When individual employees increasingly know the most and know best, who should lead them?
In the future, it will increasingly be the employees themselves. That's why effective self-management is one of the most important things you, as an individual or as a business leader, need to focus on now. If you want to succeed, it can be crucial. Traditional management doesn't work the way it used to. With the new normal, all parts of a business must be able to manage themselves. Anyone who is unable to influence their own thoughts, feelings and actions in the right direction to achieve their own goals will work less effectively and perform less well.
Written by Mats Kristensen,
Published in the trade magazine Personal og Ledelse.
MATS KRISTENSEN is CEO and partner in FRONT Leadership, which delivers onboarding and leadership training to the business community. He teaches HRM at BI Norwegian Business School, is co-author of the HR book and network leader in Norway's largest leadership development network, LUN. Kristensen also has 10 years of management experience from the Norwegian Armed Forces and 15 years from the private sector.
The changing world of work
In today's skills-intensive working life, employers are increasingly dependent on their highly skilled employees, their ability to assess and their capacity. This is particularly true in environments with a lot of innovation and development, because employees know even more about their area of work than their boss. At the same time, we work less and less in the same place, employees often work in a different geographical location than their manager - and managers have their heads in many other places. Today, it is therefore crucial that the employee both wants the right thing - and does the right thing, without anyone telling them. But how do you make it happen?
Self-management in DNB
In DNB, they have a single management principle: "let go". This means that managers should show trust in their employees and give them the freedom to solve tasks themselves. At the same time, the employees also have an important principle: "seize opportunities", which really says everything about what is expected of them. Both are moving towards more self-management and giving employees more responsibility than ever before.
Self-management in Telenor
At Telenor, they have a "tight-loose-tight" approach to management, which involves clear goals at the start, freedom to do the job as you want along the way and then accountability towards the end, in terms of time, quality and resource consumption. This shows how important it has become to be good at managing yourself.
Five properties
In my experience, those who are good at leading themselves have some essential qualities. This is certainly not something that is innate in most people, but the positive thing is that everyone can train these qualities - almost regardless of their starting point. It's not necessarily easy, but time and time again I've seen the huge impact it has on organizational performance when employees are trained in these five qualities.
1. Confidence
"Your success will depend on your own confidence and strength."
Michelle Obama
To be successful, it's no longer enough to have the skills needed to do a job. You also need to have developed self-confidence, meaning that you actually believe you are good enough to succeed. Employees who are confident in their own abilities more easily mobilize motivation, relevant ways of thinking and find adequate means to achieve the goals that have been set. Research also shows that individuals with a strong sense of mastery succeed much better at new tasks than others. In today's working life, where changes happen more often and more quickly, self-efficacy is crucial.
2. Positive mindset
"If mind can think it, and heart can believe it - then I can achieve it."
Mohammad Ali
Employees who have practiced positive thinking are resilient in the face of the obstacles that life and the job situation will present. It is possible to influence your own way of thinking if you consciously choose to do so. First, you need to become aware of how you normally think. Then reflect on whether you still benefit from this way of thinking or whether you should adjust it for the better. Next, practice finding something positive in everything that happens. Eventually, you will automatically see something in every situation that you can use to get to your goal. You will become an optimistic person who faces demanding challenges positively.
3. Hope
"When you choose to hope, anything is possible."
Christopher Reeve
If you have hope, you can endure so much more than if you don't have hope. If you have hope, there is almost no limit to the motivation you can create to continue to find alternative paths that can lead to the desired goal. A person who has hope will be more solution-oriented. Because when one path doesn't lead, there is always another way. According to Snyder, Rand and Sigmon (2002), hope dampens inhibiting thoughts and negative emotions. Their research shows that hope increases the chance of overcoming adversity.
4. Resilience
"Don't judge me by my success, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."
Nelson Mandela
Having resilience means being resistant. Being resilient means that you are able to get up after adversity, time and time again. Whether you have everyday disappointments or disasters thrown at you, you will see that there is a future that can provide a good life, despite what you have experienced. You regulate your emotions and actions so that you respond appropriately to the most demanding situations. Training resilience will act as a buffer against adversity. Because everyone experiences adversity, often to a greater extent than we think, and it's important to be emotionally robust.
5. Be disciplined
"Discipline is the bridge between goals and achievement."
Jim Rohn
By discipline, I mean the ability to follow guidelines that make us effective, so that we are able to prioritize what is important at any given time. When you have discipline in your life, you are able to make small sacrifices here and now in order to be better off in the future. With discipline, you can control your words and actions. Actions you repeat enough times become habits. Our routines are who we are in the workday. And who we are becomes our destiny. So if you want to be successful, it's important to have the discipline to get things done.
Profits
Employees who have trained these five essential qualities and mastered the art of self-leadership will:
Reach more goals
Be more efficient and productive
Build stronger relationships with their employees
Inspire and set an example for others
You know best yourself
Whether you're a manager or an employee, in the "new normal" you have to be good at managing yourself. There's no need to wait for someone else to take this responsibility and tell you how to do it. No one has that much interest in you and no one knows more about your personal goals. There's obviously a lot to gain from mastering the art of self-management, but you have even more to lose if you fall back on these things.
Skills development
Companies that want better self-managers can benefit from offering skills training that enables employees to help themselves. It is profitable if employees are given tools and learn techniques on how to best train the five essential qualities of effective self-management. The goal is for employees to perform better than they thought possible, and the most effective tool to achieve this is to ensure that employees know effective self-management.
The road to success
Pace, quality and learning at work are things that all employees will have to take responsibility for in the future. This is demanding in a hectic workday with constant time pressure, where it is difficult to understand what is more important than anything else - and whose interests are most important. But getting this right is what separates the wheat from the chaff, and this is where you can make a big difference. Your own achievements and career are too important to be left to others. You need to take leadership of yourself. It will not only benefit you, but also be exactly what your employer needs.
Read more about our leadership program, Self-leadership.
