Self Awareness & Leadership

Becoming a great leader requires a large degree of self-awareness. In other words, evaluate how well you know yourself: what are your beliefs, values, thoughts, feelings, et. al towards any given situation? This process creates a sense of consciousness that allows leaders to show up far more engaged and with more clarity & focus than they would have had otherwise. Once that awareness is obtained (and practiced), that leader gains the ability to make a more conscious decision on how they want to show up. Thus, self-awareness helps leaders create more free choice and free will in their decision-making.

Most leaders have some degree of self-awareness already but typically use it as an evaluation tool after something has occurred. While it is useful to evaluate from the past, the self-awareness someone can create in the present is far more valuable to a leader. Imagine if you were able to be present during stressful situations, armed with self-awareness of what triggers your stress response. Now imagine how much easier it would be to make the corrections necessary to mitigate that stress in the moment versus reminiscing what could have happened differently. How liberating would it feel to have that kind of clarity & focus during a challenging situation? How empowering would it have more choices than what your “default” response is?

In order to gain more self-awareness, you will need to develop it with time and practice. Part of that process is paying attention to your thoughts, emotions, beliefs, and values (as mentioned at the beginning of the blog). You will also want to be aware of what gets in your way on any given basis. For example, if you hold beliefs and values that have not been checked by different perspectives, how might that be limiting your potential for success? In other words, what may be “true” for you may not actually be the truth. Knowing the facts helps you divorce any given situation from your emotions, beliefs, and interpretations. Doing so will ultimately benefit you as a leader, as you can obtain the clarity & focus you get from true objectivity.

A state of self-awareness is the practice of being aware of your thoughts and emotions, as well as your beliefs and interpretations. How accurate are they to the facts of the situation at hand? What is the cost of holding the beliefs and interpretations you currently have? If you made a change to your thought & belief process, how much more clarity & focus would you have about the situation? How many more choices would you be able to work with if were no longer limited by your old belief system? As a leader, performing frequent self-evaluations on yourself prior to making a decision can greatly improve your performance. After all, having more free will in your choices and having more objectivity lead to having a greater sense of clarity & focus as a leader.

A key point to remember: self-awareness is a discipline, not a destination. It requires practice just like any other skill set. When you have a situation come up at work practice by observing yourself internally, as previously described. Keep doing this again and again, and see if your performance overall does not improve.