Connect S01E05_Rerun_Self Leadership

Want to lead without waiting for a title? We take you inside the craft of self-leadership—how to influence your thoughts, feelings, and actions so your life points in a clear direction. Drawing from John Maxwell’s “leadership is influence” and the story of David, we show why quiet, hidden work becomes the strongest platform for public impact.

We start by reframing leadership as something anyone can practise. Then we make self-leadership concrete with Andrew Bryant’s model: choose your thinking, regulate your emotions, and align your behaviour with a meaningful objective. From there we explore why consistent private habits create credibility at work and at home, and how those steady results often unlock roles and responsibilities later. Using David’s journey from the fields to the battlefield, we highlight three proving grounds: leading in the closet where no one applauds, leading before God with integrity, and leading in small tasks that prepare you for giant moments.

Next, we walk through the practical pillars you can use right now. Self-discovery helps you see strengths, limits, and motives with honesty. Self-acceptance gives you the courage to work from reality rather than image—like David rejecting Saul’s armour and choosing tools that fit. Self-management turns intention into rhythm through time stewardship, goal setting, energy focus, and tracking. Finally, self-growth keeps your influence fresh and useful; you design a personal curriculum of scripture, books, mentors, and stretch assignments that translate learning into change.

By the end, you’ll have a clear, doable framework for becoming an authentic leader people can trust: start small, stay faithful, grow on purpose, and let your private victories speak. If this resonated, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s building their leadership, and leave a review telling us the one habit you’ll start this week.

Transcript

What Leadership Really Means

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Welcome to Connect. This is your weekly talk show where we seek to integrate the Word of God with real life issues. Remember, you can interact with us on the comment section, and uh you can also send us an email through this email address that is provided for you. Send us your questions, send us your comments. You can also suggest topics that you would want us to interact on in this program. Today, Winnie, we have a very interesting uh topic. We are talking about self-leadership.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

Yes, leading yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Leading yourself.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

And we want to help our viewers to know why they need to self-lead, if I may put it that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah, because the challenge with leadership is that many of us, without many people who have no positions, don't count themselves as leaders. And in fact, I think if you call a leadership meeting in church, it's only the people with a leadership position that will come. The rest don't think they are leaders.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Wow. I think that's a very good place to start. When are you a leader? Yes. Many times we think it's when you get a position. You get a position. And then I think that will lead us to start by defining then what is leadership?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

What is leadership? Many definitions are known, several management books and everything. But I like the one for John Maxwell's. Very simple, he says leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Leadership is influence.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yes. Nothing more, nothing less.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

And so anyone can influence.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Or even putting it differently, our viewer is an influencer.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Wherever they are.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Wherever they are, they must be influencing something or somebody or a course.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

And I think last week we said for parents, we said your children are learning from you from age zero to seven. They're just learning, learning. So that means even when you're a parent, you're definitely a leader. You are leading somebody who's learning from you. It's just like downloading files. Yes.

Why Self-Leadership Comes First

SPEAKER_00 2:29

And so it is very important then that we get to this topic of self-leadership. And the same Maxwell talking about change. And I think this would also apply on leadership. He said that you know you cannot change the world unless you first change yourself. And then in one of his books, he gives a very interesting story. He says of this man who thought in when he was young, he thought, I can change the world. And so he embarked on a journey of changing the world. But somewhere in the middle of his life, he realized I had not changed the world an inch. And then he said, Maybe I should have tried to change just a few people. In fact, he says he made a prayer and said, God, if only you can help me change those around me, my friends, my family. And so from somewhere in the middle of his life, he started, he embarked on now changing those around him. But towards his sunset, he realized he had not changed the people around him much. And so he says, he thought to himself, if only he had started by changing himself. Does this apply to leadership?

