Knowing yourself is a critical piece of being an effective leader. It is what provides leaders with knowledge of their own character, feelings, and motivations. It provides insight into leadership strengths that can be leveraged and leadership challenges that can be overcome. More importantly, it can help leaders find the effective balance between having big ambitions and conviction together with the humility to be open to opposing ideas and perspectives.
Being self-aware requires introspection, discipline and humility. As the Greek inscription states, “know thyself”. Using tools and practices, leaders can do this in an honest and authentic way. It is not something that is finished once achieved, it requires discipline to continuously remain self-aware.
There are a range of effect tools to gain initial insight into yourself. DiSC, Predictive Index, Myers Briggs, EQ assessments and Strength Finders are all tools that are readily available to help gain self-perspective. Being knowledgeable of your own profile with one of these tools will provide insight into your preferred work style and personality. Using these to know the work styles and personality traits of others can also help you adapt your leadership and communications approach to fit the people you lead.
Daily mindfulness practice is one discipline that enables reflection and focus. Seeking input from others can also provide insights. Journal your observations and priorities to examine why you made a decision and have a feedback loop on those decisions. Re-examination and curiosity are forms of daily practice that requires a level of humility to seek understanding, rather than thinking you already have all the answers.
Another tool for maintaining self-awareness is having an experienced executive coach. Coaches can help probe for insights and to provide feedback connecting behaviors, decisions, actions and outcomes.
Knowing yourself alone is not enough to be an effective leader. You must also do the work to leverage your leadership strengths and overcome your leadership challenges. Too many executives do have a high degree of self-awareness, and yet do not put that awareness into action with changes in their leadership behaviors. They know what their strengths and weaknesses are, yet fail to turn that understanding into intentional actions and outcomes. Some leaders that know their own shortcomings even believe that these self-defeating behaviors have made them successful!
One of the most powerful things leaders can do to advance their effectiveness is to turn self-awareness into actions, change and continuous learning. Self-awareness disciplines provide the insights to constantly be developing and adapting as a leader.
Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive, associated leadership with the ability to deal with and drive change. With strong self-awareness and feedback loops on outcomes, leaders are better able to adapt to change external to their organizations and drive necessary changes internally to achieve sustained results.
As a leader, be able to learn from both what is working and what is not. It is this intentional use of self-awareness tuned to action that ultimately drives the most effective leaders. This helps leaders to build aligned leadership teams intentionally, to drive strategic clarity, to be effective communicators, and to be able to focus their attention on the right priorities and actions to achieve desired outcomes. It is what allow leaders to be both ambitions for their organizations and humble enough to work, learn from and lead others.