Self-Awareness in Leadership Archives – Page 19 of 20

Self-Awareness and Finding Your Path as a Leader

January 22, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-awareness helps you find your path as a leader because, when you understand who you are and what you really want in life, you are able to identify things that bring you joy at work instead of misery.

Many leaders experience discomfort at work because they are not doing the things they love. This feeling manifests itself in many ways including unhappiness, lack of motivation and loss of focus. The great thing about work is that you can move in any direction you want at any time. Here’s a couple ideas to help you begin your journey.

Define Your Path

How will you know where you want to go if you haven’t defined it yet? Take some time to increase your self-awareness and figure out who you are and what really brings you joy at work. Focus on ways to reach for your dreams. The idea is to work in an environment that reflects what you really love to do and becomes your path. The more you connect with yourself the clearer your path will look.

Listen to Your Inner Voice

We spend so much time listening to what other people think we should do that we frequently ignore the most important voice, our own. Once you focus on developing your self-awareness and connecting with your dreams at work, the voice inside you will let you know if you’re on course or veering in some other direction. Your inner voice gives you clues and insight and tells you when you’re on the path. Learn to listen to it and pay attention to what it says.

Take Action

Once you’re on your path, doors will open for you that you didn’t know existed before. Make sure to take advantage of opportunities that come your way and that fit with your true goals and dreams. Focus on small actions that build your self-awareness and confidence, and always keep in mind that staying on your path means staying true to yourself.

Following your path is a matter of building self-awareness by getting in touch with who you really are and building a career based on that idea. Remember to take it easy on yourself; it’s OK to go off the path occasionally as long as you’re living the majority of your life on or near it. What will you do to increase self-awareness and be more fulfilled at work?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leaders Value Diversity

January 22, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-aware leaders and organizations are aware of the benefits of a diversity in the workplace. Diversity is not just a buzzword that creates extra work for human resources departments, it is a tangible asset that can be used to benefit the organization. First a brief definition of diversity. I have worked with many companies to help them overcome the challenges diversity presents and each company defines diversity differently. I don’t believe in complicating things so I propose the following definition:

Workplace Diversity

The issues related to developing a workplace that is uniformly inclusive and encourages meaningful participation from all individuals in the organization regardless of background.

This brief definition gets rid of a lot of the extraneous noise related to diversity. We tend to ask too many questions and stumble around issues like race, age, gender, disability and culture when all we really want to do is help our employees get along.

Proactive human resources departments understand the benefits of designing policies that draw from the talent pool and encourage productivity and innovation. Why would any company limit the potential of the employees unless it expressly wanted to limit its own success?

If you are in human resources or are a leader/manager looking for ideas to increase inclusiveness then you might consider the following diversity-boosting ideas.

1. Hire based on qualifications required for a specific job.

2. Strive to create as varied a mix of people in your workplace as possible.

3. Ask your managers to actively identify people’s talents and use them.

4. Encourage people to leave their preconceptions at the door.

5. Create opportunities for the growth and success of all your employees.

6. Set up an ongoing training program that helps individuals discuss diversity.

7. Create a comprehensive written strategy for increasing diversity in your workplace.

8. Practice these approaches over time.

Diversity is not a mystery and is easily incorporated into the culture of any organization. It requires self-awareness, buy-in, and commitment starting at the top. The rewards are impressive. Many companies report increased innovation, productivity, morale and team effectiveness when they implement a thoughtful plan to boost diversity.

Diversity is not a destabilizing force, it is an opportunity to harness the power of the many amazing talents of your workforce. Those who understand this potential succeed at high levels. What will you do to develop self-awareness and use diversity to help your organization thrive?

Cheers,

Guy

Leadership, Self-Awareness, and Improving Morale in Your Company

January 21, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Leaders who possess self-awareness are able to improve morale in their companies because they understand how their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors affect them and others.

I consult with leaders and organizations to help them improve morale by focusing on positive behaviors. It’s very normal for companies to experience flagging morale and there are some practical things they can do to improve the situation.

