A leader is someone who has voluntary followers
When I think back to the first person I consciously looked up to as a role model and leader, it was my secondary school chemistry teacher – teacher Vain. At the same time, she was studying psychology at the University of Tartu and shared her psychology knowledge with us in chemistry lessons. Later she offered human studies as an elective, for which many of us voluntarily spent extra hours at school. What charmed me about her was that she communicated with us – the students – as if we were her equal partners. She listened to us, discussed various topics with us and valued our opinions. This in turn made me, a teenager who was generally rather sceptical of adults, listen to her and take her seriously. As I knew she was studying psychology, I decided that I would study psychology too, to become as cool a person as she was.
Knowledge and skills are not the same thing
Studying psychology was a real school of life for me. I met several inspiring lecturers, but I also learned that not all psychologists are such great role models as people. When I graduated, my head was bursting with fascinating scientific concepts, theoretical frameworks and experimental results, but at the same time I had a hollow feeling inside – I didn’t know what to do with them in real life, and I had not become a “teacher Vain”.
From the outside I looked quite successful, as I had got a prestigious job as head of HR development at Tallinn Airport and then an even cooler job as HR manager at one of Estonia’s top IT companies, but I felt that the real learning about how to get people to work successfully towards a shared goal was only just beginning, and the skills had to be acquired by trial and error. I learned an enormous amount during that period. I also made mistakes. And I grew into a better leader and supporter of people and teams. At the same time, I felt that I was still largely acting on gut feeling and didn’t know exactly how the complex machine called a “human being” works. Even more so, how people work together and which buttons need to be pressed to achieve the expected results. It sounds manipulative, but I sincerely thought that if I have a vision, I only need to know how to press the right buttons for us to start moving towards it as a team. My intention was good, but naive.
Self-awareness, self-acceptance and self-leadership as the “magic buttons” of working with people
My search for the button to make teams work better led me to Stephen Schuitevoerder, a process work trainer and facilitator, and watching his mastery in working with groups, I felt he was a real wizard – he knew those buttons! Thanks to Stephen, I undertook a four-year training in process-oriented psychology at the Process Work Institute in Portland, which drastically broadened my worldview and my understanding of life, people and, most importantly, myself. I understood that when working with others, the first question is how well I know myself, how deeply I accept myself and how consciously I use myself as a tool that creates change in the world. Self-awareness, self-acceptance and the resulting ability to lead yourself are the basis of any work, but they are especially important when working with people.
When working with people’s personal development process, either as a coach or a therapist, it is extremely important that the specialist has first done thorough work on themselves, so as to be a “calibrated” tool, so to speak. Otherwise they won’t help the client get to know themselves and learn to use themselves as the tool of their own life, but will consciously or unconsciously steer them in some direction, passing on their own understandings and interpretations.
In a leadership role, you can manage for a while with lower self-awareness and self-leadership skills, using external levers of power such as status, position and money, which give you the opportunity to decide and steer processes. But in the long run you can’t rely only on external levers, because people sense that they are being manipulated. It takes away their intrinsic motivation, and they either leave or manipulate back. The greater the need for self-realisation of the people you lead, the more you need to learn to know, use and continuously develop yourself as a tool.
How to learn to use the magic buttons?
Many leaders have told me that they read a lot, watch videos on leadership and personal development, listen to podcasts and develop themselves as leaders this way. I believe this is entirely valuable and supportive and helps them become better leaders. But it doesn’t contribute much to growing self-awareness, which is the prerequisite for using yourself effectively as a tool – if you haven’t “read the manual”, that is, looked deep inside yourself, you don’t know all your buttons and hooks and can’t use them consciously. At best you simply don’t use your full potential; at worst you unknowingly let others press your buttons and accidentally catch them on hooks, which makes you feel that life is leading you rather than you leading your life.
I have sometimes also heard the thought: “I went on a personal development course or to a coach and now I am self-aware.” Yes, these experiences certainly raise self-awareness, but when someone says they are self-aware, the question always arises for me: what exactly does that mean? Someone who chooses the journey of self-awareness soon realises that it lasts a lifetime. Self-awareness can’t be assessed on a binary scale of is/isn’t – it is an endless continuum. And, in confidence, I can tell you that the more devotedly you undertake this journey, the more exciting it gets!
You can grow self-awareness yourself. Meditation is a good tool for it. Reflecting on your experiences and learning from them also works well. But my experience, both with myself and with clients, is that expanding self-awareness is much faster and more effective when you have a professional helper on the journey (who is “calibrated”, i.e. has already done solid work on the same journey with themselves). This could be a coach, a therapist or someone else, depending on your goal and need. In addition to becoming more aware, together with a good development partner you learn to accept your quirks and oddities and to turn them into strengths. You also get tools for leading yourself in situations that trigger you emotionally.
The result is greater clarity inside you – you know who you are and what you want to achieve. On top of that, you are genuine and authentic in your relationships with others – you don’t have to wear masks or appear to be someone you are not. You can use your inner influence to achieve your goals and no longer rely on external levers of power such as position or money. It is easier for you to accept others as they are. People trust you and want to follow you!
You can’t learn to use the “magic buttons” in isolation. There is a saying that it is easy to be an enlightened monk alone in a mountain monastery, but try to maintain that state among people. Sometimes it is indeed good to withdraw and reflect on your own, but if your goal is to work with people, it pays to connect your personal development journey with real work from the start and to apply the insights and tools from development sessions as directly as possible in everyday life.
Back to the beginning… or not?
Ten years into my personal development journey, I have not become a “teacher Vain”. Instead, I have become more and more myself and the leader of my own life. Being aware of every step, decision and choice, I understand ever more clearly what I want, what I can do and what I value, and I can create the world I dream of. The journey to myself has been like an exciting hike, where a new world opens up around every bend. At different stages of this journey, I have chosen different teachers and development partners for my life, who have accelerated my growth. And the journey continues!
What is your next step on the way to growing into a Leader? Perhaps coaching? Meet the Sunergos coaches and get in touch with us.
