When we hear the word leadership, most of us immediately imagine other people.

After all, you need followers to be a leader, right? Otherwise, you’re just some guy walking around issuing inspirational pronouncements to an empty room.

But there is a form of leadership that precedes followers, titles, corner offices, organizational charts, and invitations to give keynote speeches. It is self-leadership—the ability to manage the one person over whom you supposedly have the greatest control: yourself.

I say supposedly because the evidence is sometimes troubling.

We routinely make commitments to ourselves and then discover that the person who made the commitment and the person expected to keep it apparently never met.

“I’ll exercise tomorrow.”

“I’ll stop procrastinating.”

“I’ll have that difficult conversation.”

“I’ll spend less money.”

“I’ll quit wasting time scrolling through nonsense on my phone.”

And then tomorrow arrives, and we begin renegotiating the contract—with ourselves.

This matters because leadership ultimately rests upon credibility, and credibility begins internally. Before other people learn whether they can trust your word, you learn whether you can trust your word.

Every time you make yourself a promise and keep it, you make a small deposit into what might be called your personal credibility account. Every time you casually break one, you make a withdrawal. Eventually, you develop a reputation with yourself.

And you are always watching.

Self-leadership involves discipline, certainly, but it involves more than that. It means taking responsibility for your choices. It means governing your emotions rather than allowing every irritation to seize control of the steering wheel. It means doing important things when you don’t particularly feel like doing them.

It also means having standards that don’t disappear when nobody is looking.

That may be the most revealing leadership test of all. Lots of people can demonstrate integrity when the boss is standing nearby. Character becomes considerably more interesting when the boss leaves the building.

Future leaders sometimes imagine that leadership begins when someone finally gives them authority.

It doesn’t.

A title can give you authority, but it cannot give you character. A promotion can give you subordinates, but it cannot give you discipline. A new position can place your name on the door, but it cannot magically transform the person walking through it.

In fact, leadership positions tend to magnify what is already there.

Give responsibility to a disciplined person and that discipline becomes more consequential. Give responsibility to an irresponsible person and—well, now we’ve created meetings.

So perhaps the first leadership question isn’t, “How can I get people to follow me?”

Perhaps it is:

“Am I becoming someone worth following?”

Can I keep commitments? Can I delay gratification? Can I admit when I’m wrong? Can I receive criticism without immediately assembling a defense team? Can I choose principle over convenience? Can I make myself do what needs to be done even when applause is nowhere in sight?

Those aren’t merely self-improvement questions.

They are leadership questions.

Because long before leadership becomes something you do with other people, it is something you do with yourself.

And if you can’t lead that first follower, the rest may eventually notice.