Self Belief
When we talk about leadership, the first thing that springs to mind is ability to lead others. So, what qualities are needed for one to be considered a leader? In essence, it is very difficult to answer this question conclusively, due to extreme fluidity of internal (personal) and external (environmental) factors that must collide at some point for one to be considered a leader. Because there are no specific set of requirements (like formal education) that will give you an automatic entry to become a successful leader. You may be given a chance to take leadership position, but that doesn’t mean you are leader. Unless of course, you are blessed with a powerful combo of mental and physical attributes that attract attention and respect from others and above all their trust to follow your lead. All in all, you must earn your right to be a leader
The “luck” factor in majority of cases is this invisible force called charisma and it is the energy that you emanate from your bio-energy field. it is your personality and/or “who you are” which people recognise subliminally and respond to it in rather instinctive way that can either be positive or negative. This attraction is extremely subtle, because “like attracts like” and so in order for you to become truly charismatic, you must be blessed with a specific kind of energy that will appeal to majority of people. In such cases, if you can manage to attract attention and respect from others, whilst at the same time gain their trust – they will instinctively follow you. In some ways, this could be your biggest attraction point, but it only applies for initial contact. Because if you are unable to keep their trust, they will not hang around for very long.
So what are the factors that might be influential for people to trust a leader?
We can effectively break these factors into a number of internal and external factors that could potentially turn you into a leader. Internal factors are usually made of:
- increased levels of self awareness
- increased sense of responsibility
- effective ability to listen and digest information correctly
- undying self belief in your ability to deliver on promised
- strong vision and canny ability to break that vision down into elemental steps, that will ultimately lead you to accomplishment of that goal.
- effective communication
External factors are literally endless, but let’s use ones stated below, which in my opinion are the most relevant:
- ability to adapt to certain situations and required complexities
- accept personal responsibility for any and/or all consequences that derive from your leadership
- ability to learn new ways and relevant skills on the go, which could reward you with additional respect and trust
- ability to relate emotionally to people’s needs and provide acceptable solutions in difficult situations
- firm and just attitude, whilst at the same time being flexible enough to positively resolve situations on the ground
Now let’s see how these factors can work together to shape you into a trusted leader.
Self awareness in broader terms enables you to correctly interpret your intuitive guidance. This is usually called trusting your “gut feeling”, which is an excellent tool for efficient decision making. Effective honing of your decision making skills comes from being able to lead yourself by being strong enough to stomach hard times and learn from mistakes. When you master this skill, you will then be ready to effectively liaise with others by firstly understanding their needs and through your actions, you will earn their trust to motivate and lead them to achieve mutual goals.
Sense of responsibility enables you to become super sensitive to own needs and those of others. Particularly when you start correctly interpreting your intuitive guidance – you will start to develop and nurture your emotional intelligence through careful application of these faculties. This is absolutely the first step you must take in your journey to become a leader.
Why is emotional intelligence so important? In short, it gives you that subtlety you need when dealing with your environment. It gives you that deeper emotional understanding of people with whom you interact on a daily basis. These people can be your team and/or customers, suppliers and other stakeholders with whom you are charged to maintain regular contacts. The ability to relate and understand their emotional needs gives you unprecedented leverage point, when it comes to earning their trust and respect. Because all meaningful human relationships are based on trust and knowing how to maintain that trust will be crucial for you to become a leader.
It is now scientifically proven that people who are blessed with higher levels of emotional intelligence are better managers, whilst at the same time they are also higher achievers in comparison to those who solely rely on their intellect. Because, emotions dwell in the sphere of eternal knowledge, whilst intellect is limited to what you have learnt and experienced throughout your education, training, work/life experience and other forms of curricular and applied learning.
Another important aspect of emotional intelligence is knowing precisely what to say and when. In addition to this, it gives you the ability to carefully craft your actions, so you are seldom caught in difficult situations without being able to resolve them in mutually acceptable manner. This is because your increased sensitivity provides you with timely input of what is acceptable to do and say at any moment. It enables you to maintain that so much needed balance or win/win scenario in majority of situations. This comes from your ability to lead and motivate yourself first and knowing how to do this for yourself will help you lead others do the same. This is invaluable skill to master, if you aspire to be a true leader.
Careful nurturing of aforementioned two faculties will enable you to become good listener with the ability top pick the most relevant information and then use it to extract additional information needed for you to completely understand the subject presented to you. With further skilful questioning, you will get additional clarity needed to correctly analyse received information to enable you to create relevant strategic and tactical plans, which will later be disseminated to members of your team. When you knit these three mental faculties together – the end product is greater self belief.
Self belief means that you have enough mental strength, stamina and courage to stand on your own, regardless from where the pressure might come from. The sensation of self belief comes from effective self leadership in where you learn to fully trust yourself and your decision making. As you do so, you start to emanate that energy of self approval, which is very subtle, but at the same time very powerful. Because people can sense it subconsciously and without knowing, they will positively respond to you. The chain reaction from this point is that they will also trust you to lead them forward, regardless of obstacles on the way. Because you emanate that strong energy of self approval and rightness.
This newly formed energy will reinforce your already strong personal values consisted of integrity, honesty, compassion and burning desire to drive your visions forward. Altogether and without you knowing, your newly boosted charisma or bio-energy field will work its magic out by magnetically attracting new people into your sphere of influence. So the more you work on above, the more you will reinforce your leadership aura and the result will be unquestionable support and loyalty from your peers and stakeholders.
What do you need to do to be able to achieve all above? As you may have already guessed, lots of things stated above are already within you, but if you have never worked on them, they will forever stay dormant and out of your mental reach. However, this is the second step and if you want to do things right – you are always best served to start from beginning. At the beginning of this text, we have talked about your bio-energy field and that is the first point you must learn to constantly nurture and enhance. It represents your true self and it is the primary source of your charisma that attracts people to you.
If you have ever worked with people, you might have noticed that no matter how “energised” you are – you will always at some point run out of “gas”. As a consequence, your performance will suffer and that is something you cannot allow to go for long, if you aspire to be a leader. Because as a leader, you must always run “high on energy” or else, you will not achieve your set goals. So the solution is that you must master several key energy generation exercises that will help you stay energised at all times. At the base level, these exercises are: breath work, mindfulness and moving/still energy exercises. Mastering these powerful energy exercises will provide you with enough energy to accomplish even the hardest of tasks, which previously you may have found challenging to finalise.
Daily practise of mindfulness and relevant energy exercises represents the first part of this mastery and it will help you open the doors to your inner self. In there, you will be able to get in touch with your emotions, which will represent the starting point of your new self and rediscovery of what you are truly capable to achieve. Because all the power you ever need is already within you and emotions are their primary source. The code is very simple; if you feel good about something – do it. If on the other hand, you do not feel good about something – you could still do it, but you should carefully listen to your intuitive messages along the way.
The more you work on your bio-energy field, the more you will become self aware and the final result will be anew understanding of yourself and your true potential. Only you know what you are capable of and the only way to reach that self understanding is to work on yourself daily.
If you wish to learn more on how to recreate yourself and become the best version of yourself by learning how to enhance energy flow in your bio-energy field caused by some form of self neglect. Please visit our website: www.energy-savvy.com and in particular, we would recommend you try our 20 weeks energy and mental healing programme “The Hour of Power”, in which we will teach you various energy generation exercises, mind reframing techniques and routines. Alternatively, you may wish to contact us via email on: info@energy-savvy.com and we’ll be more than happy to assist you in any way we can.