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Yes, it does. Because it's also also looking at the story, it feels sad at the end that the man realized at the end of the story that he actually should have started the other way around. He should have changed himself. And I'm sure if he had changed himself, he'd have been able to change the world. And I think that is where self-leadership comes in. Starting leadership, even to be a leader, start with you. Then it's easier to lead others.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

And so to our viewers who are very ambitious and somebody really wants to say, if only I can be in this particular leadership position, if only I can be an MP, if only I can be, you know, a pastor, or be that top leader. Yes. Maybe even in your organization. You're thinking in terms of if only I can be the CEO or the head of the department, how I would impact through leadership. It's a good desire, but uh, we are saying it starts with self-leadership.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yeah, and I think it is really in organizations or workplaces, it's usually very easy. Like even in a sales team, usually the people who've sold the highest most likely next year will be given promotion to lead teams. Why they have proved that I can lead myself. I've succeeded in earning this amount of money to the organization. Then the management feels now you can lead others. So I think when you lead yourself, it opens doors now to be to sit in those, they are called the corner offices, the CEO's office, yeah. But it starts by leading yourself in your desk where you are now.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Okay. And and so our viewers need to know that there are results in self-leadership. Yes. And so having said that um leadership is influence, maybe somebody is thinking that if I'm going to be a leader in the sense of influencing, then it's about influencing others and not necessarily myself. So maybe we could start by giving a simple definition. When we talk about self-leadership, uh, what exactly we are talking about so that then those of who are following this program today can actually connect with what we are talking about.

Influence Your Thoughts, Feelings, Actions

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Oh, sure. So I think borrowing also just the same words of uh influence. I like what Andrew Bryan says. He's a guru in self-leadership. He says self-leadership is the practice of intentionally influencing yourself. And these are three things: your thinking, your feeling, and your action towards uh an objective. And I like to always have an acronym for it. It is self-leadership, is influencing your eat. It means your emotions, your actions, and your thoughts towards an objective because it takes the three things. So every time you eat, remember also you need to influence yourself, and that is self-leadership.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

And so there is something to influence from within. Yes. You need to influence your thinking, you need to influence your feelings, feelings, and you need to influence your actions towards the achievement, attainment of a certain goal or a certain objective. And that is the result we are talking about. You just gave an example of the salesperson when they are able to put all this together, they are able to earnest their thinking, their feelings, and then their actions, then they produce a result that qualifies them or makes them attractive to be able to lead others in the same manner.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

So what will be some of the benefits when we talk about uh benefits or the importance of self-leadership?

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I think it is then very important if somebody is going to aspire to lead others. Yes, to start that they begin with themselves.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

Yes. So I think as we've said, it starts with influencing yourself. And there are many benefits, and I think one of them is that we've said, even in a workplace, even at home, by leading yourself well, you'll be able to be more productive because you're guided, you're like a missile that is guided, you are not all over. A self-led person influencing your thoughts, your action, your emotions. You are able to be more productive. That is one point. I don't know.

Results And Workplace Examples

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yes. And and the other thing I'm also thinking about is the fact that self-leadership puts an individual on a journey. It it puts you on an intentional path that prepares you and equips you. We see this journey in the life of a Bible character. And this Bible character is none other than David. And for this to happen in self-leadership, and especially now, even addressing you as a Christian, what are some of the things that we can learn from David that we can apply in our own lives before we talk about the pillars of self-leadership? I am seeing three things. That the first one is that self-leadership includes or involves a leader first being a leader in the closet. Being a leader in the closet. And what do I mean by this? When you look at the life of David, the first time we interact with David in 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 11, it's when Samuel went to Jesse's house to anoint a king for Israel after God had rejected Samuel. And God says, No, it's not that one. No, it's not that one. And then we are told all the sons and passed before Samuel. And then Samuel is asking, Are these all your sons? Then that's when David first pops up. And Jesus says, Ah, there is another fellow. He's out there in the wilderness taking care of the sheep.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

So it's like he was not in the parade.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

He was not in the parade. He was not in this auspicious occasion.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

When a prophet has visited the house.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

When a prophet has visited the home of Jesse to anoint the king of Israel.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

He's missing in action.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

He's missing in action. But there is something we see here. You know, from the first value, David is out there in the wilderness caring for his father's sheep. But I see David out there in the wilderness leading himself. He's engaging in self-leadership. There are things he does there. He has a strategy. He learns how to solve problems. He learns how to be compassionate.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

And these are not big problems, sheep problems.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

They are sheep problems. And he's one of the compassionate leaders that Israel ever had. Or maybe we could even say any king that we've had, a human king, David fits that position of a compassionate leader. And we see that in his writing. In fact, we are told that uh in the Bible that he led God's people with compassion.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

And the skillfulness, integrity of his heart, and you know, very skillfully and with compassion. That is the kind of a leader. Where did he learn these skills?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

In the fields out there. In the wilderness.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Sheep business. But secondly, this self-leadership, for a Christian, you must first be a leader before God. Still again, drawing from David's life. He's out there in the closet. The only person seeing him is God.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

All by himself and God.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

All by himself and God. And uh we see this again in 1 Samuel 13, verse 14, where God Himself now gives a testimony. God says, I have found a man after my own heart.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

That is a huge CV. It's a huge CV.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

So when we are talking about self-leadership, we are talking about first a leader being a leader in the closet, and that's where you work on your thinking, that's where you work on your feelings so that then it informs your and gives you good results.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Your actions.

