Leadership is a privilege that comes with a great deal of responsibility and little support. As a leader, you may feel like you are expected to be superhuman, keeping your emotions in check and always having the right approach, the right answers, and the right balance of kindness and candor.

Good communication is an essential leadership skill that is enhanced and further developed when paired with personal agency and self-reliance.

I recently spoke with my friend Maha Abouelenein, a global communications strategist, after reading her book, 7 Rules of Self-Reliance: How to Stay Low, Keep Moving, Invest in Yourself, and Own Your Future. I was intrigued by her definition of self-reliance as “self-confidence + self-worth + believing in yourself + equipping yourself with tools to be your own power.” She wasn’t talking about power over others, which is manipulative; she was talking about personal power and the power of collaboration: “It’s about leveraging the power of yourself and others to own your future.” It makes a strong statement about what it means to go bravely forward and have the confidence to do so.

Maha’s philosophy of self-reliance ties beautifully into the work I do through the Communication Protocol, my program teaching the fundamental tools for improving communication, culture, and conflict resolution in the workplace. I wanted to explore this connection a little more and talk about the relationship between personal agency, self-reliance, and good communication.

As Maha and I discussed the relationship between personal agency, self-reliance, and good communication, it became clear that these skills are interdependent. If any one skill is missing, there will be a gaping hole where confidence, capability, and connection should be. To understand the relationship between these three skills and how they apply to effective leadership, we broke down each one.

Personal agency

You need to feel, know, and function as if you have some control over your future. 

Personal agency is knowing you have the ability to influence your future because you can consciously make decisions, take actions, and make choices that impact the outcome and your environment. 

“There’s so much about business that we can’t control,” says Maha. “But what we can control is our culture, our attitudes, and our ability to pivot — to use our resources and relationships to move our business forward.” 

When you have personal agency, you confidently and realistically believe that you can make a difference and deal with whatever challenges arise.

Self-reliance

You need to believe in yourself, feel capable, and trust your judgment and decision-making skills. 

Self-reliance empowers you to rely on your own strength and believe in yourself. It’s about depending on yourself. Self-reliance puts the beliefs of personal agency into action — it isn’t just about believing you can influence your future, it’s about taking bold and brave action.

Self-reliance is not selfish, nor is it manipulative. It is an essential first step to being able to work and collaborate with others. “It’s not about being independent,” says Maha. “It’s about creating value and being indispensable to others.”

When you are self-reliant, you not only believe you can make a difference, but you take concrete steps to bring your vision into reality  

Good communication

You need to be equipped to express yourself to inspire, connect, get your needs met, and build trust with others.

Good communication is about being clear and kind in how you convey your thoughts, concerns, and requests to others; it is having difficult conversations without getting defensive or placing blame on others. 

“You need to know how to hold yourself accountable, and how to hold your team members accountable,” says Maha. Accountability requires you to communicate expectations as well as when those expectations have not been met. 

When you are a good communicator, you are able to connect with and motivate your team, clearly define expectations, build trust, engage in open dialogue, and quickly resolve conflicts.

Each of these skills is essential to develop if you wish to become an even better leader. And these essential skills are encapsulated by Maha’s mantra, which she learned from her father: “Stay low, keep moving.” This mantra is a reminder to stay focused on what truly matters to you and to stay the course, even when things get difficult. With personal agency, self-reliance, and strong communication skills, you have the capacity to grow, overcome challenges, and achieve the goals you set for yourself. And you can develop and fine-tune each of these skills by improving your self-awareness.

Develop these essential leadership skills

Self-awareness enables you to learn about yourself and others. It increases your emotional intelligence and capacity for better decision-making, stronger relationships, and effective communication, all of which allow you to be a better leader.

A helpful and quick way to expand your self-awareness is my checking-in exercise. When checking in, take a moment to intentionally pause and notice how you are feeling and what is going on in your environment. These daily momentary pauses help you learn about yourself, how you are functioning, and how your environment impacts you. This exercise can be done quickly while sitting at a traffic light or brushing your teeth. Over time, checking in with yourself every day will train your brain to be more aware of your surroundings and more intentional with your decisions. It will also improve how you relate to and engage with others.

When you create a personal practice of self-awareness, you automatically uplevel your personal agency, strengthen your self-reliance, and elevate your communication skills, which enhances your interactions and deepens relationships.

“It’s a never-ending cycle of trying to improve yourself and improve your relationships so you can bring value to others,” says Maha. I couldn’t agree more.

©Copyright 2022 Debra Roberts, LCSW All rights reserved. No portion of this material may be reproduced without permission from the publisher.

 A version of this article was initially published on Inc.com as: Personal Agency, Self-Reliance, and Good Communication Are Essential Leadership Skills