Developing self-awareness is the most important capability a leader must develop according to a study by the authors of “How to Become A Better Leader” which was published by MIT Sloan Management Review. Successful leaders know what they are good at and use this to their advantage to boost their talents or compensate for their shortcomings.
Studies have found that self-awareness helps increase the bottom line for many companies. Korn/Ferry, a management consulting company, did a study of 486 publicly traded companies and found that companies with strong financial performance tend to have more employees and leaders who possess some level of self-awareness.
I have personally worked alongside many leaders and found that self-awareness unfortunately seems to be lacking in many of them. So how do we become more self-aware?
Here are my tips to help you develop an increased level of self-awareness.
Get to Know You
The one consistent thing in everything that we do is that everything we do involves ourselves and understanding yourself is paramount.
I read a book by Dr. Travis Bradberry called Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and in it, it describes self-awareness as one of the core components of emotional intelligence. He defines emotional intelligence as your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.
Self-awareness is empowering because it arms you with knowledge and enables you to make better choices — to change and/or grow.
Stay Curious
Our natural talents, fueled by our culture, backgrounds, and experiences, influence who we are, but we are responsible for who we continue to become. New circumstances can also create new triggers or lead to different reactions. Stay curious, and don’t stop seeking to understand yourself. For example, when I first moved to Malaysia in 2016, I sought out a counselor and psychologist to help me learn more about who I was and what I was feeling. Moving to another country was a big change for me and my family and I wanted to make sure that I learned to cope as effectively as possible when making big moves such as this one.
Identify External Factors
Identify what factors, triggers or indicators – both negative and positive – prompt others’ behaviors toward you. Why do you do the things you do, and how do others respond? How do you respond in turn, and why do you react the way that you do? What is the impact of culture on your perspective and others’ perceptions?
Gather Trusted Feedback
Feedback leads to empathy and helps you understand the impact of your actions on others. One of the key indicators of low self-awareness is being unaware of personal blind spots—traits or aspects that may limit the way you act, react, behave, or believe, and in turn, limit your effectiveness.
Consider the Circumstances
Think about when to utilize a personality trait to your advantage and when it’s best to leave it on the sidelines. According to the MIT study, most self-aware CEOs learned to identify their “outlier tendencies” and adjusted their behavior accordingly in order to change the way they were perceived. This is situational leadership, which is a leadership style that I am always talking about and am a huge advocate of. They didn’t undergo an entire personality overhaul; rather, they learned how to be themselves but with more refined skills. The executives considered which business or social situations required which personality traits (for example, extraversion or openness) and which did not.
BH Nugget
Learning about yourself or self-awareness is sadly something that the US educational system lacks in teaching us today. There should be self-awareness classes taught to help individuals realize what their natural talents are and how and when to apply them. This can help individuals develop a greater level of authenticity early on in their careers and can help build better leaders. Let your self-awareness help you reach greater heights.
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