David: Leading In The Closet

SPEAKER_00 12:15

And secondly, we are saying that then a leader must, in that closet, you may think nobody is seeing, but God is seeing you and God is the one who appoints us. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 12:28

And he watches.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

He watches.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

And he gave a testimony.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

And gave a testimony over David. And I pray that could be the same for all of us. Before people can celebrate us out there, that as a leader, you've worked on yourself in the presence of God that God actually celebrates you.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

So it is, you're saying it is not important for us to wait for the positions. Because all of us are saying, I need a position of leadership. I need to be a Sunday school leader here. I need to be what before I'm a leader. So you can be a leader wherever you are in your own closet.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Yes. And that is very important because in that closet, that is where self-leadership is happening. There are things that are developing while you are in that closet where nobody else is watching, there is a lot of influence that is already taking place and leadership is taking shape at that particular point.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

It's true. And I think somebody would be asking, why should I lead myself? I mean, I am alone here with myself and walking. And I think I want to say something that the interestingly, why you also need to be deliberate about self-leadership is that most of us live in a reactionary mood. That's why you have to be deliberate and say, I'm leading myself. So that I think, as we said, if you have a goal, you start working towards the goal. Because usually it's very easy for us to just go back to reaction. You wait until somebody talks to you, then you react. You wait until a circumstance happens, then you react. But leadership now is preparing, being ready, influencing yourself, moving towards a goal. I think that's what you're trying to say.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

And so self-leadership prepares a leader to lead.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

And not to just be reacting. That um the leader is ahead of situations.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

The leader is ahead of the pack. The leader is influencing and causing others to be on a certain trajectory as he takes the lead.

SPEAKER_02 14:38

And you see now the pro, and I think in the 21st century also you can never pretend. I think long time ago you could be a fake leader. The one the Bible says you are sheeping God's skin. But nowadays it is very hard.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah, yeah, wolves in sheep's skin. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

But I think in this century it is getting hard. So I think it's just important to do the right thing. Just lead because people always come to look and they'll give testimonies even online and say, ah, that's fake. That's a fake character. And they'll share pictures.

Authenticity Before God

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Oh, so when you work on uh it's it's like self-grooming. You know, when when you work on yourself as a leader in the closet, you are able to come out as an authentic leader. Yes. And people will be able to see that this is a leader that we can follow and is a leader who can influence a certain direction. But the third thing I also see that is very important for self-leadership is what again I see in David's life. And this is being a leader first in small things. So being a leader first in the closet, being a leader first before God, and being a leader first in small things. Now we are told in um in um 1 Samuel chapter 17, verse 34. And let me read that one because it's an interesting one. It says, but David said to Saul, Your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it and delivered the lamb from its mouth. And when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard and struck and killed it. Then he says, Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God. Moreover, David said, The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear, he will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. This is a presentation of David's CV.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Experience. What we always look out for.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

And I think young people always say, uh, as a career coach, they say, Why do employers ask us for experience? And I've just come out of university. This is experience. He had experience actually from the field, as in the little experience. Yeah, David is in a situation with a king, but he's talking about killing a lion.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

A lion and a bear.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

And a bear. And yeah, he's gonna lie, at real, real tough issues. So it means every experience is important. They are no small, as you're saying. Nothing is really too small to ignore. Start where you are.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

You know what I'm seeing from this is that really faithfulness in small assignments prepares you for greatness. The CV that David is presenting at the heat of war.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

International war.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

International war.