The Example of Leadership

Leaders lead by example, a positive one. If they behave in stressed-out ways then employees pick up on it. Think about the difference if a leader is calm and balanced instead of panicking.

Knowledge Instead of Drive

Many leaders get caught up in the idea that they have to drive their employees like a team of horses. They push and push and push until the stagecoach goes careening down a gully. Try being there for employees when they ask for help and give them your knowledge only when they ask for it. Trust that they know how to do their jobs and drive them less.

Find Out What Your Employees Love Doing

People feel great when they are using their talents and are actually interested in what they’re doing. Identify what your employees love to do and have them do it.

Praise Constantly

Telling people they’re doing a great job makes them feel great. Praising also helps you focus on successes rather than always correcting perceived mistakes or offering the dreaded constructive criticism.

Offer Opportunities for Bonding

Give people a chance to interact in positive ways. Set up a regularly scheduled meeting time where people can talk with each other and share success stories.

Value Self-Awareness

Leaders who value self-awareness are able to mange their own and others emotions, thoughts, and actions to build a more cohesive, healthy, positive workplace.

Try these six ideas and you’ll find that your employees are feeling better about themselves, each other and you. What will you do develop self-awareness and improve the morale in your company?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Leadership, and Building a Compassionate Workplace

January 20, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Leaders who possess self-awareness are able to build compassionate workplaces because they have the ability to manage their own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and treat others with kindness and empathy.

You don’t often hear the word compassion and work in the same breath because, at some point, some brilliant leader decided that work should be constraining and repetitive instead of uplifting and fulfilling. This is the same genius who decided that people are just there to help make money and that it doesn’t matter what kind of hardships they have to endure or how unpleasant the work is as long as they’re making the machine run.

The practice of using people solely as robots creates all kinds of tension and disease in the workplace. I’ve found that leaders get much better results when they use compassion to create healthy workplaces. Compassion simply means treating people as if you deeply care about them and understand their experience. It’s a powerful tool to create an environment where employees are valued and understood. Think about what would happen in your workplace if you applied what these smart people say about the subject.

Compassion is more important than intellect in calling forth the love that the work of peace needs, and intuition can often be a far more powerful searchlight than cold reason. Betty Williams.

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded. Maya Angelou.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Leo Buscaglia.

We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are. Thomas Merton.

The greatest degree of inner tranquility comes from the development of love and compassion. The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama.

The act of compassion begins with full attention, just as rapport does. You have to really see the person. If you see the person, then naturally, empathy arises. If you tune into the other person, you feel with them. If empathy arises, and if that person is in dire need, then empathic concern can come. You want to help them, and then that begins a compassionate act. So I’d say that compassion begins with attention. Daniel Goleman.

When I talk with leaders about self-awareness and compassion in the workplace, I get the distinct sense that many don’t yet understand why you would want to care for people at a deeper level because, after all, they’re there to do a job. It is precisely this kind of thinking that keeps their organizations stuck in the cycle of dealing with unhappy and unfulfilled employees.

Leaders who lack self-awareness spend so much time attending to the problems that arise from toxic workplaces that compassion is a welcome alternative. Compassionate workplaces get rid of the negative garbage that comes from not caring for people and replaces it with results from people who feel valued.

Leaders can start doing this at any time they choose but it takes conscious effort and focus on the well-being of their employees. What will you do to increase self-awareness and build a more compassionate workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leaders Aren’t Afraid of Failure

January 18, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-aware leaders aren’t afraid of failure because they understand that there is much to be learned from any experience or situation, including the negative ones.

I often work with leaders who set a goal and then pile a bunch of other stuff on top of it and paralyze themselves before doing anything. Then they tell me that they’re afraid of doing something wrong or scared of messing up.

The idea that we do things wrong or mess up comes from inside our own minds and was often put there by our families. We repeat these ideas over and over, even when they lead to negative results. The interesting thing is that messing up is such a relative term because it really depends on your definition of it.

