This first task of a leader is to lead themselves. Dee Hock the former CEO of VISA and noted author of “The Chaordic Organization,” talks about the necessity of 360 degree leadership. He states that we lead up (meaning our supervisors), we lead out (meaning our peers), we lead down (meaning our direct reports), and we lead in (meaning ourselves). The distribution of time to each of these areas looks roughly like this: Up 20%, Out 15%, Down 15%, and In 50%. Dee Hock states that leading “up” is to clear the road for the work of our team while also keeping senior leadership informed. Leading “out” is about collaboration, synergy, and processes. Leading “down” is about equipping, teaching and coordinating. Leading “in” is about addressing those things about ourselves that need to be managed in order to be successful with the changing opportunities and challenges.

The question I see as paramount for all of us as leaders is: “Do we lead what we are or do we lead what we have, or by what we have?” The difficulty for the majority of us is that we have so little real understanding of what it means to be ourselves. The constraint isn’t that we lack knowledge of what we can do as much as we lack understanding of who we are. Said differently, we are more than just the tool making animal that thinks and has self-awareness. Our shared ignorance is not in that we lack knowledge, but that our knowledge is false. What we believe about ourselves is too often fragmented, distorted and merely a historical rendering of our experiences versus a description of a deeper essence. Here is the problem related to the acceptance of a false identity: we largely become what we think of ourselves.

In leading “in,” we are not looking around to see if whether or not “we’ve got it,” as if “it” is something that we can obtain, rather the question is: “Have we accepted an adequate model of ourselves that describes our humanity, our task, our endowment and choice? What is the critical point of this?…the adedequacy of our idea or model and its’ governing effect. Psychologist state that we don’t perceive the world directly, but through a lens. As we do the work of self perception, let us first determine if the interpretative lens we use is adequate and helps us see and know what is both permanent and transitorily true about ourselves.

For too many, the notion that they have of who they are is constructed. This is the first and greatest mistake. There is indeed a cause and effect in some fashion out of the experiences and events of our lives, but who we are in my idea is NOT something largely constructed, but rather given. . . and what is given is a statement of our intrinsic value, and that value is one of divine appointment. What is needed are images, encouragement and discipline to resist both the panic and the seductions of the spirit that come from a society that mainly knows about specialness and value in terms of what we achieve or possess.

How does this idea or model shape the choices we make as leaders whether addressing personal or professional matters? If we understand that we are more than our grades, more than our titles, more than what our parents or social network have said about us, or more than the latest performance eval, and gain clarity of the Imago Dei (Image of God) in ourselves, then our leadership becomes bounded, purposeful, strong, love based, and able.

Regularly, we will be with others who escape from the real because we fail to know the truth. Often, we will see others coping with a form that is familiar at the cost of a life liberated and expanding. This day, we will spend far too much of our time as leaders managing distortions - our own and others - more than proactively advancing as worthy leaders of great impact. Too cynical for you to accept? For me, it just speaks of how deep we are in the illusion.

Today I will listen to my sons wrestle with issues of identiy, adequacy, and intimacy. Today I will listen to my wife wonder if she has enough in her to accomplish what she sees as her dreams. Today I will attend a funeral of a young man who was an absolute delight as a human being but struggled to know that for himself. Today I will talk to a senior leader who has gained the ground of his professional life through his life long rage against being abandoned by his father. Today I will call my dad who struggles with Parkinson’s and too often asks “Is it worth it?” Today I will attend to my own intrapersonal conversations about “who I am,” and at times have to course correct because of my own fears and immaturity. Although it is true that each of us have limits of what we are ultimately capable of doing on our own, the foundation of identiy is far more formidable and complete than our typical tools of determination and critique.

The first task of a leader is to lead themselves. How are you doing with that task? Before you can contribute as a worthy leader of great impact with those above you, alongside you, and those still as emerging leaders, you must address your own ideas of yourself.