Work hard to get promoted. Agreed?

Leadership competence starts with the authentic desire from within — how much do you know about yourself?

Ten years ago, I used to get incredibly jealous and resentful whenever I saw an email announcement of so and so getting promoted. I remember feeling like, 'why not me,' clueless about why my colleagues would be 'picked,' and I was pretty stuck.

As a kid, my Asian mom taught me to work super hard – the worldview I subscribed to is hard work. I saw her travelling around southeast Asia for business trips, working late in the office, and getting phone calls from her American bosses at midnight. But I have never developed much self-awareness about why I seem to lack modern leadership skills. 

I have confidence in my ability because I delivered great sales results in my first jobs and developed domain expertise in digital marketing. To climb up, I thought I needed to work tirelessly and harder, just like my mom, right? Am I not the victim here? ?? 

What am I missing? What additional domain expertise should I master? Should I get an MBA? The answer surprised me.

“Are you investing in the right thing to grow your career? Are you just working hard?”

To gain more 'confidence,' my hyper-achiever told me that if anyone got in the way of my  'success,' I yelled at them in meetings! I didn't even realize I did that until one of my bosses sat down with me after a colleague reported my behaviour!

My therapist taught me about this framework – self-awareness, self-confidence, and self-leadership. Let me walk you through how I see the connections. 

Self-awareness is hard to develop on my own. 

Let me use fitness as an example. My trainer, Milan, spotted me for bench presses. He pushed the bar away from me so it lined up to my chest. Lying down, I unconsciously kept pulling the bar back toward him. So it was a tug of war with a 115 lbs weight. He got frustrated and said STOP! I was confused at first because this has been my way of benching! He had a bird's eye view and saw how I set it up would cause injury.

I knew my left shoulder felt sore often, but I didn’t make the connection that my benchpress posture caused the harm ??. My fight-or-flight response is preventing me from improving! So I asked Milan many questions about how to set the barbell properly, and he patiently explained the details. Without him, I would never have realized why it held me back! 

And that's how I developed self-awareness, with the help of others, and I had the internal desire to ask for help.

How's your self-confidence level?

Self-confidence is super tricky. It's a paradox. On the one hand, many highly competent leaders are timid and think they need to take courses to develop more confidence, myself included. Lacking confidence shows that the person is humble, intelligent, and wants to grow. On the flip side, confidence can be a sign of incompetence. Overconfidence can mask insecurities and not want to be exposed. 

• Tips for timid leaders: I often champion them to bring out their brilliance by creating spotlight opportunities to lead and shine.
• Tips for overconfident leaders: Invite your mentors to challenge your assumptions. My boss was kind enough to tell me I yelled at others. So I practiced mindfulness and developed more leadership competence. If you feel stuck, be patient with yourself. 

The final step is self-leadership. Knowing how to lead oneself is the key to leading anyone else. The fire comes from within. Self-leadership is the catalyst for fire. Maike Neuhaus defines self-leadership as "the practice of understanding who you are, identifying your desired experiences, and intentionally guiding yourself toward them. It spans the determination of what we do, why we do it, and how we do it."

Ten years ago, I hired a career coach to help me to develop a more fundamental understanding of who I am and what I need. She taught me to set a clear career purpose, understand my strengths, and handle conflicts by understanding others' perspectives.

Once I had unlocked my authentic self, it gave me incredible courage to change my career path five times. My mom didn’t tell me what to do; my bosses didn’t tell me to follow this path. 

I switched from a retail marketer to a tech start-up leader, to a statistician, to a growth marketer to a customer experience leader, and now to a leadership coach. 

How to find your ‘coming from within’?

Since my dad passed when I was five, my mantra has been, "How can I add to his legacy by making people around me better?" This gives me the power and understanding as to why people LOVE my story – because of my grit, self-management and willpower to improve.

Of the dozens of staff I mentored or clients I coached, self-leadership is essential to any successful career or leadership transformation.

And self-leadership comes from self-awareness and self-confidence. Together, the 3s are the three-legged stool of authentic, unconditional happiness. 

On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and ten being the best, how would you rate yourself:

Self-awareness: 1……… 10

Self-confidence:  1……… 10

Self-leadership:  1……… 10

Acknowledgement: I fully acknowledged my privilege as a Chinese male working in tech with advanced education. I gave back by writing this leadership newsletter to share my knowledge. 

Books I'm reading:

1. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking by  Malcolm Gladwell
2. Lost & Found: Reflections on Grief, Gratitude, and Happiness by Kathryn Schulz

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Who's Elliot Ng? I am a digital executive and Certified Professional Co-Active Coach focusing on transforming careers. I also practice customer-centricity to grow customers & base revenue. My professional background helps me decipher between signals and potentials when others see noise and chaos —whether in disorganized operations or poorly functioning teams. Let's connect!

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