Self-Awareness

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Personal values, ideals and beliefs shape who we are as individuals and leaders. Moreover, as we progress through life experiences, education and professions, our values, ideals and beliefs are either reinforced or challenged. Thus, as we continue to evolve, so do our concepts of self and self-identity. According to Yukl (2012), “leaders have a high self‐awareness about their values, beliefs, emotions, self‐identities, and abilities. In other words, they know who they are and what they believe. They also have a high degree of self‐acceptance, which is similar to emotional maturity” (p.351).

As a leader, the ability to self-evaluate or incorporate self-awareness is a skill that should be employed regularly. Possessing the skill of self-awareness is essential for a leader to grow, develop and mature. Furthermore, it provides a lens for leaders to see how they influence others and how effective that influence is, which forces a leader to be flexible and adaptive. Zenger (2014) states in an article about a leader’s self-awareness, “For us, the most important element of self-awareness, especially for those who lead organizations, is a clear understanding of the impact they are having on the people around them.” Indeed, how a leader influences and impacts those around them directly and indirectly contributes to the organizations cohesiveness and effectiveness.

Another important aspect to self-awareness for leaders is the ability to identify and leverage the “differences” between themselves and their team members (or anyone for that matter). As previously emphasized, leaders must continuously take stock of their attributes and characteristics in contexts to be effective. One way this is done is the leader actively seeks to draw on theirs and others strengths in differences and bring harmony to a situation. “Effective leaders keep working at this art. They develop a close understanding of their differences. In particular they become aware of what is different about them that makes them attractive to others. They learn to use these differences to their advantage in a leadership role” (Goffee and Jones, 2006, p. 32).

When discussing self-awareness, we would be remiss not to include an assessments worst enemy, a “subjective” mind. More times than not, what a leaders believes is a clear statement or innovative plan, can be misinterpreted or misunderstood by their followers. This is where the leadership surveys or the 360 degree feedback process bridges the gap from a leader’s perspective to how others actually see them. According to Zenger (2014), “Some will suggest that people themselves know their strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else. We respectfully disagree.  If the total score on a 360 is used as the best, most objective measure we have of leadership behavior, we would note that self-perceptions are only half as accurate at predicting the total score as the rating of any other rater (e.g., managers, peers, direct reports and others).” Zenger (2014) goes on to highly this point by identifying that “Some of the more frequent distortions are as follows:”

1.     The lack of clarity about the organizations plans for the future, when the leader feels it is perfectly clear and that it has been frequently communicated.

2.     The seeming contradiction between what the leader says and what subordinates perceive her to be doing.  “We say we want to be customer centric, but you want to nickel and dime the customer for any little request they make.”

3.     The apparent contrast between stated values and day-to-day policies, such as, “We want to build a trusting climate where people are empowered,” yet a manager needs to get multiple signatures to make something right for a customer.

 

In order for leadership to be effective, it must have involve an “interpersonal relationship between leader and followers, and the ideal relationship is one with high mutual respect, trust, cooperation, loyalty, and openness” (Yukl, 2012, p. 357). A leader accomplishes this by regularly practicing self-awareness. Through constant interaction and leadership surveys, a leader can observe how they impact those around them and see how others view their leadership abilities. For a leader to grow and further develop into an effective leader, they must be flexible and adapt their skills to get the most out of themselves and their followers. By acknowledging their differences and identifying the difference in others, they are able to skillfully leverage their strengths to achieve a common goal.

References
Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2006). Getting personal on the topic of leadership. Human Resource Management International Digest, 14 (4), 32-34.

Yukl, Gary A. (2012-02-09). Leadership in Organizations (8th Edition) (Page 357). Pearson HE, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Zenger, J. (2014). The Singular Secret For A Leader’s Success: Self-Awareness. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackzenger/2014/04/17/the-singular-secret-for-a-leaders-success-self-awareness/#e53c34277e43