6. Self-Leadership and Neurodiversity

The working world is becoming increasingly complex and constantly presents us with new challenges. In order to be able to overcome these, the ability to lead oneself is becoming increasingly important. This is especially true for managers because if you are not able to lead yourself, you cannot lead anyone else. This makes self-leadership a core competency for managers (Helmold et al., 2023). In a working world in which managers and employees are constantly confronted with new and increasingly complex requirements, self-leadership is a key skill. Successful self-leadership helps to constructively change and positively influence your own feelings and emotions. You get to know yourself better and better, resolve “blind spots” and thus create the basis for being able to lead successfully and live up to your role model function for employees. Self-leadership is often used synonymously with self-organization, self-management, self-control, self-regulation, or self-reflection. These terms often go hand in hand, but are not completely the same. Self-leadership means being able to direct thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in a desired direction through self-reflection, self-evaluation, and self-motivation. This can lead to an increase in performance and make it easier to achieve set goals. However, self-leadership should not only be associated with increased performance and better performance. It is also about critically questioning yourself and evaluating your own behavior from time to time and adapting it if necessary.