250. Beyond Leadership: Empowering Yourself with Self-Leadership Insights with Mick Spiers

Leadership begins with self-leadership. Without mastering the art of leading ourselves, we cannot effectively lead others. This milestone 250th episode explores twelve essential self-leadership practices that can transform how you show up as a leader.

Self-leadership starts with clarity about your purpose and values. When you remember your "why" and align your actions with your core values, you create an internal compass that guides decisions and provides motivation during challenges. Similarly, understanding what's within your control versus what you can merely influence prevents the frustration of trying to change the unchangeable, allowing you to direct your energy where it truly matters.

Focus and intentionality form another critical dimension of self-leadership. By setting clear priorities, removing interference, and approaching each day and interaction with purpose, you maximize your impact and presence. Great leaders know when to step in and when to step back, and they practice the discipline of being the last to speak—creating space for diverse perspectives before adding their own.

Perhaps most visible is a leader's emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize triggers, regulate responses, and express emotions appropriately. As Aristotle suggested, the challenge isn't avoiding emotions but expressing them "with the right person, at the right time, for the right reason, in the right way." This pairs with the power of full presence—giving others your complete attention as perhaps the greatest gift a leader can offer.

Self-leadership isn't a destination but a continuous journey of reflection and growth. Through daily practices like asking yourself what went well, what didn't, and what you learned, you build the self-awareness that underlies all effective leadership. Which of these twelve principles resonates most with you? Share your thoughts and subscribe for more insights on leadership, mindset, and human behavior as we continue this journey together.

Chapters

• 0:27 Introduction to Self-Leadership
• 1:06 Episode 250 Milestone
• 2:16 Self-Motivation and Your Why
• 3:11 Values as Your Leadership Compass
• 4:07 Control vs. Influence Spheres
• 4:57 Focus and Prioritization
• 5:41 Removing Interference
• 6:24 Setting Daily Intentions
• 7:19 When to Step In or Back
• 7:53 Being the Last to Speak
• 8:49 Emotional Intelligence and Regulation
• 10:11 The Power of Presence
• 11:06 Resilience and Moving Forward
• 11:47 Self-Reflection and Daily Learning
• 12:59 Episode Wrap-up and Next Episode

