By Hubert Saint-Onge
As I wrote the last four blogs, it became clear that the topics I wanted to tackle were intricately related. I first wrote about ‘interdependence’ after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about a high-profile structural change at Hyundai. I wrote the following blog on ‘collaboration’ because it fuels interdependence. I then wrote about ‘trust’ because ‘collaboration’ is impossible without it. This blog, the fourth in the series, is about ‘self-awareness,’ the foundation for trust.
Self-awareness is not just a personal development tool; it's a trust-building tool that can significantly enhance our leadership effectiveness and authenticity. It is the key to unlocking our leadership potential, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, and differentiating between the habits that make us effective and those that stand in our way. More importantly, self-awareness is the foundation of trust. When we are self-aware, we consistently align with our values and the principles we advocate. This alignment makes people perceive us as trustworthy because they know what to expect. Self-awareness is not just a personal development tool; it's a trust-building tool that can enhance our leadership effectiveness and authenticity.
Self-awareness is a crucial development tool for calibrating behaviours.
In reality, many leaders who now appear to exercise flawless leadership have had to make difficult corrections to their approach at one point or another. A trait that can be effective in one context can become counter-productive when the situation changes. Leaders may need to play up or rein in different facets of their personality by moving up the hierarchy into new roles or environments. What were strengths can become weaknesses.
Self-awareness is not just a tool; it's a catalyst for profound leadership growth. It has the transformative power to turn what might have been a long and arduous trial-and-error path into a journey of self-discovery and adaptability. When leaders embrace self-awareness, it becomes a highly effective self-operated tool, enabling them to develop a more adaptable leadership style. It empowers leaders to become aware of their ‘leadership inner self’ as an entity they can build and refine. Self-awareness is a potent tool that helps leaders identify weaknesses they can overcome or compensate for. It gives leaders a clear view of their tendencies, allowing them to self-correct and calibrate better to the situation. It helps them uncover their blind spots. Ultimately, it can be the key to unlocking one's potential and leading to significant personal and professional growth.
Some leaders may be too impatient and overreact. Or their assertiveness may intimidate people and keep them from hearing the whole story. They are so caught up with themselves that they fail to ask questions and listen instead of reacting too fast and shutting down the conversation.
Their body language may communicate a different impression than they intend to project. They are insufficiently aware of their body language.
They may focus on specific aspects of the situation, have preconceived notions that no longer apply and miss critical points.
They may come across as self-serving when, in fact, their interest and enthusiasm are misinterpreted
These examples illustrate that the idea is to use self-awareness to be yourself more skillfully. Most successful leaders have had to work on themselves to manage or tone down potentially career-limiting traits at one point or another in their careers. For instance, a leader who tends to be overly critical can use self-awareness to moderate their criticism and provide constructive feedback instead. Introspection is one’s access to self-awareness, which offers insights to turn weaknesses into strengths and helps cultivate a more effective leadership practice.
It is vital for self-awareness to keep track of your thoughts and feelings and put them on pause when they appear to lead you on a path that is not productive. You must recognize your outlier tendencies and go out of your way to learn how others perceive them. You may want to take some distance from the situation and work to assess the possible implications of alternative ways to react. Passion, hard work and intensity are vital traits for leaders, but those traits can also be overwhelming. An inflated ego will prevent someone from being self-aware. It is a powerful force that can keep you from being your best self. It often stems from the need to prove oneself to others. The correction is to develop healthy self-esteem. It takes a strong will and concentrated work, but many with a strong will have acquired the humility and vulnerability to satiate this inner beast.
The lesson here is straightforward: the bundle of traits that work for you as a leader can rapidly become a source of problems. When red flags pop up, you must become more observant of your thoughts and behavioural patterns to assess them more readily and respond quickly without hurting your potential trajectory. It is helpful to take a 'helicopter view,' which means stepping back from the situation and looking at it from a broader perspective. This creates psychological distance and allows you to see the bigger picture, not just the immediate problem. Learning to unhook from unhelpful thoughts and practices becomes essential to your success.
Self-awareness enables the consistency and authenticity of leaders
Leaders who sense that they are acting in line with their aspirations and values get into a ‘flow’ that enhances their self-confidence and effectiveness. Without this level of alignment, they experience a lack of internal harmony and even chaos, which makes their interactions more difficult for everyone involved and negatively impacts the level of trust. As you become more aware of the impact of your interactions, you become more fluid and open to dialogue. When facing differences of opinion, this opens the possibility of composing with people to reach an acceptable resolution for all involved. Enabling this quality of conversation becomes the foundation for exercising highly effective leadership.
Internal self-awareness
It is helpful to distinguish internal and external self-awareness. Internal self-awareness refers to thinking about how well we are aligned with our personal goals, aspirations, and values. We assess how well we are doing related to these three key factors. Values often play a vital role in these three critical factors of self-awareness, even though, for many people, they tend to be nebulous and require clarification. Best defined as ‘prioritized ideals,’ our values play a crucial role in assessing how we are doing at any moment.
I do extensive work helping executives clarify and articulate their values. Even though most of them are vague about their values, they are often surprised by what comes to the surface. For instance, one executive declared at the beginning of the exercise that “family” was bar-none as his most important value. Yet, it ended up at the bottom of his prioritized list of values.
