Self-awareness is widely recognized as a critical leadership skill, yet few leaders and organizations take the time to truly understand what self-awareness encompasses and how to develop it effectively. This paper aims to provide clarity on the nature of self-awareness and offer practical, research-backed guidance for cultivating greater self-awareness as an organizational leader.
Today we will explore the research behind cultivating self-awareness and how we can effectively leverage self-awareness in our leadership style and approach.
Defining self-awareness
To understand how to develop self-awareness, we must first be clear on what exactly it is. At its core, self-awareness refers to an individual's understanding of their own personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, and emotions. However, research reveals self-awareness encompasses much more depth and nuance than a simple self-understanding.
Psychologists break self-awareness down into three interrelated components:
Internal self-awareness - Being attuned to one's internal states, including physiological sensations, emotions, and thought processes. This involves monitoring and recognizing feelings as they occur.
Situational self-awareness - Understanding how one's behaviors and attitudes are influenced by social contexts and relationships with others. This includes recognizing how one may come across to different people.
Private self-consciousness - Tendency to introspect frequently and focus inwardly on one's own thoughts and feelings rather than the external environment.
True self-awareness is a multidimensional construct involving deep intrapersonal and interpersonal understanding. It is more than basic knowledge of oneself - it requires active reflection and continual assessment of how one thinks, feels, and behaves across internal experiences and social situations over time.
Importance of self-awareness for leadership
A wealth of research establishes that higher self-awareness correlates strongly with more effective leadership through several mechanisms:
Emotional Intelligence - Studies show emotional intelligence, characterized partly by self-awareness of emotions, better predicts leadership success than IQ or technical skills alone. Self-aware leaders understand how their feelings influence behaviors and can manage them appropriately.
Authenticity - Authentic leaders know their values and act in line with them. Meta-analyses found authentic leadership was positively linked to increased follower job satisfaction, commitment, and performance. Developing self-awareness is key to leading authentically.
Adaptive decision-making - Self-awareness helps recognize cognitive biases to avoid poor or rash decisions. Research found increased mindfulness - a byproduct of self-reflection - led to wiser, more data-driven choices by leaders.
Team management - Awareness of reactions to different situations helps understand team member behavior and needs. Studies show self-aware leaders are better able to motivate teams and manage conflicts constructively.
Well-being and stress management - Recognizing thoughts and emotions enables channeling stress into productive outlets. Research correlates self-awareness with reduced burnout and greater life satisfaction in leaders.
Leaders who develop self-awareness reap rewards around emotional control, authentic guidance, informed decisions, team success, and enhanced well-being - all core components of respected leadership.
Cultivating self-awareness: A holistic framework
To develop self-awareness, a holistic framework spanning self-reflection, feedback seeking, and wellness management is most effective. Next, we outline proven strategies for each:
Self-reflection
Journaling - Daily journaling to explore thoughts, feelings, behaviors, values, stresses and how they change over time builds significant self-reflection muscles.
Meditation and mindfulness - Regular practices like meditation and yoga introduce leaders to inner experiences and help recognize subtle reactions and thought patterns.
Perspective taking - Imagining how others see yourself reveals blind spots and influences on behaviors. Reflecting on past decisions from various angles also increases awareness.
Seeking feedback
360-degree reviews - Anonymous multi-rater assessments uncover tendencies and impacts not obvious internally, spurring reflection and growth.
Coaching - Working with an executive coach provides an objective outsider perspective and holds leaders accountable to development goals over time.
Peer feedback partners - Choosing trusted colleagues to exchange candid yet compassionate feedback at set intervals maintains accountability and opens new perspectives.
Wellness management
Embodied awareness practices - Activities like tai chi and Alexander technique enhance recognition of physical tension and relaxation states linked to thoughts and emotions.
Self-care habits - Prioritizing sleep, nutrition, exercise and downtime supports emotional regulation and clarity needed for deeper reflection.
Mindfulness of routines - Noticing effects of schedules, environments and habits on mood, energy and focus aids understanding of triggers and limits.
Commitment to developing self-awareness across multiple channels builds a comprehensive, ongoing practice rather than isolated events. Next we examine practical implementation across specific industries.
