What Is Self-Awareness In Leadership, And Why Is It Important?
- Brainz Magazine
- Feb 28, 2023
- 5 min read
Written by: Vivien Roggero, 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.
Honesty, perseverance, confidence, and drive are all important traits of good leaders. But one trait that sets excellent leaders apart from good leaders is their willingness to know themselves and others. Self-awareness in leadership is a significant quality that most influential leaders possess. Being self-aware means you're able to understand your emotions, behaviors, traits, values, beliefs, and purpose.
Knowing how to cultivate your self-awareness is a way you can work toward becoming an exceptional leader and encouraging a positive workplace environment. As a leader, you should have this skill, as it is key to the success of any organization. But this skill can not be achieved without dedication or overnight. No worries, I'm writing this blog to help you improve your self-awareness and drive your leadership potential.
In this blog post, I will discuss self-awareness in leadership and its utmost importance, and I will offer the top eight ways to help you increase your self-awareness in leadership. Let's get started!
What Is Self-Awareness In Leadership
Self-awareness in leadership is the ability to understand your own personality and individuality. It is an admirable trait that lets you know your behavior, habits, character, motives, and other characteristics. Being self-aware means you're aware of how others perceive your words and actions, so you become able to make good decisions that align with your team.
Self-awareness promotes personal growth and control.Self-aware leaders have a growth mindset, the ability to forgive others, and a strong sense of responsibility for themselves. When leaders are self-aware, they use their strengths to coach their teams effectively to get the best possible outcomes. Therefore, developing self-awareness is the first and most crucial step to becoming a great leader and becoming emotionally intelligent.
Why Is It Important?
Without self-awareness, leaders can not understand their role. Self-awareness in leadership is important because it assists leaders in making better decisions and managing stress better.
Influential leaders utilize this tool to control their behaviors and interactions. Moreover, attaining self-awareness helps leaders understand their roles and strengths. Therefore, self-aware leaders understand where their skills and experience lie and use their strengths to achieve their goals.
The person with self-awareness becomes mindful, self-controlled, confident, adaptable, and more empathetic. Thus, they positively influence their team, which yields better results at work. In addition, self-awareness in leadership helps leaders to set reasonable goals and inspires the team to accomplish those goals. In short, self-awareness helps leaders in all business situations to stand out from others.
8 Ways To IncreaseYour Self-Awareness In Leadership
We've gone through the importance of self-awareness. Now, let's look at how we can enhance self-awareness in leadership. Consider these eight great ways to help you increase your self-awareness and leadership style.
1. Know yourself
A deeper understanding of your inner self is the first and foremost thing to do to elevate self-awareness. Self-reflection and knowing your talents and limitations are crucial to enhance self-awareness in your leadership. You should be emotionally intelligent to recognize yours and other people's emotions.Additionally, knowing yourself means identifying your beliefs and behaviors and determining your standard of right and wrong.
2. Analyze how other people react to you
Another significant way to improve self-awareness in leadership is that you should be aware of how your actions affect others. The best way to assess this is to observe their reactions.Then, identify the reasons that cause them to respond in a particular way. In this way, you'll realize your impact on others and get to know what changes you need to make in yourself.
3. Seek feedback from trusted contacts
To increase your self-awareness, you need to assess yourself, your personality, and your leadership skills on a deeper level. Asking others to give honest feedback will provide you with a more objective view of who you are and how your personality relates to others. It takes courage to seek feedback from others, but it is worth the try to polish yourself and become a self-aware leader. You can take unbiased feedback from your friends, family, and team members.
4. Identify your strengths and weaknesses
Once you've got feedback about how others perceive you, put the insights to good use.
Self-aware leaders know their strengths and weaknesses. Identify yours, find what you're doing good and what should be improved, and then work on improving in those areas.Being mindful of your strengths and weaknesses means knowing when to reach out for help and when you can handle it on your own.
5. Keep a journal and jot down your plans
Another great way to increaseself-awareness in leadership is to keep a journal and jot down your plans and goals. Take some time every day to write down your feelings, emotions, achievements, and reactions without judgement. It'll help you become aware of what you're doing, and you'll be able to track your progress to analyze your decisions and actions. Also, jotting down experiences and goals helps leaders stay focused.
6. Trust your intuition
Successful people follow their intuition in decision-making and accept the risks involved in those choices.The passion for succeeding drives your intuitions. So, learn to trust your intuition because it'll tell you what to do next.
7. Practice self-discipline and stay focused
Great leaders tend to be disciplined in both their personal and professional lives. When you're disciplined, you're automatically more focused, and focus is necessary for strong leadership. Moreover, train your mind to stay focused for a longer time without getting distracted by emails, social media, or other distractions. The more focused you're, the more productive you're, and the better you can become self-aware.
8. Apologize when necessary
Mistakes happen, but self-awareness will help you realize when your errors require apologies. You may have lashed out at your coworkers, did not answer an email, or been difficult to reach out to. The best action is to apologize and change your behavior to move forward.
Benefits Of Self Awareness In Leadership
Self-awareness in leaders can benefit an organization in so many ways. Self-aware leaders know their strengths, talents, weaknesses, and opportunities. They establish trust with their team members and are honest about their shortcomings and leadership styles. By showing it, they set an excellent example for other team members. With self-awareness, leaders can
utilize their talents
cultivate a positive environment of inclusion and acceptance for their team members
understand their biases
understand how to acknowledge their superpower
Improve their decision-making skills and set better priorities
set healthy and defined personal boundaries
Build trust and credibility
become a successful leader
Conclusion
Self-awareness is a crucial trait of becoming a great leader. Understanding self-awareness and practicing it isn't a simple process, but it has enduring rewards. It's important to note that leaders are not born; they're made. So, you've to become a great leader through hard work to create a real change in the world. Remember, self-awareness takes time, practice, and commitment. To practice this admirable trait as a leader, start today by taking actionable steps, and get your colleagues' unbiased and professional input on your leadership skills to see yourself with clearer eyes. Strengthening your self-awareness means committing to a journey to understand better who you're personally and professionally. So, start today and continue seeking to understand yourself.
If you're struggling to understand yourself and want to discuss how self-awareness can accelerate your career and make you a great leader, feel free to get in touch.
Vivien Roggero, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Vivien Roggero is a certified Executive & Empowerment Coach and Entrepreneur. After 15 years of professional journey, expanding from Sales to IT Executive in some world-class startups’, losing his father to COVID, and going through a high-conflict divorce, he decided to dedicate his life to empowering people so they can live a fulfilling life. Those experiences also inspired him to create the One Freedom™ Framework, freedom and purpose-centric approach to life that helps his clients to accelerate their life design process and sculpt growth. His focus is to help clients who feel stuck in their professional or personal journeys or find struggles to re-navigate life after major life-changing events.
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