As definition may vary, we would like to define Self-Mastery & Personal Leadership as the ability to influence your thoughts, emotion and actions towards your goals.

In Udemy’s 2021 Workplace Learning Trend Report, the #1 Trend is Amidst Uncertainty, Self-Mastery is a Valued Skill which concurs with World Economic Forum’s Future Job Report, that Self-Management has 2 out of 2025 Top 10 skills. There are 3 components to Self-Mastery and Personal Leadership which are:

• Mental Health and Wellness Skills

• Productivity Skills & Habit

• Active Learning & Learning Strategies

Mental Health and Wellness Skills

When situation becomes uncertain, the basic need for safety may not be met, causing turbulent emotions and activating the brain’s self-preservation mechanism to fight and flight, limiting our ability to think clearly and creatively. It is no surprise that WHO released an article in it’s website in 2nd March 2022, entitled “COVID-19 pandemic triggers 25% increase in prevalence of anxiety and depression worldwide”. The World Health Organization (WHO), for instance, reported that depression and anxiety disorders cost the global economy $1 trillion each year in lost productivity.

As HR Professional, we can take pre-emptive steps to equip our talents with skills such as:

• Anxiety Management

• Resilience

• Stress Management

• Meditation

• Mindfulness

These programs saw growth in demand from 784% to 3967% between 2019 to 2020 in Udemy.

Productivity Skills and Habits

Productivity skills are essential part of Self-Leadership, to influence our thoughts, emotions and actions towards what we intend it to be. In engagement sessions with clients, participants shared how they wish they had more energy, feeling lethargic and some even confessed to be feeling “burnt out”. In May 2019, the WHO officially recognized and defined burnout as an occupational phenomenon.

How then can Productivity Skills and Habits help?

The traditional angle of productivity is from the angle of time management and motivation. These alone may be useful, but insufficient in today’s age where there is frequent distraction and work intensity can vary tremendously, such as creative problem solving, where talent are still not able to perform despite having motivation and time. The Productivity Skills and habit that we need to equip to our talent should include the following:

• Time Management

• Motivation

• Focus Mastery

• Self-Discipline

• Managing The Feeling of Overwhelm (Memory)

These skills saw an increase interest between 581% to 990% between 2019 and 2020.

Effective leaders and talents know that they have to invest in themselves to raise their Time, Energy and Attention (Focus) to raise their productivity.

Active Learning & Learning Strategies

Active learning is when one gets involved in the process of learning while Learning strategies is an individual’s way of organizing and using a particular set of skills in order to learn content or accomplish other tasks more effectively and efficiently in school as well as in non-academic settings (Schumaker & Deshler, 1992). This Self Mastery component came to rise from World Economic Forum’s Future Job Report 2020, Top #2 skill for 2025.

In the age of change and sudden disruption, one of the greatest competitive advantage available to any leader is their ability to unlearn and relearn what the new reality, or as they used to say it in 2020, the “new normal”, which on hindsight is laughable, cause the new normal that we knew then is old and irrelevant. Such is the speed in which the world has changed, and leaders need to be equipped with the skill to learn quick!

I recall when Malaysia was sent into a lockdown on the 18th of March 2020, our team were separated. Our operations manager research on productivity tools to collaborate remotely, and we invested in Microsoft teams 2 weeks later. At the heart of the pandemic and lockdown all our face to face workshops were indefinitely postponed. From history of previous pandemic, we concluded that we can’t wait for the “old normal” to resume, we need to find a way to move forward. Hence we invested further to learn what are the best virtual training providers are doing, and it helped us to expand to various countries in Asia Pacific, opening up opportunities we never had before. In 2020, we had to eat out bitter pill of how to embrace change, we saw that the agility in which the leaders learn and help their team to learn was pivotal to not only survival but also the ability to seize the opportunity when others are not ready.

Self Mastery and Personal Leadership is not only crucial for leaders to sustainably Lead from Certainty in an Increasingly Uncertain World, it also resonate with their intrinsic need for growth and personal mastery. If your team is keen to explore solutions and workshops to increase Self Mastery in your teams, do feel free to write to us now to schedule a free consultation with our specialist.

If your team is keen to explore solutions and workshops to increase Self Mastery in your teams, do feel free to write to us now to schedule a free consultation with our specialist.