Four Key Benefits of Leading Yourself With Intentionality

Leading others is quite challenging for anyone. But what about leading yourself? That is, working to create the personal and professional behaviors that others will notice, respect, and hopefully emulate to one day become successful leaders themselves. Effectively leading yourself can have a profound impact on your MSP team’s culture and engagement.

The idea of leading yourself doesn’t get a lot of attention. So I want to turn up the volume on this atypical topic that was recently explored during a “Sunny’s Silver Linings” podcast. It featured Kayvan Yadzi, the co-founder and president of TruAdvantage, a Cupertino, CA-based MSP, who practices leading himself on a daily basis. This includes waking up early and using that extra morning time in a productive way. With that kind of dedication, how can you not give this guy a listen?

“The level of your mindset and the energy that you bring to the table when you sit down with your staff and the way they observe you and think of you is determined by how you lead yourself,” Kayvan said. “You are being measured on a daily basis by the people you lead. So you must practice what you preach. Your behavior trickles down to them, so they know to set the same level of expectations for themselves as a team.”

Kayvan’s most important core value is being intentional. His objective is “every day just not going with the flow of life,” he said. He noted that, since all MSPs deal with metrics on a daily basis, then you should have a metric for whether or not you want to lead an intentional life and lead yourself. So how does he measure his progress – or lack thereof?

He uses a daily habit tracker. Kayvan created a set of numbers – or goals – that he wants to meet. He reviews it at the end of each week to determine if he has accomplished them. For instance, he went from being a night person to a morning person because he learned that many successful people are early risers. He did research and set of goal of waking at around 5 a.m., carving out 90 minutes for himself to read, meditate, keep a journal, listen to a podcast, whatever. To measure his progress, Kayvan sets h

He so believes in his process that he has incorporated it into his MSP business. Employees must set one goal of non-work-related cultural growth and they are held accountable for it. Goals can be to learn a new language, exercise, etc. Yes, they, too, must use a daily habit tracker to track their progress. Every day at 8:30 a.m. Kayvan holds a 10-minute huddle where they review each team member’s habit tracker numbers. At the end of the week, the team member with the best score is rewarded with an Amazon gift card.

“Are you as the leader of the company the type of person that people want to be with? Are you someone that they want to be led by?” Kayvan said. “This is why ‘Lead yourself’ is so critical.”

Here are four key benefits of leading yourself with intentionality:

• Because you’re literally tracking yourself, you can see evidence for growth. It’s like a bodybuilder looking into a mirror at a gym and seeing the fruits of .
• Your team members will see your dedication to your personal goals – that you’re “walking the talk” – and their respect for you will increase.
• You will inspire your employees to implement the same process to grow themselves personally and professionally. This is something they can take with them even if they leave your company.
• It will help improve your culture and increase your employee retention scores as it draws employees together to assist each other with achieving their goals.

“You grow your team or your company as much as you grow yourself,” Kayvan said. “You are the limit.”

Kayvan’s dedication to his belief says it clearly: Leading yourself and being intentional about everything you do will lead you and your company to greater MSP success.

Click here to listen to the full podcast.