3.2.3.4 Leading Yourself
Thus, a modern developmental concept starts with the personality of the leader,
with their inner drive, their disposition, their inner images and their life script, and it
supports them to recognize themselves and to develop into an authentic personality.
Peter F. Drucker meant exactly that by his famous phrase that a leader can basically
only lead one person – himself or herself. Only then can he or she lead the way
forward, “direct” (not in the sense of manipulation, but in the sense of promoting)
and take responsibility for others.
“Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people take chances
because they know their strengths, their ways of working and their own values”
(Drucker 1999), as Drucker aptly put it. The answers to the three questions
“What are my strengths?”, “How do I achieve performance?” and “What values
do I pursue?” are for him the basis of effective self-management. What is important
is the question of your own performance. Just like individual strengths, it is also the
way that performance is achieved. This is part of your personality. How results are
achieved also depends on how knowledge is absorbed – that is, whether one is more
of a reader or a listener – and on what learning method one uses (see Drucker 1999).
Leading yourself is not as easy as it sounds, because it has nothing to do with the
arbitrariness, self-complacency and ego trips at the company’s expense. It has much
more to do with self-criticism, the courage to make and recognize your own
mistakes and shortcomings, to overcome your own limits, and the proverbial look
into the mirror, which reveals not only the exterior but also the interior. And you
have to be able to take a good, long look without flinching.
Leaders of German companies tend to underestimate the mistakes that they
make themselves and prefer to ignore the symptoms of crisis until, when they
finally do admit a personal failure, it is far too late. Eight out of ten managers
principally do not feel the causes of a crisis could be found in either themselves
or their company. It is always the others who are to blame. The discrepancy
between self-perception and exterior perception are striking: in the event of
a company crisis, only 37% of entrepreneurs see the reasons for the crisis in their
own errors and behavior, while for 60% of the external observers the leaders are
to blame for the crisis.
Shifting guilt from ourselves to external factors or other people is only human,
and perhaps understandable. In addition, in most cases it is not the reflecting
and doubting people that make it to the top, but those who are (excessively) self-
confident. But from an economic and entrepreneurial point of view this behavior is
disastrous, because it prevents a timely intervention before everything gets out of
hand. Recognizing the limits of their own self-awareness is of absolutely critical
importance for managers, as well as being unflinchingly honest with themselves
and with others (seeHandelsblatt, August 22, 2003).
Leading yourself also means regularly questioning your own actions, requesting
and accepting feedback. It means facing your own doubts and fears, expressing
your views, even when they conflict with other opinions, and sensing and pursuing
3.2 Leading with Your Head and Heart 135