"The most important responsibility of anyone trying to run anything is to manage themselves as a person" Dee Hook.
In my work as a consultant, I have met many owners of small or medium-sized businesses, true entrepreneurs who have developed their organizations from scratch.
When I ask them which of their personal conditions were decisive in the construction of their companies, it is very difficult for them to answer that they are their technical knowledge, their market knowledge or their commercial skills, which undoubtedly all of them possess. Generally, when they take stock of what enabled them to create, maintain and develop the company and face all the avatars and challenges that were presented to them, most of them rescue their entrepreneurial spirit, their enthusiasm to promote new projects, their Temper to face adversity, your ability to build trust and commitment in your work teams. They recognize their emotional strength as one of the aspects that have made a difference in the daily construction of their organizations.It is their self-leadership that has enabled them to endure uncertainty in decision-making, face difficulties, overcome fear of failure, take the risk of innovation, and have the temperament to lead the ship to its destination.
In moments of crisis and uncertainty, when the manuals to achieve success demonstrate their volatility, when the known roads do not necessarily lead to the desired destination and our compasses tell us that we do not always have to go north, the importance emerges clearly and clearly. of leadership. It is worth clarifying that when we talk about leadership we are not referring to the traditional conception that thinks that a leader is the one who has more followers or who influences the behavior of others. We understand leadership as a leadership style that is committed to the development of its people. As Tom Peters says: "Leaders don't create followers, they create leaders."
We can affirm that true leadership begins with leading. What do we mean by this? That our ability to develop entrepreneurship, lead work teamsand promoting the advancement of our organizations will be conditioned by our own personal development process and by the acquisition of the competencies that determine our effectiveness. There is an ancient spiritual law that says: "As it is inside, it is outside" and this tells us that we do what we are. No one can offer what he does not have, or guide on a path that he did not previously walk, or provide a teaching if he did not first do the learning. It is on this conviction that we hold that the leader development process is run from the inside out and that Personal Mastery is a necessary condition for the performance of effective leadership.
The path of leadership must be walked assuming the impossibility of having plans or maps that indicate the direction to travel. Moreover, many times we must discard those that appear as the safest paths, the busiest, the "socially correct", those that augur a life full of success and without frights. The cost to pay for becoming protagonists in the creation of our own life, is to assume the risk of making our decisions, to build our own path, even ignoring what the "official cartography" would advise, being aware that detours, stumbling blocks and frustrations are an unavoidable part of this learning and growth process.
As we advance in our professional life or in the development of our ventures, these situations multiply and we go through tests where we must accept the challenge of making decisions in uncertainty, with the only clarity that the option we choose It will affect our life and that of the beings that surround us. One of the responsibilities of those who exercise leadership is to make these decisions with integrity and based on their own values and convictions.
