Become a Better Leader by Improving Your Self-Awareness
When we think about leadership qualities, we usually think about the ability to rally troops, clarity of vision, and a willingness to get the best out of each team member. What we are not inclined to think about is self-awareness. Self-awareness, in fact, has a certain touch of a new era – which leader lies on a cannabis blanket, looks at the ceiling and deeply thinks about whether she really understands her innermost self?
But it turns out that self-awareness is a very important trait for an effective leader. Improving self-awareness is possible and desirable for those who want to become better managers, according to new research by Tashi Eirich.
Eirich, writing for the Harvard Business Review , breaks down her definition of self-awareness into two categories: internal and external. Inner self-awareness “ shows how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, conformity to our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behavior, strengths and weaknesses) and influence on others.” External self-awareness is more than we clearly see how others see us. Self-aware people tend to be happier at work and in their personal lives; people with external self-awareness tend to be more empathetic and have a good relationship with their coworkers.
No one type of self-awareness is more important than the other; In fact, an effective leader would be wise to cultivate both. Eirich identified four “archetypes” of self-awareness, laid out on a graceful grid, which range from high inner self-awareness / high outer self-awareness to low inner / low outer.
Hint: you want to have high scores in both. Eirich writes: “Leaders must actively work to see themselves clearly and receive feedback so that they can understand how others are seeing them. The highly self-aware people we interviewed were actively focused on balancing the scale. ”
So how can you know if you are really knowledgeable about yourself, or if you are a big dummy who thinks everyone loves him when his employees are actively updating their resumes / leaving in droves / preparing for a coup? Eurich offers a short quiz , an abbreviated version of the 70-question exam that includes feedback from many others in your life. (This is no different from the 360-degree assessment that companies do.) In the mini-version, you answer some questions about yourself, and other questions (including about you) are sent to someone who knows you well.
That’s all well and good, but how can you improve your self-awareness? One interesting takeaway is that the higher up the ladder of success a person becomes, the less self-aware they become (successful people tend to think they have more skills than they actually have; perhaps because when you become a boss, the number of people willing to talk frankly with you about your skills is falling rapidly).
And introspection doesn’t really help much, especially if you start your questions with the “why” question. As Eirich found out, it is much more productive to start questions with what . She refers to an interviewee who has successfully changed the field of view of his introspection techniques: “Where would many people get stuck thinking,“ Why do I feel so terrible? “He asked,” What situations make me feel terrible and what do they have? common? “”. Ideally, this will take you out of the cycle of unproductive thoughts – why do my co-workers seem so lethargic in meetings? – and into a productive line of reasoning: in what situations do my employees seem to be full of energy and enthusiasm?
Thinking this way can only improve the way you think about your career and your colleagues, and improve the way they see you (or at least bring these two perceptions in line). You can’t get better if you cheat yourself, so spend some time reflecting on your self-awareness using Eurich tools or on your own. No hemp blanket required.