The Necessity Of Introspection To Leadership

Before one can lead in a sure direction, one must know what one wants to lead others towards.  The prerequisite to careful, goal-oriented leadership is knowing one's goals--I say prerequisite and not first step because leading is controlling/influencing people or resources, and identifying objectives can and needs to occur, when it can, before one actually leads.  A person could lead without a defined goal or plan, but that leadership will be aimless and/or successful only by accident.

To lead with intentionality and vision one must know what exactly one's goals are.  Without knowing what one is leading towards, efforts towards progress will be disjointed, vague, or unhelpful, since there is no defined objective and thus no clarified pathway to reach the fulfillment of that objective.  Not only is there no destination, there isn't even a road to the destination, since one cannot be properly selected without knowing both where one is and where one is going.  In order to have others carry out a mission you must know what that mission is.

This is where introspection is necessary.  Someone preparing to lead effectively needs to reflect inwardly on what he or she wants to bring about or bring followers to.  Without this inward gaze, there can be no weighing of priorities or careful selection of objectives.  And with no discernible ending point, one has no awareness of how to reach that ending point, making the most successful leadership reliant on thoughtful introspection.

Of course, one could just wander aimlessly as a leader--I am not at all saying that such a thing is impossible, nor am I saying that one cannot achieve a goal by happenstance.  I am a rationalist, after all!  I am fully aware that such things are possible.  I am merely saying that planning can be conducted prior to and thus separate from leading, and that a careful leader, who has the opportunity to adequately prepare, will know the intended destination before actually leading others.

Knowing what you want, including what you want to enact or pursue as a leader, involves introspection and self-awareness.  Knowing if what you want is good and just requires philosophy and theology.  But before an objective can be recognized as morally good, wrong, or neutral, the objective has to be specified--it has to be known.  Only then can it be clearly revealed to others.