| There is one truth in management that is seldom articulated. That truth is: you cannot manage others well unless you first manage yourself well. As the Chinese proverb goes, "If you can command yourself, you can command the world". Managers who are stumbling over their own weaknesses and misdoings will find it hard to convince others to improve. A leader who has not managed his department well will have a credibility problem in convincing others to improve their departments. In this respect there are ten "departments of self management", which I believe can benefit all working executives, as reflected in the model below. |
KLSCC's Model of Self Management
1. SELF-AWARENESS
All improvement must begin with self-awareness. Before a leader can improve himself, he has to know the areas that need his attention. To do this, he has to uncover his blind spots, mistakes, flaws or weaknesses. It will serve a leader well to find out the truth about himself if he really wants to better himself. A leader who creates fear in others through intimidation and vengeful actions will discourage people from speaking the truth about himself. History has taught us that those emperors of once great empires, who used fear as their strategy, prevented their advisors from telling them the truth. That eventually brought about the downfall of those leaders.
Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist said it poignantly, "What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself". Great leaders know their own strengths and weaknesses. They know how to leverage on their strengths and compensate and learn from their limitations.
Great leaders know_how to leverage on their strengths and compensate and learn from their limitations.
2. SELF-BELIEF
It has been said that if you do not believe in yourself, no one will. The greatest power of a leader comes not from whether others believe in him; it comes from whether he truly believes in himself. When one believes in oneself, something magical happens. A belief in oneself is a powerful force within, which will compel one to commit one's thinking, feeling and action towards a goal. A strong enough belief will overcome great odds to achieve success.
A belief in oneself is a powerful force within, which will compel one to commit one's thinking, feeling and action towards a goal.
A good starting point to believe in ourselves and our abilities is the belief that God has created a superior being in us. We have what is needed to achieve excellence. All that is needed is for us to believe in ourselves wholeheartedly and tap into the inner resource of discipline, creativity and resilience to achieve the extraordinary. Anthony Robbins, a speaker and peak performance expert, advocates self-belief in a more direct manner: "If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible". I like the advice given by Theodore Roosevelt: "Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, `Certainly, I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it".
3. SELF-RESPONSIBILITY
It is tempting to blame others when things do not work out the way we want. Some managers blame their top management for poor direction when they are not achieving much in the workplace. Others blame their staff for not cooperating with them. Yet there are others who simply blame the industry and the economy for their own poor performance. Of course, the ultimate is that one can blame one's bad fate and the whole world for one's failure. It is never productive playing the blame game as nothing gets done. When one blames others for their own plight, one is truly surrendering the power to change. Yes, we can give a thousand and one excuses why we could not achieve our tasks or our goals.
However, the real value comes from finding one sound reason why we should take responsibility and make things happen. Jim Rohn, a philosopher and speaker puts it succinctly: "You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself. That is something you have charge of".
4. SELF-DISCIPLINE
Lao Tze said, "Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power."
There are many well educated and bright managers who are achieving less than their potential in the workplace. The reason is they lack the self-discipline to achieve the level of performance required. Self-discipline is required in staying focused to complete one's tasks within the time frame, quality standard and budgeted cost. In fact to achieve excellence in whatever work one does requires self-discipline. As much an athlete requires the self-discipline to train himself to excel in world-class competition, managers especially need to have self-discipline to learn and master the knowledge and skills to achieve world-class standards in their work. Plato said it better, "The first and best victory is to conquer self". Managers need to conquer apathy, negative thinking, procrastination, tardiness, complacency, favouritism and a host of other unproductive habits, all of which requires self-discipline.
Self-discipline is required in staying focused to complete one's tasks within the time frame, quality standard and budgeted cost.
5. SELF-MOTIVATION
Without motivation, a manager will go about his work in a lethargic manner. He would not have the energy and enthusiasm to bring out the best of himself in work. At best, he will just perform mediocre work that barely meets the requirements at the workplace. While there is nothing wrong to be motivated by a kind encouragement and even a reward for good performance, however, waiting to get motivated before getting things done is putting the cart before the horse. The problem of depending on others for motivation is that the quality of the work done will not be consistent.