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

He's before the general and is now presenting his papers. Yes. And he's trying to convince the general why he thinks he can step into this international situation and save the day.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Nigel.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

He's giving a CV based on his faithfulness in just handling a few sheep. And by the way, I imagine this, they were just few sheep because again, later on somewhere else, David talks about he can't even afford to marry the king's daughter because he comes from a poor background. So those are few sheep. So they must have been very few sheep. But these few sheep are the basis, his faithfulness in catering for this sheep, his the strategies he used, you know, the compassion, the action that he took, the feelings that he had, you know, and how he was able to master all this together to be successful in accounting for every sheep in the wilderness places him in a position where now he can face Goliath and save a whole nation.

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Nation, imagine international war.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

In an international war. And so being a leader in the closet, being a leader before God first, being a leader in small things prepares you for greatness. And that is part of what we are talking about, packaging yourself in self-leadership.

From Small Tasks To Giant Moments

SPEAKER_02 19:27

Knowing who you are is one of the pillars of you can only lead yourself well if you know who you are. The other one is self-acceptance. Once you know yourself, now you accept yourself. And I think it is not self-acceptance, also should not be confused with the idea of is it called resignation and saying that is me. No, it is now accepting that maybe I am here and I wanted to be there. So what do I do? Because accepting yourself is the usually the beginning of great change. So we've said self-discovery, self-acceptance. And I don't know what comes to your mind, Pastor, when you talk about self-acceptance.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

I think I think I see it from a SWOT analysis, really. Why we do SWOT analysis is so that we can understand and appreciate where we are at. And it is a very important uh tool in leadership. It helps us to understand where we are, and with that understanding, we are able to tell where we are going. If you can't tell where you're coming from, you can't tell where you are, it is impossible to convince yourself or even others that you actually know where you are going. So that becomes very important. And as you have rightly put it, it is not about self-resignation. And talking about David, by the way, you know that King Saul, he gave David his full armor.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yes, the generals.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

The generals for battle. David put on the full armor, he tried to move, and he said, I can't. I am not used to this. He's not resigning to fate. He's saying, where I stand, the way I am, from my experience, I can now move and see what to do with what I am and where I am. So that's how I'm looking at uh self-acceptance acceptance.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

Then the other pillar is self-management. I think we are used to managing things, but sometimes do we think about managing yourself, being your own manager? This is now for people who are managers. You know, many people like being managers, it's a leadership position. But you can start by managing yourself. Self management includes things like managing your time. How are you spending your time? Because at the end of the day, life is just about how you spend your time. Actually, in summary, it is what you do with what you have, and you know, time. Interestingly, time is only in the present. It's just now. It is what you do now, what you do now. Because even if you say you'll do it tomorrow, it will be a moment in tomorrow. So things like self-management, goal setting, how you manage, you organize yourself is a pillar in self-leadership. And the other one is managing your self-growth. Are you growing as a person? Are you growing? Are you better than what you were last year, for example? Are you better than what you were yesterday? And I think I it's Angela, Maya Angela says, once when you know better, you do better. As in, once you are able to grow, you do better. But you also have to be deliberate about self-growth. And self-growth is not natural. And I think you can look at the example of trees. What happens when you are a farmer and you go to your farm and you realize your crops are not doing well? They are yellowing, the leaves are yellowing and they are not as green. What do you do as a farmer? Do you just leave it like that? No. You go and look for fertilizer, maybe it is water. But sometimes do we think of ourselves also in our growth journey that there's something you need to put in yourself to grow and bloom and yield fruit? I think, as the Bible says, being fruitful. So it's it you have to grow.

unknown 23:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And you know, again, going with the old wisdom, it says you can never lead people or take people where you have not been yourself. So uh uh self-leadership requires that there is a sense of growth in yourself, yeah. And it has to be intentional. And you know, many times people don't think of growth, people think of growth as an end in itself. Growth is a means. So we never stop growing.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

The moment we stop growing, we stop influencing, including even influencing our own selves. This is a very interesting uh conversation. Talking about self-discovery, self-acceptance, self-management, uh, talking about self-growth, talking about being a leader first in the closet, being a leader first before God, being a leader first in small things, and all this we sum it up with a very simple statement self-leadership.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

And that is what we are inviting our viewers to know today. You can connect with us through the email address provided below. Remember, you can also connect with us using the comment section. Let us know your thoughts, let us know your feedback, let us know your questions or even topics that you would want us to engage over in this talk show. So, this has been Connect, where we go beyond Sunday. God bless you.