My daughter just left for a five-month student exchange in Barcelona.

Watching her pack reminded me of a leadership truth we skip too often: before you lead anyone else, you have to lead yourself.

Titles don’t do that for you. Teams don’t do that for you. Your calendar, your energy, your standards—that’s where it starts, and that’s where it’s exposed.

For her, the real test won’t be grades. It will be the daily choices no one applauds:

• Finding her place to stay and negotiating the terms

• Living on her own: stacking the fridge, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry

• Budgeting when tapas and weekend trips are tempting

• Showing up on time when no one is there to check

• Asking for help in a new language

• Keeping small promises to herself when the city is loud and full of distractions

That’s self-leadership in the wild. No slides. No slogans. Just behavior.

Leadership starts with consistency

We talk endlessly about leading teams, shaping culture, and setting vision. All of that matters.

But none of it sticks if the person at the center—you—isn’t consistent.

The hardest pill to swallow isn’t when someone calls you out. It’s when you realize you’re not walking your own talk. That moment is uncomfortable. But it’s also a gift. Standards don’t need PR. They need practice.

You know how it is:
You get distracted.
You don’t feel like it.
You forget.

Do that once—no harm.
Do that twice—no harm, but a new habit is on the rise.
Do that for a week—you’ve created a new habit.
Do that for a month—that habit has created a path to disaster.
Do that for half a year—you crash and burn.

Fear isn’t the enemy—inaction is

“It’s scary,” my daughter admitted.

Of course it is. New country, new routines, new friends. And doing things she’s never done before.

So I asked her: “Scary enough that you won’t go?”

She laughed. “No way!”

What she’s really afraid of is being on her own. No one to quietly take care of the boring stuff. She’ll be stacking her own fridge, cooking her own meals, negotiating rent, figuring out the washing machine. She will be doing all the doing.

And that’s the point.

In leadership, it’s the same. You’re constantly faced with situations you’ve never dealt with before. You’re not fearless. You’re not supposed to be. What you’re doing is building a muscle called courage. And like any muscle, it doesn’t grow because you read about it—it grows because you practice it.

If you’re a new manager, every day feels like Barcelona. 

New context, unclear rules, big expectations, and no manual written just for you. You won’t feel ready, sorry:) But do it anyway. That’s how you grow.

Leading yourself in practice

We love to talk about leading others: setting a vision, shaping culture, inspiring the team. But leadership collapses if you’re not leading yourself first.

And leading yourself is far less glamorous than it sounds. It’s not motivational quotes or a flashy title. It’s showing up for the promises you’ve made to yourself when nobody’s watching.

You might think: huh, no audience.
Wrong. The most important person is watching. You.

It’s closing your laptop at the time you said you would, instead of squeezing in “just one more thing.”
It’s choosing the difficult but important task over the easy distraction.
It’s having the courage to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out,” instead of pretending.

The real challenge of self-leadership is honesty: will you follow yourself when no one else is around?

When you drift from your own standards

Because you will drift. We all do.

You’ll notice you’re saying one thing and doing another. You’ll realize your energy is going everywhere except the thing that matters. You’ll catch yourself scrolling, avoiding, or explaining instead of acting.

That doesn’t mean you’re a fraud. It means you’re human. The question is what you do next.

Do you double down on excuses? Or do you reset?

For me, the reset usually starts small. A single decision. A micro-promise I actually keep. A sentence I write on a sticky note and see every time I look up from my desk.

Self-leadership is about being reliable—first to yourself, then to others.

Here’s one piece of advice that really works: avoid the situations that derail your journey. Make it hard to derail.

Example: you’re constantly checking your phone while doing important work. You get lost in scrolling. So keep your phone physically as far as possible—on the opposite side of your apartment or house. And shut off all notifications (or mute them).

On the same token, make things that help you stay on your journey easy.

When I’m done with work, I clean up my desk, I take a short thinking time on what’s important the next day, and I make a plan. That way, I start racing in the morning.

What Barcelona reminded me

Watching my daughter step into the unknown made me check my own basics:

• Am I managing my attention, or letting it get auctioned off to the loudest notification?

• Am I choosing difficult good over easy average?

• Am I moving with intention, or just letting the current push me?

The answers aren’t always flattering. But asking keeps me honest.

At the end of the day, leadership is a trail of choices. The world around you sees the results. You see the habits that created them.

And sometimes the only way forward is to admit: yes, it’s scary. But I’m going anyway.

ACTION STEPS:  7-day self-leadership challenge

Here’s something simple to make this real. For the next week:

• Define one weekly outcome.

• Block four- five 60-minute focus sessions.

• Do one uncomfortable task before lunch, every day.

• Send one clean update (context, decision, next step).

• Score yourself at the end of the day on five things: calendar, energy, work quality, recovery, integrity (1–5 each).

At the end of seven days, look at the pattern. Be brutally honest. Try to detach from feelings. Look at the pattern as it is—a plain fact. Then adjust. Then repeat.

Final thoughts:

When was the last time you did something even though you were afraid?

What made you do it?

How did you feel after doing it and reflecting on having a fear?

Remember those answers every time it feels scary to do something new. 

And If you are a new manager and  want a tool that can really help you, join my workshop. You’ll leave with less fear and more confidence to lead (yourself first).