Your values can become important when you encounter ‘rough seas’ internally. Inner conflicts can be debilitating. Unattended, they drain you of energy. Addressing inner conflicts brings self-respect and credibility. The anxiety this can create is the precursor for growth. Resolving these inner conflicts enables you to help others and earn their respect. A valid approach to clarifying your values can contribute meaningfully to self-awareness. The clarity of your values will contribute to your self-awareness. My experience is that most people have a vague or inaccurate view of their values. Referring to a systematic tool to identify your essential leadership values is necessary.
External Self-awareness
Gauging how you impact others is the focus of external self-awareness. It requires rising above an exchange to assess our impact on an interlocutor. It often helps to call upon the ‘third eye’ perspective to take stock of how we impact others. Looking at the interaction from a third eye placed above us helps us see how our points of view are received as we take a more neutral perspective. It entails looking at how our contribution to the dynamic corresponds to what we ideally would like to achieve in the discussion.
Again, alignment with our aspirations, goals, and values gives us confidence and insight into how to contribute to building relationships. A lack of alignment creates involuntary but palpable friction that throws sand in the gears. It inserts doubt in the underlying confidence and trust, and the ‘flow’ of the exchange is lost. Creating your own space, even briefly, can be very helpful when this happens. Take a few breaths and look at the situation in the cold light of day. The ego-driven thoughts that readily come to the fore often do not serve as helpful guides. Rejecting these thoughts outright can be counter-productive: take the time to recognize them and set them aside. It is usually helpful to “label” thoughts that regularly come to mind but that you have doubts about - labelling is also a way to set aside doubt and create distance with dysfunctional thoughts. Then, attempt to relaunch the discussion on a more aligned note, either then or later.
Self-awareness enables us to choose how to respond to people and situations in a way that resonates with our values, principles, and aspirations. This inner knowledge allows us to be consistent in a way that creates trust around us. We can have access to insights despite the chaos we sometimes experience. We see reality more clearly and are more in control of ourselves and situations. Self-awareness allows us to come across more authentically.
Leaders who are not self-aware are more likely to create disorder around them, and those with greater self-awareness are more aligned with the people around them. Interactions flow more easily. They are aware of what is important to them. They can readily articulate their values and keep them in mind. Even though it is helpful to see the difference between internal and external self-awareness, it is just as important to integrate these two dimensions into their everyday practice. This becomes essential in a complex and ambiguous context when their inner rudder needs the whole picture to navigate with resilience. They can adapt to what is happening and lead others accordingly.
They know when they experience dissonance with their values and can self-correct to preserve their inner integrity. Self-aware leaders reflect on how they come across. After complicated interactions, they assess how well they have come across in line with their leadership intentions. If the self encompasses all we become aware of, it means what we pay attention to shaping the self. In other words, we build a construct in our minds that becomes a reference point for how we conduct ourselves.
Being guided by our values and aspirations – as simple as ‘always respect others’- becomes an integral part of the self. As this evolves, we need to give attention to the self we are creating and not leave it to the hazard of the many thoughts that pop up. The vacuous mind leads to haphazard behaviours governed by impulse. In many ways, we become what we attend to. Living our values and realizing our deepest aspirations with self-awareness eventually becomes what Abraham Maslow has called self-actualization.
Questions to help you determine your level of self-awareness
This questionnaire is to help you determine the aspects of self-awareness that would be most useful for you to develop.
"To what extent do I…"
1 … bring my authentic self to work and to each situation I face?
2… leverage my strengths?
3… recognize my weaknesses?
4… seek feedback and take it into account?
5… have a good grasp of my emotions and manage them effectively?
6… maintain composure and make rational decisions under pressure?
7… focus on personal growth (myself and others) rather than how I’m perceived?
8… keep my values in mind when I deal with others?
9… read how people react when I exchange with them?
10…foresee how my words and actions will impact others?
11…show respect to others when disagreeing with them?
12…avoid over-reacting in difficult conversations?
13…listen to others disagreeing with me without feeling my credibility is being questioned?
14…feel at ease working through a difficult situation with people?
15…pivot readily when a solution I’m advocating is not working out?
16…ensure people around me understand my leadership values/principles?
17…set goals and criteria for how I will interact with others and review them regularly?
18…feel energized when working through a difficult situation with people?
19…detect opportunities to improve myself?
20…readily change my assumptions and beliefs when they prove to be wrong?
21…engage in self-reflection to learn from past experiences?
22…feel comfortable showing vulnerability when having made a mistake?
23…willing to change my convictions based on what others tell me?
24…find it essential to connect well with others when resolving challenging situations?
25…invest in relationships whether or not they work out?
Conclusion
Some of our habitual behaviours may hinder our aspirations and contradict our values. Values do evolve, and being stuck in old behaviour patterns may cause us to experience dissatisfaction with behaviours that no longer align with our current values and beliefs. A calm sense of inner wisdom depends on it. Self-awareness gives us the possibility to change.
The link between trust and self-awareness is that to engender trust, you must behave in ways that align with who you are. Self-awareness comes when you work to clarify yourself, your principles, tendencies and habits. To be trusted, you must be seen as authentic: you must first be comfortable in your skin. You must align with your values as they evolve with experience and maturity. Self-awareness is the compass that helps you find this alignment.
Self-awareness helps you understand your approaches to become more observant and aware of your thoughts and behavioural patterns. Although, admittedly, self-reflection is not for everyone, it is an asset when you sense the need to calibrate your behaviours. Knowing oneself can only come from self-awareness. There is always a good reason for how we have developed over time. But, as contexts change, we must ask ourselves what behaviours no longer serve us well. We must accept ourselves and be open to growth.