugh>.
When it comes to definition, I tend to play with two of them.
A very simple and short one: Self-leadership is the capability to be an actor in your life.
A more detailed one, from Bryant & Kazan: Self-leadership is having a strong sense of who we are, what we can do and where we want to go, coupled with the ability to influence our communication, emotions and behaviours on getting there.
This last definition is extremely rich. It gives us a path to travel, with this invitation to identify a direction we want to aim to with our life, this “where we want to go”, and an invitation to pack our bag with resources to help us on the way.
Indeed, the bag is going to be full of resources. When we strengthen our self-leadership, we develop a wide range of abilities ranging from simply comprehending better who we are as individual to a wide range of skills about emotional intelligence, attention management, states of mind, mindset strategies, communication, critical thinking, systemic thinking and more.
As I like to say… self-leadership is humaninnovation.
How do we develop self-leadership then?
I work with a five disciplines model. By discipline, I understand both a body of knowledge, and a body of routines to apply or maintain through life. As described in the picture below, these five disciplines are interconnected, and they can be studied in any orders, even though I tend to always present them in the same order, that is:
First, Body and Mind. With this discipline we explore the connection between the two. We usually think about how the mind influences the body, for example in sports. But we often forget the other aspect of this relationship, how the body influences the mind. Everything within our brain is pure biology. Our thoughts are possible thanks to a clever mix of physiology and physical integrity. Everything happening to our body can influence the quality of our thinking process – and more.
Then, Emotions and behaviours. I really like the word emotion. It comes from the same root as movement. An emotion is a reaction we experience to create movement outside of us. This means that every emotion has a message for us, which then trigger a movement via a choice of behaviour. An amazing body of discussion within this discipline is around the difference between emotions and feelings, as well as the role of emotions in decision-making.
Next, Identity and behaviour. A very strong discipline where we play with differentiating the two. One key message here: we are not our behaviours. Our behaviours are processes we apply in reaction, or response, to context or situations. With that discipline, we explore how our brain works and its role in our “choice” of behaviours.
Now, Focus and Intention. This discipline connects with this mention of "Direction" we can find within the detailed definition of self-leadership written above. Taking a moment to identify either our focus or our intention, allows some strong attention mechanisms, as well as the possibility to get our whole brain working in the same direction. One key tool here is linguistics.
And last, Us and Our System(s). True, it is rather a set of systems interconnected within a huge system. And within it, we are one element. We will often go back to this principle from physics: within a system, the most flexible element is the one controlling the output of the system. And the output of your system is the directions you have identified.
I complement this with some key habits of self-leadership such as regular reflexion.
And I top it up with Fun.
You read it well: Fun. Either be self-derision, changes of perspectives, or intentionally looking for humour. I got this habit from an inspirator of mine, Oscar Wilde, famous for having said “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.”
My final word?
Developing your self-leadership is an amazing way to expand your “choices of possible”. And that is the… second one simple reason you want to develop your self-leadership <Smile>.
There are plenty of more tips and changes of perspectives we work on when developing our self-leadership.
When you’re ready to explore fully how you could increase your self-leadership, get my book Swim Like a Fish, an easy guide to developing your self-leadership, or reach out to get information on the next program starting date. There is always a cohort around the corner waiting for you to join that you can learn how to swim like a fish through your life.
*Funny enough, you will soon notice that all my clients have the first name, Ash (Smile).
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Florence Dambricourt, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Passionate about human and their brain. Fanatic (nearly :-)) ultra-trail runner. Florence Dambricourt is an accomplished Speaker, Self-Leadership Coach, Team Coach and Company Culture Change Enabler. Her career, in zig-zag spans over 25 years, navigating through various corporate worlds and entrepreneurship experiences. Driven by curiosity and a very strong intention to “make a difference for the better”, Florence helps her clients finding clarity, so that they can shape their future. With two books published on Self-Leadership, “Swim Like a Fish” and “Speak Like a Fish”, Florence not only champions Self-Leadership, she provides a robust methodology, and with-it tools, to develop or strengthen it. She sees Self-Leadership as a must-have competency for everyone. Her mission? "Unleashing the power of Human Innovation thanks to Self-Leadership”.
