Robert Hogan writes, “Intrapersonal skills develop early and have important consequences for career development in adulthood. This domain seems to have three natural components. The first can be described as core self-esteem (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998), emotional security, or perhaps resiliency. People with core self-esteem are self-confident, they have stable, positive moods, they are not easily frustrated or upset, and they bounce back quickly from reversals and disappointments. Persons who lack core self-esteem are self-critical, moody, unhappy, easily frustrated, hard to soothe, and need frequent reassurance and positive feedback. Core self-esteem is easy to measure, which means we can give managers reliable feedback on the subject. Moreover, measures of core self-esteem predict a wide variety of career outcomes, including job satisfaction and performance evaluations, which means clients should pay attention to feedback on this topic.” (Academy of Management Learning and Education March 2003 Robert HOGAN & Rodney Warrenfeltz)

Pay specific attention to the issue of core self-esteem.

Consider leaders who have / are

· self-confidence
· stable, positive moods
· not easily frustrated or upset
· bounce back quickly from reversals and disappointments

Put bluntly, if you don’t feel pretty good about yourself, you are not going to be an effective leader.

(Note also the reference is to “intrapersonal” not “interpersonal” skills.)