The best way to ensure that top quality work is done is to practise self-motivation in getting things done. Self-motivation comes from within and the driving force is the realisation that the best rewards come from the sense of satisfaction of having given one's all to achieve the best. What is done with best effort creates excellence. The creation of excellence and its results become the key motivation. One who is self-motivated should not worry about rewards as what is consistently achieved with excellence eventually gets recognised.
_waiting to get motivated before getting things done is putting the cart before the horse.
6. SELF-RESOURCEFULNESS
All external resources are limited. When we are trying to get things done with available external resources we are constrained by its limits. Thus, there are limits to money, manpower, machines, materials and time. However, when we tapped into our inner resources like creativity and ideas, there are no limits. Before Man invented sophisticated lifting machines, the speed of moving heavy things from one place to another depended on how many men were available. However as Man became more creative, he invented wheels and pulleys to help him move heavier things with less men. They were able to do so, because they had managed to tap into their creativity, and thus came up with ways to help achieve more output with less input.
Likewise, in the modern workplace, we need thinking leaders who will tap into their own creative ideas to achieve more with less. And this requires self-resourcefulness. With self-resourcefulness, one can shorten a working process, find a solution to a problem in a shorter time frame, create new services or find new ways to win customers, increase market share and stay competitive.
_in the modern workplace, we need thinking leaders who will tap into their own creative ideas to achieve more with less.
7. SELF-ACHIEVEMENT
It is great to have a team of people working together to achieve collective results which constitute more than sum of all the individual results. The value of a team is the synergistic effect it provides besides, of course, the fun of working with others. However, even within a team, each individual must have his or her contribution which he or she can count upon as self-achievement. I would argue that unless an individual strives to have some sort of a distinctive self-achievement, he or she will not have a sense of satisfaction. One certainly does not live on bread alone. With self-achievement comes the reinforced self-belief and motivation to spur one further to achieve greater heights. Thus a leader, in the process of building a team, needs to chalk up his own accomplishments as much he encourages others to achieve.
A leader, in the process of building a team, needs to chalk up his own accomplishments as much he encourages others to achieve.
8. SELF-MONITORING
No one can monitor you better than yourself. You are the best person who will be at the right time and the right place to know whether you are about to do something which you are not supposed to be doing, or you are supposed to do something which you are not doing. Self-monitoring is not only more timely and effective but also less stressful. Imagine being monitored by others round the clock! It is employees who do not undertake self-monitoring who often show up late for work or at official functions. They miss deadlines or do work which are not up to expectations. People who undertake self-monitoring achieve better results. They feel better about themselves because they avoid the situation of having others monitor them.
People who undertake self-monitoring achieve better results. They avoid the situation of having others monitor them.
9. SELF-CORRECTION
Many people wait for mistakes to be discovered and pointed out to them for correction. While it seems easier for an employee to just to do his or her work and pass it on to the superior to spot and correct errors, it is also less commendable. To stand out as an extraordinary manager, it will serve one better to undertake self-correction early before handing one's work over to the superior. Self-correction is a habit which can be adopted. All it needs is paying a little more attention towards combing through one's work to ensure that errors, flaws or omissions are addressed and corrected early before somebody else discovers them and points them out to you.
10. SELF-LEARNING
Companies may organise regular formal training or briefing sessions for their staff. However there is no learning that is more effective and timely than self-learning. There are many ways people can go about undertaking self-learning. For instance, they can ask those who already know or have such prior experience. They can also read books or obtain relevant sources of information regarding a certain topic of relevance and interest. Today with the advent of the Internet and the accessibility to so many knowledge portals, there is no excuse for an executive to not undertake self-learning.
There is no learning that is more effective and timely than self-learning.
The truth is that one knows oneself better - what specific areas one is lacking in or does not know and which mode of learning will be more effective for oneself. Actor and martial arts expert Bruce Lee once said, "I have come to discover through earnest personal experience and dedicated learning that ultimately the greatest help is self-help; that there is no other help but self-help - doing one's best, dedicating oneself wholeheartedly to a given task, which happens to have no end but is an on-going process".
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