Self-Leadership through Stewardship: The Path to Sustainable Success.
Towards the end of 2018, I announced that I would be setting up a mentoring business in self-leadership at the Toastmasters Club I attend. People had asked me for mentoring in self-leadership already, though I didn’t have a programme or anything formal to offer. I started regardless and in November that year, my first mentee sat down with me in a coffee shop to talk.
It was an engaging, exciting experience for both of us – we talked for hours. There was so much value in it for both of us and a healthy amount of laughter. But I needed to formalise my mentoring, to bring structure to it. What would that structure be? And what would be the central focus?
I went into the Christmas period of 2018 with those questions in mind, pondering and praying to find the answers.
The answers came to my mind at approximately 3am one night between Christmas Day 2018 and New Year’s Day 2019. They came to me ex nihilo, as though entirely out of the blue. The answer, in a single word, was Stewardship. I received a very personal revelation that my mentoring should be based on Stewardship relating to three distinct areas: Self; Relationships; Contribution (in the home, community and in the wider world). Upon receipt, I immediately scrawled it on my whiteboard and then excitedly shared it with my wife the following day. It was an incredible experience.
Since that point, I’ve created the 3S Self-Leadership Framework on the basis of my initial revelation and ensuing research.
What is Stewardship?
Some have grappled with Stewardship as a term, finding it to be multi-faceted and perhaps even ambiguous. It can refer to different things in different contexts. Often it means to hold something in trust for another. Historically, stewardship has referred to governing on behalf of a temporarily absent or under-age monarch. More recently, we think of stewards as those who wear yellow jackets at live events, watching over the crowd to ensure that everyone is safe and that the event runs smoothly.
As far as self-leadership goes, however, Stewardship means voluntarily taking on responsibility to care for someone or something. And it means building trust within yourself through being accountable to yourself.
Stewardship cannot be imposed upon anyone by an external party. It comes from within, not without.
The Stewardship of the Good Shepherd
Think of the biblical parable of the Good Shepherd in the New Testament. The good shepherd knows his sheep and cares for them, protecting them from danger. The hireling, on the other hand, flees at the sight of danger, leaving the sheep exposed and unprotected.
“The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.” – John 10:13
The hireling is purely concerned with material reward; he cares more about his own interests than the wellbeing of the sheep whose care he has been entrusted with. He has not taken on the mantle of Stewardship to care for the sheep. And he cannot be forced to do so.
Stewardship is a mantle to care for someone or something that you choose to take upon yourself.
Why Stewardship?
The case in favour of Stewardship is as simple as it is irrefutable: that which is cared for flourishes and prospers, while that which isn’t decays and perhaps even dies prematurely.
Every one and every thing needs care. Care, and thus Stewardship, is at the heart of success that’s sustainable. No Stewardship, no care; and no care, no sustainability.
The Value of Stewardship as a Value
Social psychologist, Milton Rokeach, defined values as follows in his 1973 classic The Nature of Human Values:
“A value is an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.”
Stewardship as a mode of conduct (or way of being) is caring for other people and things.
Stewardship as an end-state is ongoing prosperity and success.
Stewardship requires a holistic, long-term view; it eschews short-termism, myopia, hedonism, indifference and recklessness.
Values (your Why) instruct habits; habits (your How) determine contributions; and contributions (your What) define success. Stewardship as a habit is care – and a consistent habit of care makes for a profound and meaningful contribution that leads to success.
The Million Dollar Question
Who, or what, to care for, though? The million dollar question that lies at the heart of finding the answer to that question is: Who can I serve? I explore this question with my clients in mentoring sessions. We focus on their Contribution in the context of their home, their community (or communities) and the wider world to find the answer in relation to the their core values, skills and opportunities to serve.
Contributions are best made on a solid foundation of self-care to ensure sustainability. (Again, Self is the first area of Stewardship). We cannot meaningfully contribute to others on a sustainable basis if we fail to adequately care for ourselves.
The magic really happens when we’ve taken the time to learn who we can serve, developed the faith necessary to make our contributions and then continue on the path to take consistent, meaningful action in doing so.
Serving those whom you’re uniquely qualified to serve is foundational to a life of purpose, meaning and fulfilment. And it’s foundational to achieving sustainable success.
Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him? – Ecclesiastes 3:22
Saving the World through Stewardship
We can save the world we live in through Stewardship. Not by trying to enforce change in others, but by attending to our own areas of Stewardship – taking on the mantle of Stewardship and transforming ourselves and our outcomes in the process.
I truly believe that each individual throughout the world has a unique calling – a purpose and role to fulfil in serving others – and that as they discover what that is, they will transform. They will be less concerned with the cacophony of external noise and distraction. Triggers will be less triggering. The need for escapism and a break from everyday life will be obsolete. And they will feel more alive than they ever have before. I’ve seen this both within myself and within those who work with me – it’s a beautiful thing to witness.
As Joseph Campbell put it in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces,
“It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.”
Each of us can be the creative hero if we heed the call.
Each of us can have an outsize impact in saving the world in which we live.
I created the 3S Self-Leadership Framework and Transformation Starter Package to empower others to both heed and follow the call that is uniquely theirs.
I love my work as a mentor.
And I love the front-row seat that I have in watching others reap the rewards of it.
If you’re reading this as someone who hasn’t yet started your transformation journey, not knowing your call or how to find it, then drop me a line to arrange a free 30-minute call to learn more: tom@3stewardships.com.
If you’ve just signed up to my Transformation Starter Package, welcome! It’s my honour and pleasure to be your guide.