4 Paths to Increased Self Awareness

According to research performed over decades by the Center for Creative Leadership, self-awareness is one of the most critical of leadership competencies.  It is defined as having an accurate picture of oneself and seeking feedback to improve.

Self-awareness includes the ability to do an honest self-assessment, to understand your strengths and weaknesses, to seek feedback to improve, and to make needed behavioral adjustments. It also includes awareness of your feelings, one of the important elements of emotional intelligence.

Lack of self-awareness can lead to problems that can stall or derail a career. These include difficulty in building effective interpersonal relationships, building and leading a team, difficulty changing or adapting to shifting priorities, and learning from mistakes.

How self-aware are you? And just how do you become more self-aware?  As a high-performance coach, I’ve helped many clients with this challenge.  Here are four ways to develop your self-awareness.

1. Set an intention for your day, the week, and the month-or for a specific meeting or project. Be deliberate about what you want to achieve and how you want to behave in the process. Then, take time for reflection at the end of that event or timeframe to check in. Rate your performance on a scale of 1 to 10 and determine how you can do better. Extra credit for journaling about this process.
2. Ask for feedback and learn to welcome it, without judgment or defensiveness. Think of feedback as a gift and appreciate how rare it is. The more effectively you can do this, the better the quality of feedback you will receive. You need to make it safe for people to be honest. Let people know what improvements you are working on and ask for help with that.
3. Use a diagnostic tool to pinpoint an area for improvement. There are multi-rater assessments you can use to better understand the perspectives of others, as well as single-use tools for specific purposes. Examples of these include understanding your strengths, your behavioral patterns, how you communicate and interact with others, your approach to managing conflict, your style of influence, how you solve problems, and how emotionally intelligent you are. (If you need help with the diagnostics, let’s talk). 

4. Create more accountability for yourself. Hire a coach, join a mastermind group, or find an accountability partner. Each of these is a way to enlist others in your learning and development. I have used all these methods at various times for different purposes and have found that it is the most effective way to stay on track. There are also apps that provide accountability.  My favorite is GrowthDay.  You can learn more about that here. (Full disclosure, if you sign up, I may earn a commission, but don’t let that stop you!) This is a fabulous app for personal development.

Building self-awareness is a worthy pursuit for any leader or aspiring leader. The more ways you practice, the more insights you will have, and the more improvements you can make in your leadership ability and credibility.

Please share this post with anyone you feel could benefit. And let me know your thoughts on this topic as well.  Always love hearing from you!