Self-Management is Critical to Success By Reggie McNeal

Competent Leaders Practice Self-Management

Self-management targets the person who is often the most significant challenge to your leadership: YOU! Many things that leaders must manage are common to leaders of all enterprises. Those who lead in the spiritual arena are not exempt from these challenging elements.

Emotions

Emotions happen. They are neither good nor bad in themselves. It’s what we do with emotions that counts in terms of self-management. The key to emotional health is not to deny emotions. Just the opposite is true. Leaders must learn to own their emotions to manage them rather than let emotions be in charge. Fear, grief, anger, hostility, and depression lead to the list of powerful emotions that leaders must manage in themselves.

Expectations

This item has three dimensions. First is the leader’s expectations of themselves. Great leaders are not afflicted with an inflated view of themselves, believing they could never fail. Nor do they engage in self-flagellation when they disappoint themselves.

Second, leaders must manage others’ expectations of them. The twin risks here are for the leader to disregard these expectations on the one hand or to be captured or determined by them on the other. Over time, leaders teach people what to expect of them, which is why this is a self-management issue.

Third, the leader’s expectations of followers factor into leadership health, whether demanding too little or too much. Setting and communicating expectations to followers is a critical leadership competency.

Physical Health

While every leader operates with certain physical givens – body types, metabolic rates, congenital factors, genetic predispositions toward certain diseases – other health challenges result from lifestyle choices. Practicing good health habits reduces the hassles and hindrances inherent in physical limitations and prevents premature incapacitation or even death.

Mental Health

Both brain chemistry and psychological elements come into play here. Adequate sleep, proper diet, the moderate use of alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine, along with insufficient exercise and daily doses of positive human contact factor into brain (as an organ) maintenance. To help the brain (as a psychological center), wise leaders avoid brain drains (like negative people, disorganization, second-guessing decisions, etc.) as well as program adequate mental recreation and “muse time” into their routines.

Emotional and Relational Intelligence

People who study leadership suggest that only one-third of a leader’s effectiveness lies in raw intelligence and technical expertise. The other two-thirds rise from emotional and relational intelligence dimensions—the leader’s enthusiasm, optimism, and energy ripple throughout their leadership constellation. Conversely, leaders’ discouragement, pessimism, and negativity affect their followers. The leader must closely monitor the emotional signals they send out.

Temptations

Too many leaders have cheated themselves out of potential greatness because of poor moral choices or addictive behaviors that eventually limit their influence or disqualify them from leading altogether. The list of temptations is common: lust, power, pride, illicit sex, money, pornography, drug addiction, etc. All sing their siren songs tuned to the leader’s propensities and vulnerabilities. Great leaders do not expect to expunge temptations from their lives. Instead, they acknowledge them and proactively manage this aspect of leadership through proven strategies: avoiding places and situations that feed temptations, creating and maintaining accountability, and paying attention to early warning signs.

The Bottom Line

Great leaders are great managers – not just managers of projects or other people, but mostly of themselves. They understand that the pressures of external circumstances are not the likely potholes that will cause the wheels to come off their leadership or even sideline them with a blowout. They know that internal self-management of their mental, emotional, and spiritual health is the key to greater leadership effectiveness.

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Reggie McNeal is a Christian thought leader. For over thirty years, he has dedicated himself to helping everyday people and other leaders pursue more intentional lives. His professional experience is wide-ranging, including serving as a denominational executive, congregational leader, leadership coach, and founding pastor of a new church. He has also lectured and taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, served as a church ministry consultant, and advised in the business sector.

This is Part 2 in the Special Seven Week Series – Practicing Greatness.

1. Self-Awareness and Why It’s Critical
2. Self-Management is Critical to Success

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