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Heather, what does it truly mean to lead yourself? Have you ever stopped to ask yourself, am I showing up as the leader I'd need to be for myself and for others, and what would change in your life if you mastered self leadership? In my recent conversation with Heather Younger, we explored the power of self leadership and how it's the foundation for becoming a truly impactful leader. Today, I want to take that conversation further, adding my own reflections, my own experiences and practical insights that can help you strengthen your self leadership, starting today, going to give you my top 12 tips on self leadership. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. First of all, I can't believe that this is Episode 250 and I want to thank everyone that's been part of our journey so far, my team at TLP, that keep on showing up and doing the work each and every week, you the audience for tuning in and sharing your reflections on what you're hearing and our dear guests that share their time, their wisdom and insights with us. I still can't believe it's Episode 250 but we still have a long way to go. We've got so much great content to cover leadership is something that you've never finished, so there's always something that we can talk about in terms of fine tuning your leadership. Thank you for being on this journey with us as we continue to bring you these great guests from around the world, sharing their thoughts and their thought leadership. So today I'm going to tell you about my top 12 tips around self leadership, leading on from our amazing conversation with Heather Younger. So let's get into it straight away. Number one is self motivation, remembering your why self leadership starts with self motivation. And self motivation isn't about hype, it's about remembering why you do what you do. Your Why is the fuel that keeps you going when things get tough. Heather spoke about resilience, and part of resilience is having a reason to keep moving forward if you lose sight of your why, you'll struggle to stay engaged, stay disciplined and push through challenges. So here's my challenge to you, write down your Why keep it visible somewhere. When things get hard, revisit it. Remind yourself why you started in the first place. Number two, knowing your values and staying true to yourself. Your values are your compass when you don't know your values, or worse, when you compromise them, you lose your sense of direction. You make decisions that don't feel right. You say yes when you should have said no, Heather emphasized the importance of presence, and presence starts with alignment. You can't be fully present if you're living out of sync with your values, something just doesn't feel right. So ask yourself, what are my core values, and more importantly, am I living in alignment with them? Leadership is about making tough choices, and when you know your values, those choices become clearer. Number three, spheres of control and spheres of influence, letting go of what you can't change. One of the biggest leadership challenges is trying to control what's outside of our influence. It leads to frustration, stress and burnout. I always remind myself of the spheres of control and spheres of influence. What is within my control? What can I influence? What is outside of my reach. Heather talked about emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. A big part of that is recognizing when to let go. When you spend too much energy on things you can't change, you take away energy from the things you can impact. The best leaders know how to focus their attention where it truly matters. That leads us to number four, the power of focus and prioritization. Saying yes to everything means you're saying no to the things that actually matter. Self leadership is about knowing what deserves your energy and what doesn't. Heather and I discussed the importance of focus. Great leaders aren't just busy, they are focused. Ask yourself, What are my top priorities and what distractions do I need to eliminate to do a better job at those priorities? Saying no isn't about shutting doors. It's about protecting your ability to perform at your highest level on what truly matters, which leads beautifully to Number five, avoiding distractions and removing interference. What's stealing your focus? What's getting in the way of your growth. I've referenced Timothy Galway many times on the show, and just think about his equation, that performance is equal to potential minus interference. Most of us don't struggle because of a lack of ability. We struggle because of interference, whether it's unnecessary meetings, social media, self doubt, your own inner fears, remove that interference, and your true potential will shine through. Number six, setting an intention for every day and every meeting. Leadership is not accidental, it's intentional. Every day, every interaction, every meeting, you have a choice. How do I want to show up before you start your day? Set an intention. How do I need to show up today? What energy do I need to bring for each meeting, how does your team need you to show up? Do they need you to be curious? Do they need you to be inspirational? Do they need you to ask lots of questions? Set an intention before each meeting as to what is going to serve you well and what is going to serve your team well? Heather spoke about presence, and this is where presence starts. You don't just show up. You show up with purpose and intention. Number seven, knowing when to step in and when to step back. Great leaders don't micromanage and they don't disappear. They know when to step in and they know when to step back, if you always step in, you're disempowering your team, and they're not learning and they're not growing. If you always step back, you're not leading. Self leadership is about awareness, reading the room, knowing when your input is needed and when your silence is going to be more powerful, which is a great segue to Number eight, learning to be the last one to speak. One of the most powerful leadership lessons I've ever learned is to learn to be the last one to speak. In most circumstances, when you speak first, you set the direction, but you also limit other voices. Heather talked about active listening, and on the show before we've spoken about deep listening, and this is where it applies. Give others the space to express themselves fully and then speak. This builds trust, shows respect, and often leads to better decisions. You curate a diversity of thought, and you make people feel that they're part of the journey, and when they feel part of the tuna, they take great ownership in the results. So learn to be the last one to speak. Number nine, emotional intelligence and emotional regulation. Your ability to lead yourself depends on your ability to manage your emotions. Leadership isn't about having no emotions. It's about knowing how to use them wisely. Heather emphasized this throughout our conversation, leaders who can regulate their emotions can also lead effectively under pressure. Self leadership means recognizing your emotional triggers, understanding your emotional patterns, and making decisions from a place of clarity, not reaction. So what we want to do is respond, not react. Take a beat. Take it six seconds, take a deep breath, consider your response and then respond. And remember, it's not about bottling up emotion. It's about the ability to express and regulate emotion in a healthy way. And one of my favorite quotes from Aristotle, is anyone can be angry that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time for the right reason, in the right way, to the right degree, that is not easy. That's not about not being angry or not being frustrated, or whatever emotion you want to plug into that quote. It's about doing it in the right way. Number 10, the power of presence. Heather said something that really resonated with me. The greatest gift you can give someone is your presence when you are fully present. People feel valued, seen and heard. Most leaders are distracted. COVID, they're thinking about the next meeting or the next email or the next problem, but the best leaders give 100% of their attention to the person that's right in front of them. At that point, not only does that person feel more respected and seen and and heard, you also pay greater attention, and you pick up things that you wouldn't have picked up if you were distracted. I strongly encourage you to try this. You're going to find that you learn more about yourself, your team and your business when you're fully present and you're fully paying attention to what's happening around you. Number 11, resilience. Let go, learn and move forward. Resilience isn't about ignoring pain, it's about processing it, learning from it, and moving forward. Every leader faces setbacks, every leader makes mistakes and trauma does not discriminate, but what separates great leaders is how they respond. You can't let the past define your future, learn from it, adapt and keep going. It's your ability to let go of the past and move forward is what sets you apart from others. And number 12 is self reflection and daily learning. If you're not reflecting, you're not growing. If you're not growing, you're not leading. I've done this exercise every day now for just calculating my head. It's going on 14 years now that I've done this exercise every day to take the time every day to reflect, I ask myself the same five questions, what went well today? What didn't go well? What will I do differently next time? What did I learn about myself and what did I learn about others? It's through this practice that I become a better leader. Every day. It's a journey. There's no such thing as a perfect leader, but the best leaders are ones that reflect, learn and grow every day. Self Leadership isn't a destination, it's a continuous journey of learning and improvement. So there you have it. That's my top 12 reflections on self leadership, inspired by my conversation with the amazing Heather Younger, I hope this has resonated with you. I'd love to hear from you which of these 12 resonated with you the most. Let me know in the comments or reach out on LinkedIn, and if you're enjoying these conversations, make sure you've subscribed so you can get more insights on leadership mindset and human behavior. In our next episode, we're going to be joined by Sabina Nawaz, and she's going to give us an amazing tool around delegation called the delegation dial. It's very practical and something that anyone can put into practice. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now, in the meantime, please do take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.