What is personal leadership power? Many people think that personal power is the ability to move or influence others. This is a valid viewpoint. I often speak of using power versus authority to achieve results.

When I speak of personal leadership power, I’m speaking of the ability to direct and influence yourself.  When you have mastered personal leadership power, influence with others is a natural outcome. 

Yet, many people give away their personal power. Giving away personal power is not you giving your personal power to someone else; it is simply not using your personal power. When you don’t use your personal power, you are in essence giving it away.

Here are some things to consider about how you may be giving your personal power away. Observe yourself and see areas you can have a shift in to increase your personal power.

Building your personal leadership power allows you to live life powerfully. When you have personal power, you are comfortable in your own skin, you know what you want, and you go after what you want. Continue to look at how you can increase your personal power.

7 Ways Personal leadership Power is Lost

Being Passive

Leaders do not allow things to happen; they cause things to happen. Sitting idly by and not taking action is being passive. It is a loss of power. You can recognize the loss of power because your “inner voice” is telling you to do something.  But fear stops you from taking action.  The source of the fear could be: What will someone else think?...Will I be successful?...What if someone finds out I’m not enough?

Giving Your Inner Critical Voice Mind Space

Your inner voice is always telling you something. Even as you are reading this article, your inner voice is speaking. While you cannot turn off your inner voice, you can train yourself to listen to the inner voice that empowers you and dismiss the inner voice that disempowers you. Training yourself will take you being willing to look at yourself honestly to distinguish when the inner voice is disempowering you.

Toleration of Manipulation

People are manipulated when they don’t have clear values for themselves. When you have a clear set of values, you operate within those values. You take a stand for what you believe in, and you are not easily persuaded to think or act in ways that are contrary to your values.

Trying to Please Everyone

You cannot please everyone. Consider that if you try to please everyone, you are trying to have everyone “like” you. The wanting to have everyone like you is rooted in a low self-image. When you have a healthy self-image, you can be with people that “don’t like” you for whatever reason.  If you try to please everyone, you will make yourself miserable. Do what you know is the right thing to do. While you might not make everyone happy, you will gain the respect of others.

Being Judgemental

You may not be a judgemental person, but you are not immune to making snap judgments. Other people can influence your behavior if you let them. Office gossip, friends talking down about someone else, or neighbors talking about a new person moving into the house across the street. Those seemingly innocent conversations can bring about negative energy, influencing your behavior around new people you meet. 

Being Apologetic Without Cause 

The time for sorry is when you know you have made a mistake.  Apologetic language used all the time takes away from the apology when it is necessary. An easy way to be aware of your apologetic language is to make it a rule never to follow "I'm sorry" with "but." I'm sorry but… contradicts the apology.

Focusing on Heartless Goals

Careful life planning is needed to make sure you don't fall victim to chasing after goals that cause you to lose your personal power.

An abundant life is more than your career or business. Life goals are about you achieving goals in all of the areas that are important to you; not just about what work will make you rich so you can buy material things to satisfy an ego.

Focus on goals that include family, relationships, finance, health, career – Inner satisfaction. Otherwise, you will continue working with little fulfillment, keep giving personal power away to unsatisfying relationships, and waste money trying to satisfy the need to fill a void.

Building your personal leadership power allows you to live life powerfully. When you have personal power, you are comfortable in your own skin, you know what you want, and you go after what you want.  Continue to look at how you can increase your personal power.