Self-Awareness for Success
September 23, 2011 at 10:10 AM
According to Bill George, author of True North, when seventy-five members of the Stanford Graduate School of Business Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous “Self-Awareness.” I see this play out with clients over and over again. As human beings, and therefore as leaders, we all have “blind spots” – or those aspects of our personalities and behavior that may be getting in the way of our having the impact we want to have and getting the results we want.
I recently worked with a leader who had received some feedback that his communication style was off-putting at best and offensive when he was at his worst. He was shocked at the news because he considered himself a good communicator and in particular, a good listener. He was quite surprised to learn that others not only didn’t see him this way but saw him quite the opposite. In fact, when he asked his wife about it, she made comments similar to his team. While painful to hear, this information was critical to his ongoing success as a leader. Research from the Center for Creative Leadership shows that two of the reasons executives fail are problems with interpersonal relationships and inability to build and lead a team. Self-awareness is critical to both.
Conversely, Amanda was another client who had a similar yet different self-awareness problem. She was well aware of her weaknesses and spent a lot of time beating herself up for them. She on the other hand had blind spots relative to her strengths. When, through a series of assessments and interviews we were able to discover what others saw to be her strengths, she burst into tears. She was shocked to hear the positive way her team and senior leaders described her. Understanding our strengths allows us to build confidence and better leverage them for the good of our organizations.
Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” As human beings who want to use ourselves as leaders in service of our communities, our organizations and our world, we have to start with understanding what gifts we bring, what motivates us and how we need to grow. The starting point in any coaching engagement is with self-awareness. Armed with new information about him or herself, a client can begin to plan their course of evolution. We need to open ourselves up to feedback, ask those around us how we are doing and be willing to listen. I believe time for personal reflection should be built into every day and encourage clients set aside time for it in their busy schedules. Regardless of your position in an organization or where you want to be a leader, self-awareness is the most critical skill to be developed to ensure success.