What is self awareness? Self awareness is an individual trait. It means being able to observe, analyze and evaluate one’s own self objectively, without any bias. Chinese proverbs suggest that knowing yourself first is greater than understanding others. We might say, self-awareness is about truly knowing our own strengths and weaknesses.
Essentially, self-awareness can be broken down into four basic stages, namely: self-focused attention, evaluation, reaction, and motivated action. This leadership lesson takes a look at each of these.
Self-focused attention can also be called as a ‘hero’ image, because here, the individual evaluates his own worth by comparing himself with the ideal self image. It is important to know that there are almost always some essential differences in one’s own real image and their ideal image. Of course, when a person realizes the differences in these two images, he has two basic choices. He can either react to it by working towards narrowing the differences or he may stop the process of the evaluation completely.
Successful leaders have the ability to bridge the gap between the real image and the ideal self image. It all begins by taking positive steps to getting closer every day and every in action he can to become that ideal self-image. It is all about clearly knowing what that ideal image looks like and being proactive in every action to accomplish it—one action at a time.
A self-aware leader evaluates himself carefully, and incorporates the necessary changes in his behavior after doing a personal and objective analysis. This may not always be easy to do. It starts with looking at relationships and the interactions with each person, one at a time. Self-aware leaders are well aware of how others perceive them. They incorporate these perceptions in self-evaluation as accurately as possible. Getting the ego out of the evaluation process is key!
Some of the tools used by self-aware individuals for self evaluation are reports, supervisor’s perception, peer opinion, subordinate’s opinion etc. In my consulting practice, I use a 360 degree assessment where the leader, co-workers and superiors are asked to evaluate the leader. Differences in self-rating and rating by others are bound to arise.
Many a times, the results of a self-evaluation may not be so clear. For example, a sales manager can easily know his worth from the reports of how he managed an ad campaign. A personnel manager can rate himself high if there are very few resignations in the organizations believing it is about a policy he created. Other variables may have come into play that may not be related to the decisions the leader believes shaped his level of success. There may be other factors that are not seen that have nothing to do with that leader. Low turnover may come from a terrible economy where folks are too scared to leave the security of a job they loathe. Sales may be high, but an old customer may have purchased more products due to an anticipated change in the market due to unusual circumstances—like a report that that product may reduce chances of getting cancer.
Research reveals that the future behavior of an individual is likely to depend on how close the self-rating and other ratings are. If the ratings almost agree, it may suggest that the individual has proactively taken steps to alter his behavior. If others are rating a leader are positive and similar to the leader’s self-evaluation, there’s no need for any change in the leader’s behavioral patterns.
When the ratings are in agreement over low performance, the individual will likely feel the heat in the job. This shows that while he is aware of his shortcomings, he lacks the initiative or the confidence to take positive steps in that direction. Almost anything can be changed about our personality. Some things take more effort than others, but it must start with a willingness to make those changes. Attitude, as they often say truly is everything!
In leadership behavioral studies, I have observed that individuals, whose ratings agree with the ratings of others, are more likely to succeed in that organization. These individuals are capable of foreseeing how they are evaluated by others and are able to adjust their behavior accordingly to get the desired results. This is a common trait shared by some of the most successful leaders in every industry.
The bottom line here is that self-awareness is positively linked to a host of intangible, but absolutely essential outcomes such as trust in the leader, follower satisfaction, commitment, effectiveness of the leader and much more.
Self-aware leaders are ABSOLUTELY MORE EFFECTIVE than others who have under-rated or over-rated their performance. How self-aware are you?
