Every leader is gifted. You may or may not have the “spiritual gift of leadership,” but you are still gifted in some way. And even if you don’t have the gift of leadership, your talent can open doors for leadership responsibility and opportunity.

For example, somebody with the gift of teaching might serve as a leader, even though they don’t have the spiritual gift of leadership. Their gift made room for the role. And someone with the gift of administration may occupy a leadership seat, even though they don’t have the gift of leadership.

Leadership is a gift, but multiple talents open the door for leadership positions and responsibility.

Regardless of the scenario, we often restrict our leadership to our gifting. In other words, we lead through our gift and in the position our talent has made possible for us. But once we step out of our position or title and beyond the edges of our gifting, we often stop leading.

At first thought, that doesn’t sound all that bad. After all, leading in an area where I’m not gifted sounds like a recipe for disaster — and in many cases it is. But when we restrict leading to our talent level, we experience an unintended consequence: We fail to lead ourselves.

Paul exhibited the ability to lead himself when he said, “Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

So, what’s the cure when we fail to lead ourselves? The following three-step path is a good place to start.

Self-Awareness

Thomas Carlyle said, “The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none.” While Dr. Sam Chand said, "People have an almost limitless capacity for self-deception. We don't know what we don't know and are therefore unconsciously incompetent."

To lead beyond our gift, we must become aware of where our gifts begin and end. As my friend Scott Wilson says, “We all have blind spots, deaf spots, and dumb spots.”

In other words, we all have things we don’t see that others around us do. We may be deaf to how we come across to others. And we all have areas where we lack knowledge or expertise. Until we welcome people into our lives who see, hear, and know what we don’t, we’ll remain confined and restricted by a lack of self-awareness.

The apostle Paul gives us the proper mindset to glean self-awareness. He said, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (Romans 12:3).

Author Steve Moore said, “If my lack of self-awareness is caused by ignorance, I need information. If it is caused by confusion, I need clarification. If it is caused by denial, I need confrontation.” Whatever your situation, at the end of the day, you are responsible for gaining self-awareness.

If you’re going to gain the information, clarification, and confrontation you need to increase your awareness, use two trusted approaches. First, use proven assessment tools to help you grow in your awareness of strengths and weaknesses. Second, seek out honest feedback from trusted leaders.

Leadership is a gift,
but multiple talents
open the door for
leadership positions
and responsibility.

Self-Direction

The greatest growth happens in your life when you get to choose the areas to grow. When this happens, intrinsic motivation becomes the fuel to propel you into maximized growth. Rather than growth being imposed on you, your learning becomes self-directed.

Think about it — were you more motivated to read the book you chose for yourself or the one a teacher assigned to you? When we can direct our learning, we are naturally more engaged.

Self-directed learners have a motivation to seek out truth and wisdom. Proverbs 18:15 says, “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.”

Therefore, once you become aware of your growth gaps, you must seek out a plan to help close them. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek out advice or input from others, after all, feedback helps you understand the depth and width of your gaps. But if you take the initiative to construct a solid plan you can get excited about, you’ll likely grow more and enjoy it along the way.

To customize a growth plan that you’re energized by, take three steps. First, clarify the why behind your plan. When you have a strong and compelling why to your growth, you’ll be much more motivated to pursue the plan.

Second, choose learning methods that build on the strengths of your personality type. If you’re more relational, you might lean into coaching conversations and small groups for assistance. If you’re more structured and analytical, leaning into books or courses may help you grow.

Third, create growth cycles that resonate with your schedule and attention span. If you tend to be focused and disciplined, then you may prefer in-depth growth challenges requiring a longer growth cycle — say three to six months. Should you be much more spontaneous (or even easily distracted), create a 30-day growth plan (or event multiple 3-week growth plans).

Self-Leadership

You don’t have to lead yourself while leading in the context of your gifting, but failure to do so will eventually catch up to you. Self-leadership is what supports and sustains leadership in our gifts. Internal leadership empowers external leadership. Leading our inner, unseen world is what gives authority and power to leading through our gifts.

Dr. John Maxwell said, “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”

Self-awareness reveals your gaps. Self-directed learning formulates a personal, customized plan. But self-leadership is where learning is put into action.

The goal of self-awareness and self-directed learning isn’t to simply increase your knowledge. It’s to produce meaningful life-change. It’s to improve your leadership, relationships, and effectiveness. Actual change and improvement are the litmus test of self-leadership.

This will not always be easy. In fact, some of the greatest growth happens when we're tested to our limits. After David and his men returned to Ziklag, they wept because the city had been burned and their families were taken captive.

But how did David respond? He was greatly distressed, but “David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Samuel 30:6, ESV). When unrestrained, reactive emotion could have ruled the day, David led himself in the moment by turning to the Lord for strength.

Here’s the ironic part of this three-part pathway. When you become self-aware, engage in self-directed learning, and then intentionally lead yourself, you’ll become better at leading through your gifts. It will benefit you both inside and outside of your gift mix.

This pathway isn’t easy, but it provides a practical process for leading in the areas that matter most.