Industry application: Healthcare example
Self-awareness holds particular value for healthcare leadership given intense emotional demands and impacts on lives. Consider a hospital director seeking to cultivate self-awareness among unit managers.
Strategies could include:
Department-wide 360 reviews to highlight tendencies like micro-management or impatience with staff.
Mindfulness meditation group establishing reflective routines and building cohesion across diverse teams.
"Check-ins" added to weekly unit meetings where managers share a challenge and receive peer feedback to help adjust future approaches.
Promoting benefits of yoga/tai chi by hosting taster sessions and covering costs through employee wellness programs.
Encouraging managers to use personal days fully via calendar reminders and role-modeling good work-life balance.
Offering mentorship with a senior clinician focused on both job skills and emotional resilience given distressing patient outcomes at times.
This multi-pronged approach leverages self-reflection, peer accountability, embodied practices and self-care to give busy healthcare leaders tools for ongoing self-awareness development critical to their effectiveness and well-being. Oversight by hospital leadership maintains long-term commitment.
Industry application: Technology company example
Fast-paced tech work cultures also require self-aware leaders able to navigate frequent change and ambiguity while maintaining motivation. For a software engineering director, possibilities include:
Launching an executive coaching program pairing directors with experienced coaches for monthly check-ins reviewing goals.
Introducing "Feedback Fridays" encouraging brief self-reflection emails to the team about that week's experiences and learnings.
Offering mindfulness workshops taught by experienced practitioners during regular all-hands meetings to build reflection habits.
Providing calm room equipped with biofeedback devices, yoga mats and soothing music to encourage embodied awareness breaks throughout intense coding sprints.
Tracking recurring 1:1 meeting topics to surface patterns in team relations or communication styles needing adjustment.
Recommending popular self-paced online courses on topics like emotional intelligence, resilience and neuroscience to support self-directed learning and foster conversations.
This blend of individualized and group-based and activities leverages workplace structures, available technologies and interests of tech workers to embed self-awareness as a supported cultural norm.
Conclusion
Today we aimed to cut through common misconceptions around self-awareness and provide a comprehensive resource for organizational leaders seeking to develop this core competency. While increasing self-awareness requires commitment to an ongoing reflective practice, research clearly shows its importance for leadership success across industries. A self-aware leader better manages emotions, leads authentically, makes wiser decisions, fosters high-performing teams and maintains well-being - all translating to bottom-line benefits.
By applying strategies spanning self-reflection, feedback-seeking and wellness across work contexts, leaders can embed self-awareness as a continual growth process. Healthy organizational cultures also play a role by endorsing reflection, accountability and work-life balance as norms rather than optional programs. Ultimately, truly knowing oneself and one's impact on others provides the foundation for outstanding, sustained leadership to steer thriving and dynamic enterprises into the future. Committing to this inner work delivers great rewards.
References
Bennis, W. G., & Thomas, R. J. (2002). Gut feeling: The intelligence of the unconscious. Leader to leader, 2002(23), 55-59.
Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. Journal of Consulting and Clinical psychology, 43(4), 522.
Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.
Gardner, W. L., Cogliser, C. C., Davis, K. M., & Dickens, M. P. (2011). Authentic leadership: A review of the literature and research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 22(6), 1120-1145.
Kiken, L. G., & Shook, N. J. (2011). Looking up: Mindfulness increases positive judgments and reductions negativity bias. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 2(4), 425-431.
Johnson, R. E. (2009). Leader-member exchange quality: Current state of the field. In Leader-member exchange (pp. 89-119). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Avolio, B. J., & Gardner, W. L. (2005). Authentic leadership development: Getting to the root of positive forms of leadership. The leadership quarterly, 16(3), 315-338.
Brown, K. W., & Ryan, R. M. (2015). A self-determination theory perspective on fostering healthy self-regulation from within and without. In S. Joseph (Ed.), Positive psychology in practice (2nd ed., pp. 139–157). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley
Jonathan H. Westover, PhD is Chief Academic & Learning Officer (HCI Academy); Chair/Professor, Organizational Leadership (UVU); OD Consultant (Human Capital Innovations). Read Jonathan Westover's executive profile here.
