• Discover practical ways to support self-leadership in your team
• Understand how your day-to-day behaviours shape your team's ability to lead themselves
• Reflect on how you're modelling self-leadership, and how that sets the tone for your entire team
In our last blog, we talked about the power of self-leadership and when to spot whether a team problem is actually a self-leadership problem. It was based on this thought-provoking question I recently asked on my podcast The Real Math of Business:
This question clearly struck a chord with listeners. It's clear to me that most leaders want their people to step up, to own their work, to think like leaders. But they don't always know how to build the environment that makes that possible.
The secret to high-performing teams
To recap, self-leadership is one aspect of good leadership. It reflects your ability to lead yourself before you lead others. It's your capacity to apply everything you know about coaching others to coach yourself. It means taking ownership of your mindset, behaviour, and impact without needing constant direction, validation or oversight.
High-performing teams aren't built by perfect leaders. In fact, you could be the most perfect leader and you could still run a poorly performing team, though I'd argue that building a culture of self-leadership is exactly what makes someone a great leader.
High-performing teams are instead the result of multiple high-performing self-leaders working together in sync.
Signs of a self-leadership gap in your team
When it comes to supporting self-leadership in others, what we aren't talking about is being hands-off or saying "they should just take more ownership." Instead, your goal should be to develop a team culture where self-leadership is recognised, expected, and supported.
You'll know you have a self-leadership gap in your team if:
• You're the one making all the decisions, even for work that others technically own.
• The team constantly seeks direction or reassurance.
• No one seems to think beyond their immediate tasks.
• People delay action until they get explicit permission.
• You're noticing a lack of initiative, accountability, or forward-thinking.
• The same issues keep surfacing, over and over.
How to support self-leadership in your team
Supporting self-leadership is not the same as delegating and hoping for the best.
It means creating conditions that foster ownership, confidence, and a willingness to fail.
Supporting self-leadership is one of the trickiest but highest impact leadership skills you can master.
You can support self-leadership in your team in the way you give someone context whenever you set them a task, so they don't just know what needs doing, but why it matters, and how it connects to the bigger picture.
It's choosing to pause before jumping in with answers, and instead saying: "What's your read on this?" "What do you think we should do?"
It's recognising when someone's showing early signs of leadership (such as patience and calm in a tough meeting) and reflecting that back to them. Helping them see what's working, so they can do more of it.
It's having the restraint not to swoop in when someone is struggling. Letting them sit in the discomfort of figuring it out, while holding the space and trust that they will.
And it's knowing that psychological safety doesn't mean lowering the bar. It means creating an environment where people are safe to grow, fail, speak up and still be held accountable.
Supporting self-leadership is deeply human work. It's the patience to develop people, not just direct them. The belief that people are capable, even when they don't quite believe it themselves yet.
Supporting self-leadership in others begins with you
Most importantly, supporting self-leadership means modelling it yourself by taking ownership of your own role in team performance.
So next time you find yourself frustrated with your team, pause and ask:
Is this really a team problem, or is it a self-leadership problem?"
And equally: "How am I supporting each person to grow into the self-leader they need to be?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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