Self-awareness – The Foundation Of Effective Leadership
- Jan 18, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: Mar 16, 2024
Written by: Jayne Sanders, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Any good article on Emotional Intelligence will point out that self-awareness is the first pivotal step. Any good culture or leadership consultant will tell you that authenticity is critical for effective leadership. I will tell you that the only way to authenticity is being self-aware. How can you be authentic if you don’t know what to be authentic to?
“I think self-awareness is probably the most important thing towards being a champion.” –Billie Jean King
“Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet – thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing – consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust.” Lance Secretan Authenticity creates trust, safety, and connection. A leader who is inconsistent and unpredictable is difficult to trust. Team members having to second-guess a leader’s response to ideas or situations, fearing the leader’s reaction, cannot be fully engaged. They will avoid connection and interaction, and sometimes hide issues that need solutions and support. Toxic work environments usually start with the leader.
“Authenticity is everything! You have to wake up every day and look in the mirror, and you want to be proud of the person who's looking back at you. And you can only do that if you're being honest with yourself and being a person of high character. You have an opportunity every single day to write that story of your life.” Aaron Rodgers
Think about it – can you trust someone you can’t figure out? Someone who is unpredictable? Probably not.
Authentic leaders are real, vulnerable, compassionate, consistent, and honest. These are the qualities that engender trust and connection. These are the leaders who people want to follow. These leaders create the culture that attracts people, inspire people to contribute in meaningful ways, and keep those people.
“A workplace that encourages self-awareness is an environment where the most productive, curious, and innovative people thrive.” – Neil Blumenthal
Several high-quality self-awareness assessment tools are available in the business world: Meyers-Briggs, DISC, BP10, StrengthsFinder, and the Enneagram to name the most commonly used. Their impact on personal and professional lives can be quite positive IF – and that is a very important qualifier – the findings are understood and implemented.
One of the challenges with these assessments is the room for user error. For example, the dependence on the taker’s interpretation of the questions asked, the mood they are in when taking the assessment, and their indecision on whether the correct answer is 2 or 3. The chance of receiving different results from the same test taken twice are considerable, as I have personally experienced.
In contrast, an Executive Work/Life Blueprint (sometimes called Scientific Hand Analysis – SHA) is based in neurotechnology. The lines in your hands mimic the neural pathways in your brain. For centuries, medical professionals used hands as one of their diagnostic tools. The SHA system was developed over a 40-year period, analyzing over 30,000 hands to build the database. That number is more than any FDA-approved drug on the market. Increasing numbers of neurologists, counselors, coaches, and medical doctors are using this neuroscientific tool. The accuracy is profound and highlighted in a FORBES article.
The information available to you from an Executive Work/Life Blueprint is completely independent of what you are feeling, thinking, or saying at the time, or at any time for that matter. The information is etched in your hands and can only be interpreted by a certified Scientific Hand Analyst, such as myself. I am certified to the highest level as a Level IV and Master, and I have achieved this level by completing far more than 1,000 hand analyses as well as being certified to teach this specialty after five years of study.
A neuroscientific analysis reveals a great deal about who you are and why you’re here. The depth of self-awareness is eye-opening and profound. Not only does it provide accurate and comprehensive insight into the depths of your personality and talents, but also clear guidance for me to use when coaching business owners through their challenges and into their best version of themselves as leaders. Additionally, I can use the results of this tool to address and resolve conflicts within teams, and help leaders assign projects and positions more effectively. All of this implementation help improve engagement, morale, teamwork, and retention.
Whichever tool you choose to use, I highly encourage a never-ending self-awareness journey, with the support and guidance to help implement the information you discover. We are complex creatures; we have a great deal to uncover and inner mysteries to solve. The more awareness we gain, and the more authenticity we demonstrate – the better we feel, and the deeper trust, connection, and cohesion we can create at home and at work.
Jayne Sanders facilitates purpose, talent identification, and alignment for professionals, executives, and corporate groups. Her experience as an executive and consultant includes work with US Steel, MassMutual, Prudential, and Toyota. She performs neuroscientific assessments that enable better performance by aligning people with their authenticity, purpose and talents and resolving barriers that naturally occur within leadership teams. She has been featured in FORBES magazine for the accuracy and depth of her work. Sanders combines neuro-assessment with coaching to help business owners, leaders, and their teams discover their innate purposes and gifts for greater success. As a result, they become more authentic and effective role models. This leads to higher engagement, morale, productivity, and retention.
Jayne Sanders, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
A MASTER Scientific Hand Analyst with an MBA, corporate background, and 3 coaching certifications – Purpose, Law of Attraction, and Spiritual Life Coach – and featured in a FORBES article about her work, Jayne Sanders helps leaders, business owners, and teams expand their self-awareness and authenticity for greater business results including higher engagement and retention.
Using her extensive past corporate experience, along with Scientific Hand Analysis and her proprietary Coaching process, she reveals your purpose, special gifts, and blind spots, then guides you into the inspired meaning, passion and fulfillment you crave in both life and work. Corporate and team benefits are numerous as well. When not doing her purpose work, Jayne can be found out on the trail riding her beautiful chestnut horse Scarlett, or eating dark chocolate. And sometimes both at the same time!
