Leadership is predominately looked at from the perspective of a company or
a team but relatively rarely as self-leadership.The fact is that everyone is a self-leader to a lesser or greater degree.
From the moment we are born we exercise leadership by crying when we have some need like
hunger or thirst.We are wired to be self-leaders.
Have you ever witnessed a child asking a parent for an ice cream? In England they
still have the ice cream van playing some irritating tune over and over. A few years ago I witnessed a little boy running out onto the street shouting: “ it’s the ice cream man “ over and over again until one of his parents came outside. He then asked, pleaded and begged for an ice cream until his parent’s relented! He
got what he wanted in the end. What a self-leader! The problem is that parents are often led by their children instead of being the leaders of their children.
The trouble is that as we grow older we become negative about our abilities.
Most people get conditioned to believe that we can’t get what we want.
We hear the word ‘no’ many more times than we hear the word ‘yes’ in our first 7 years.
This happens through our parents and other significant well-meaning people.They influence
us so that we lose our confidence and start to doubt ourselves.
Interesting that Jewish children generally grow up with a better self-esteem than
other population groups.( Self-Esteem means how we feel about ourselves in all areas of
who we are.Can be called self-belief) This happens because their parents believe their children
can do anything. In Germany during the late 1930s there were more professional people among the
Jewish population, per-capita, than any other population group.This of course made the Nazis mad!
In South Africa, Indian children are raised in a similar way to the Jewish people.Per-capita the Indian population make up more of the proffessional and successful business people in South Africa than any other population group.
Some people are born with more self-leadership than other people.Beginning when we are young we either lead ourselves or others lead us.However someone must lead us.So it is important to be self lead.Teenagers under peer pressure often get addicted to drugs, alcohol or some other addiction. They get led by someone else instead of being self-leaders and leading themselves.They allow someone else or something else to lead them to self-destruction. The Nazis during the 2nd world war are an outstanding example of people being led by evil people and then ending up in destruction.
The fact is that you can develope your self-leadership. Start by not following the crowd! Be a self-leader.
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