The next time you set a goal for yourself try focusing less on the whole “I’m doing something wrong and what if I fail,” outlook and set yourself up for success. Try the following ideas to let go of the need to be perfect:

1. Set an achievable goal you know you can do.

2. Do one thing at a time and don’t burden yourself with extra things.

3. Celebrate when you complete a task, do something to treat yourself well.

You only fail if you set yourself up for failure or listen to the negative messages inside your head. Success comes from setting realistic goals, completing them and moving forward purposefully.

What will you do to increase self-awareness and use failure as a learning tool?

Cheers,

Guy

Developing Self-Awareness to Be an Effective Leader

January 17, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

When I consult with organizations to help them develop self-awareness, employees often describe a leadership style that is pervasive in many workplaces: It usually consists of a leader who is a good person, works really hard and means well but is constantly overwhelmed and reacting to events. This creates a leadership dynamic where the leader is in survival mode and really doesn’t have the time or perspective to lead in any other way. Working frantically isn’t the same as actually being productive. Very often, these decent and caring individuals end up being the dreaded bad boss or ineffective leader. It’s not because they’re horrible people, they just lack self-awareness and don’t know any other way of doing things.

When it comes to leadership, I think in terms of increasing self-awareness in order to practice positive behaviors that generate beneficial results. When we do positive things it tends to create more positive results. If we choose to focus on the negative we get different outcomes. To begin evaluating whether you’re an effective leader see if you recognize the following behaviors:

1. Always checking up on employees.
2. Constantly asking employees for updates.
3. Feeling rushed or pressured.
4. Feeling out of control if things aren’t done a certain way.
5. Running from one fire to another.
6. Constantly reacting to events instead of planning beforehand.
7. Living with constant stress or tension.
8. Telling employees what to do instead of listening.
9. Not really happy at work.
10. Needing to dominate others.

Do you do any of these things? It’s not horrible if you do, it will just create a certain kind of workplace dynamic than if you were to refocus and practice the following self-aware alternatives:

1. Lets employees do their work independently.
2. Trusts employees to keep him up to date.
3. Feels calm and balanced even under pressure.
4. Lets people do things in ways that make sense to them.
5. Doesn’t create or add to the fire.
6. Plans proactively to minimize emergencies.
7. Relaxes at work.
8. Listens to employees and values outside input.
9. Happy at work.
10. Doesn’t need to dominate others.

When you look at these two lists which one sounds more like you? Effective leaders tend to be more like the second list and enjoy happier work lives and fewer heart attacks. There’s no secret to behaving this way in the workplace. All it takes is letting go of the old way of doing things and replacing it with more productive behaviors. How will you start developing self-awareness and being a more effective leader?

Cheers,

Guy

Key Team Building Questions Self-Aware Leaders Ask Themselves

January 15, 2023 - The Self-Awareness Guy

Self-aware leaders are comfortable with themselves and are always asking themselves questions about how they’re doing and how they might improve, including on issues like team building.

The standard approach to team building helps people bond casually but often neglects the deeper things that bring people together. As a leader all you have to do is look deep inside yourself and determine whether you’re ready to build great teams. Here are some key questions you can ask yourself to improve the results you get from team building.

Empathy

Do people deeply understand other people’s points of view and are they able to empathize with others?

Listening

Do people really listen to each other and let the other person say whatever is in his or her mind? Do they do it without interruptions, sarcasm, punishment, jokes or advice-giving?

Long-Term Commitment

Is your organization firmly committed to helping people build stronger teams long-term? Is there a culture of team building from the top down?

Deeper Connection

Do people interact with each other on a deeper level? Do they move past superficial conversation to really getting to know each other?

Mutual Support

Are people there for each other no matter what? Do they consistently help each other because they genuinely care?

Think about how your team building philosophy meshes with the ideas we’ve talked about. Team building can yield much greater results for your organization if you move beyond short-term efforts and shift to approaches that are aimed at the values, culture and functioning of the organization. What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote team building in your company?

Cheers,

Guy