It was 10 years ago, when I moved for the first time for work from my home country Colombia to a new country, Chile. I moved to be part of a new team and took a new role; I was relocated by my company at the time. It was in the process of adapting to this new reality that I felt I needed to start investing in my self-leadership development. This big change awakened in me deep discomforts and internal questioning around my capabilities to perform, add value and adapt.
At this company, the feedback culture wasn’t an established practice, so I felt like I needed to understand my strengths and blind spots on my own terms. Not only did I want to learn more about myself to navigate a new environment but also to gain resources and knowledge to improve my ability to take ownership of my career development.
Therefore, I decided to enroll in a program focused on organizational behavior and leadership. This was the first time I dove deep into my self-leadership development. During this program, I learned about self-observation, group reflection, beliefs systems and emotional sense making, among other frameworks for leadership development. What made it so valuable was that I was putting what I was learning into practice in my current job and witnessing the results of my new conscious actions.
I had countless “aha moments” that led me to recognize aspects of my egoic personality and of my natural talents. I realized that the more I increased my self-awareness, the more my way of relating to others needed to change as well. In this process, it became clear to me that this learning journey would be an everlasting development experience to get to know myself and gain self-awareness as I move through different life circumstances.
Four years later, I made another big move, I left my corporate job and went to study for a master’s degree in the USA. Again, a new country, a new role as a student and new responsibilities. As I was navigating my studies, it felt like I needed to go back to the self-leadership 101 principles I had learned years before. I thought I had mastered certain skills, but the new context and circumstances of this change showed me that there was still more to learn about my ability to express myself and build co-creative relationships with my classmates (with whom I had to partner with to do multiple group assignments).
After 2 years of this graduate program in Education and Human Development in organizations, I said to myself, okay I am ready to conquer the world and show everyone the leader that I have become. Yes, I had grown and developed, as well as increased my self-awareness, but then once again I made a big change that tested my self-leadership.
I moved to a new country, Germany, with an even larger cultural difference than I had experienced before, a new role, a new sector, and a new team. This is where my self-leadership really came to life, I had to stand up for myself over and over again, position my ideas, break my resistances to be creative and play my part in building harmonious relationships with my multicultural team.
It was such a big test that then led me to quit my job. I could have said at the time that I failed the test because I couldn’t make it in that job, but now I feel I passed the test. I passed the test because I remained true to myself and my values. All those years, expanding my self-knowledge, cultivating my self-awareness and developing my capabilities gave me the courage to experience what it means to lead from the inside out.
Self-leadership development causes us to disrupt our complacent and people pleasing patterns. It pushes us to be true to who we are, to place boundaries, to be assertive, direct and clear with our ideas, and have compassion with others and ourselves to recognize our differences. Self-leadership development opens our eyes to see the quality of co-creative relationships that we already have or want to build. As a result, oftentimes, this means to leave behind the people who don’t align with our values and our vision of the world.
One year ago, after quitting my job, I decided to become an entrepreneur. And then yet again I have been tested to exert my self-leadership. I am in a position I have never been before, starting a business from scratch in a foreign country with a small network still under development. In this founder’s journey, I have come to question a lot about myself and my ability to succeed. But if there is one thing that I know for sure is that my capacity to lead myself through challenges and changing circumstances is as alive and strong as ever.
I am leading myself to build the kind of business I always wished to be part of. I am leading myself to connect with the people that resonate and align with my vision and values to establish partnerships and collaborations. I am leading myself to break my resistance to innovating and creating something completely new and disruptive. I am leading myself to learn to navigate uncertainty and to trust myself first, leaving all external pressures behind.
In this entrepreneurial endeavor, I have asked myself, what is something that I really know how to do that I can offer other people and bring value. Well, the answer came very clearly, I can help other people learn how to lead themselves. My heart is in social innovation, my conviction is in being part of the systems change movement. I know how difficult it is to go against the current and create something new that has yet to be validated externally by others to define its value.
Then my focus is to support system disrupters to develop their self-leadership so they can be themselves, trust themselves, and take the reins of their development to navigate the ever-changing circumstances.