Three Reasons Why Leading Yourself Well Should Come Before Leading a Team

If life came with a set of instructions, the first chapter would be dedicated to leading yourself well.

Cracking the code of self-leadership means figuring out where you want to go and deliberately steering yourself there. It's all about what we do, why we do it, and how we do it. Now, you might wonder if a VP of Revenue or a Sales Director really needs to be a self-leader to manage a team. My take? Maybe not. But if you want to be a leader others actually want to follow, you've got to get self-leadership sorted. Let's dive into why it matters...

1. Lead Yourself Well to Inspire Others

We've all seen a leader whose personal life is a bit of a shambles - their habits, their spending, their health, or their relationships are all over the shop. Sure, they can still lead a team and maybe even deliver the dollars. But the real question is - do they light a fire in you? Are you inspired by them? You might fancy their job, their flashy car, or their fancy holidays, but deep down, you don't want to be like them.

Back in 2016, the boffins at Cambridge University published a book about the power of observational learning. They figured out that almost everything we can learn by doing, we can learn quicker through social modelling, meaning we lean faster by just observing. It's like when we're kids. Whether you want to be like your father or your mother has a lot to do with how they handled themselves, not just what they told you. Yeah, their advice mattered, but your urge to follow in their footsteps? That's all about how well they led themselves.

Take the late, great Steve Irwin, for instance. The guy was an absolute legend in how he led his life. Always full throttle as a wildlife warrior, whether or not the cameras were rolling. His discipline and passion were top-notch. And look at his kids now. Watching young Robert, it's like seeing a mini Steve. In fact, there are thousands of little Aussie kids running around today protecting the planet BECAUSE of Steve Irwin.

Bottom line? If you want to be a leader that sparks something in others, you've got to be good at leading yourself first.

2. Authority Comes With a Title, But Influence Comes With Self-Leadership

My all-time favorite Australian footballer is a guy called James Hird, who played for my team the Essendon Bombers. James was just an ordinary guy with a largely ordinary sporting talent. Nothing flashy about him at all – in fact, in Aussie Rules Football, we follow a similar draft system as the NFL - James was lucky to be drafted. Our version of Mr Irrelevant.

Roll back to just before 2000. The Bombers had just suffered a loss in the finals, knocking them out. As their season was done, it was time for the customary end-of-season wind-down trip. They chose Ibiza, the Spanish party island hotspot.

James wasn’t the captain at the time but his influence was already growing. While they were away supposed to be unwinding, James would wake up at 5 a.m. every day and start by running 10km (6 miles). He’d follow his run with a big workout session in the hotel gym and a 2km (1.2 mile) open water swim. His game plan? Train harder, get the edge. And he did!

One morning when he was coming back from his run, he crossed paths with a teammate staggering in from partying up a storm. That guy was Mark McVeigh. When he saw James covered in sweat and done with a run, he started to question his own actions and rethink his own game plan.

Here’s where it turns epic.

Inspired by James's graft and extraordinary self=leadership, Mark joins him the next day. And the day after. Word begins to spread around the camp, and before you know it, the whole squad's training in Ibiza. They're not just there to party anymore; they're kicking off next year's prep.

Influenced by one person’s act of extraordinary self-leadership, the entire team took action. It shaped a culture and spawned a dynasty that saw Essendon not only win the next year's Grand Final, but dominate the competition for the next three years – which is tough in a draft system.

James was eventually handed the captaincy and led the team for the next decade. But the point is this; he was influencing that team and leading them well before he was handed an official title.

From my time running commercial teams in hospitality, I've seen it firsthand. The best teams lead themselves. I set the vision and the embodied the values, sure, but real leadership? That comes from inside the team. That's how top teams operate – driven by first-class self-leadership.

Remember this: A title gives you authority, but self-leadership? That's where you find your influence.

3. Extraordinary self-leadership unlocks sustained performance

In every corner of life, we see people in prominent positions take a tumble because they couldn't get their act together and lead themselves well. In recent times we've lived through the #metoo movement with people across the globe exposed for poor and harmful decisions to satisfy their toxic urges.

In sports, we're occasionally confronted with a high-profile figure unable to exercise self-control or self-regulation and winding up in hot water. In business, we can find many examples of leaders falling from grace because their personal lives were out of control. In politics, we are all too often exposed to self-serving actions unaligned to the values they're in power to uphold.

While it would be highly insensitive and wrong to recount examples of individuals who have succumbed to poor self-leadership I will say this; if you want to be a leader that lasts, learn to lead yourself first.

About the author: Rob Paterson was a 15-year veteran of Revenue Management before entering the C-Suite and eventually being named CEO of Best Western Hotels Great Britain in 2018, a role he occupied for almost 4 years. He now resides in the US speaking professionally on self-leadership and administrates the Elite Revenue Management Community. To learn more about how Rob can help elevate yours' and your company's performance, check out his web page and schedule a call.