Let’s go back to our school days and reminisce how differently we behaved in presence and absence of our teachers. With teacher in the class, we used to be more disciplined, dedicated and studious student, but when no teacher, even the best student of the class would become one among the so called back-bencher gang – screaming and shouting with studies packed in their bags. But when looking closely, we can find a student who will still be studying despite the chaos.
This exactly is what is required of the modern-age, next-gen professionals. As employees were forced to work from home due to the pandemic, they had to deal with such chaos at home while learning to stay focused. In between kids screaming at one corner of the house, the TV shouting at the top of its volume, all those noise in and around the house, the calls from your family & friends to check on your health and more, you need find your moment-of-peace to concentrate on your work.
With bosses not being around, several of the employees find it difficult to concentrate on their work and deliver. But those who learnt the art of finding solace in all these and deliver their best learnt one important life lesson – Self-Leadership. It has become one of the most crucial elements for success for individuals, both in jobs and personal lives. Such people have also successfully stroked the best balance between work and life despite the line between them blurring eventually.
Employees’ Self-Actualization
Just like self-actualization, which is the complete realization of one’s potential, and the full development of one’s abilities & appreciation of life, self-leadership is the ability of mastering one’s self and being the own boss. Whether it needs micro-managing self, learning time management, having control on self’s emotion, thoughts, feelings & actions, self-leadership is what will drive one to prosper in personal and professional lives whilst earning satisfaction without the prejudice of guilt.
With work from home here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future, self-leadership will give peace of mind to both employee and employer who feared the most about loss of productivity & commitment to work. So what resulted in this mistrust? It is the fact that most of the companies adopted the work from home concept due to compulsion as the world almost was under the lockdown, and not as a tool to enhance productivity and give its employees the freedom to work on their own. The fear of missing timelines, poor performance of employees with no one looking over their shoulder, no assurance of quality work and the stakeholders being on the same page, companies started the virtual work concept only with skeptism.
Hence for employees to learn self-leadership, it is important that organizations too learn to put faith on their employees and their ability to deliver. They already have been doing so since months now. So even they have learnt the tricks of working from home efficiently. Otherwise how would have the companies survived the lockdown? Just think!
Let’s work two-hand to develop self-leadership among employees and even management so that the future of work from home becomes a viable and more soul soothing option without any bitter emotions.
