Self Management and its relevance for business leaders

· What is self management?

· How important is it to business leaders?

· How relevant is it in an organizational context?

“Happiness comes from within. It is not dependent on external things or on other people. You become vulnerable and can be easily hurt when your feelings of security and happiness depend on the behaviour and actions of other people. Never give your power to anyone else.” ― Brian Weiss

The essence of being happy and being able to manage ourselves well, is captured in this quote. We need not allow external factors to affect our internal state of well-being. However, do we always think that way? Do we focus inward at all? How do we stay unmindful of external noise or disturbances?

Self management, is about regulating oneself and maintaining a certain balance in all situations. It is the ability to control one’s emotions, thoughts and behaviour and maintain a balance in them. It is said that for anyone to be a good leader, one should manage themselves well.

In an organizational context, to business leaders, it could mean ability to manage one’s emotions, set goals, provide direction & take accountability for decisions regardless of the circumstances. Such a leader commands a certain respect from people around due to this display of balance in all situations. This in turn will provide a congenial environment for people to work and aim to achieve more, which coincidentally, is the primary objective of a business leader.

Is good self management the only ingredient required to ensure success? Perhaps not. However, it remains one of the critical qualities that people look for in leaders. Hence, it becomes an essential ingredient. This quote from Indra Nooyi, Former Chairperson & CEO, Pepsico captures the criticality of self management to leaders very well. “If you have to improve the organization, you have to improve yourself and the organization gets pulled up with you.”

It is incumbent on companies to create sustainable businesses. Business leaders managing businesses, hence are expected to sustain & prevail over different situations. They are also expected to nurture and create teams that will sustain various situations in steering a business. Sustainable teams tend to work better in braving challenges and uncertainties which in turn lends well for the businesses they manage. Self-managed leaders hence, become a critical cog in an organization’s pursuit of excellence & growth as they invariably are essential to create these sustainable pools of people.

How could one maintain a sense of well-being? Here is a list but by no means are these the only ones. Am sure we will discover many more as we start learning.

· Self awareness – Know our capabilities & limitations

· Accountability – Accept responsibility of our actions & decisions. More importantly consequences of our actions or decisions.

· Situational analysis – Able to assess any situation well and respond appropriately than to react to it.

If this is all there is, why would people find it difficult to manage themselves well? Perhaps because we find ourselves in two scenarios more often than not that throw us off balance. They are

· Boredom

· Burn out

When our capability outweighs the demand of the job at hand, we don’t know what to do with the extra time and energy available which leads to boredom. In times of boredom, complacency sets in, our decisions could get compromised and we could misread situations. In the end, we lose our balance.

When the job at hand is way too challenging to our capabilities and we end up doubling or tripling our efforts to meet the expectations, it leads to a burn out. We experience tremendous loss of motivation during burn out phase. We are overwhelmed with the situation and end up doubting our capability forgetting that, it is what got us to this point. Eventually, it throws us off balance too.

The jobs we do, have to be challenging enough to keep the interest and excitement quotient high while our capabilities are sufficient enough to deliver to expectations. In this situation, the mind is said to be in a state of flow. When in flow, we can constantly increase the challenges whilst building our capabilities more. This is an ideal situation. When in this condition, we can find ourselves generally in a good state of mind.

However, we can’t always be this lucky. Hence the stress on self management.

What do we do when in phases of boredom and burn out? Both the situations need different fixes.

During boredom, we need to understand that, there is invaluable time at hand. Try using it to sharpen existing skills, acquire new skills, pursue a passion for which we haven’t had time or pick up a new hobby. Essentially, consider ourselves fortunate for having the gift of time to go about doing something more in life than just the job. This balances out the boredom at work and perhaps even the guilt of doing a job that is mismatched to our skills.

We could handle burn outs too. For that, we need to realize we are experiencing one in the first place. At times, it is so wonderful to be wanted by people or be busy that, the realization of a burn out comes much later to take contingency action. Once we realize the burn out, we need to assess if the situation is going to remain for the long haul or if it’s a short term blip. If it’s a blip, weather it out. If it is a long term issue, find ways of alleviating the stress and avoiding burn out. It could be taking time off work, looking at prioritization of work or giving breaks intermittently. It could even mean requesting for additional resources to help.

It is important we realize the situation we are in and take appropriate steps in handling it. At all times, we need to know what we are experiencing and only then will we be able to ensure a stronger self.

Now read this quote again,

“Happiness comes from within. It is not dependent on external things or on other people. You become vulnerable and can be easily hurt when your feelings of security and happiness depend on the behaviour and actions of other people. Never give your power to anyone else.” ― Brian Weiss