Self-Awareness in Leadership

Self-Awareness and Expansive Leadership Thinking

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Leaders who lack self-awareness often get stuck putting out fires or reacting to emergencies all day and forget that they’re the person who sets the example for how people behave in the workplace. Leaders who think expansively move above the fray are able to design healthy, highly functional organizations where people treat each other well and get a lot done. Here are some examples of expansive versus constrictive leadership thinking:

Examples of Constrictive Leadership Thinking

We’ve always done it that way.
Employees should stay in their place.
There’s only one way to do things.
Workplaces are, by nature, rough and chaotic.
People aren’t to be trusted.
You’ve got to tell employees what to do or they won’t do it.
People should stick to the rules.
Employee self-awareness isn’t a priority.

Examples of Expansive Leadership Thinking

Let’s try something new.
Let’s use our employees’ feedback and ideas.
There are many ways to do things.
Workplaces can be kind and calm.
We trust our people.
We encourage employees to motivate themselves.
We’re flexible on the rules.
We help leaders and employees build self-awareness.

Many well-meaning leaders who lack self-awareness miss opportunities to succeed on a higher level because they can’t envision anything beyond the day to day struggle. Expansive thinking is the opposite of what we do in most of our workplaces, it’s an approach that moves past the chaos to calmly and deliberately designing a healthy, flexible and dynamic workplace.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and practice expansive leadership thinking?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Healthy Interactions

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Self-awareness helps you have healthy interactions with others because, when you’re comfortable with yourself, you’re able to set your personal issues aside and get along with people no matter what the situation.

Have you ever been around someone who always has to win or be in a dominant position? Have you worked with a boss who works out her personal stuff on her employees? Perhaps you’ve endured friends or family members who make everyone miserable or have a tantrum if things don’t go their way. Maybe you know someone who emotionally blackmails others to get what he wants.

These types of behaviors happen all the time and are symptoms of lack of self-awareness. They occur because people don’t feel good about themselves and don’t understand why they think and behave the way they do. When people are deeply in touch with who they are and are happy and balanced they tend to behave more kindly toward others. They have healthy boundaries and empathy for others because they understand that other people also have needs.

Interacting positively with others is a valuable skill to learn because it helps you live a genuinely happy life. It’s the difference between the boss who tramples all over his co-workers and employees and barks orders all day versus the boss who listens calmly and communicates respectfully. One of them is happier and more balanced. You get to choose how you interact with others. You can either let your stuff get all over everyone around you or you can honor who they are and treat them wonderfully.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote healthy interactions?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Your Leadership Style

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Your level of self-awareness often predicts your leadership style. Many well-meaning leaders actively resist concepts like delegating, praising people or resolving situations without resorting to punishment because it doesn’t enter their minds that those are real options. Self-awareness helps you choose how you behave rather than doing what you’ve always done. Here are some ideas to help you practice conscious leadership in your professional or personal life:

  • Choose behaviors that lead in a positive direction.
  • Choose behaviors that help everyone win.
  • Choose behaviors that promote equality and balance.
  • Choose behaviors that help you and others learn and grow.
  • Choose behaviors that help create a happier work or personal life.
  • Choose behaviors that treat people with care and compassion.

You get to decide what kind of leadership you practice and you’ll generate results based on your thoughts and behaviors. For example: If you don’t believe in praise then it won’t be very important in your workplace and you’ll get the corresponding results. When you feel healthy and balanced inside, you’ll tend to choose leadership behaviors that yield desirable results and treat people well along the way. What will you do to practice a leadership style that leads in a positive direction?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helps You Not Limit Your Leadership Success

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When I consult for leaders it’s often apparent that they have varying visions of what constitutes leadership. There are those who lack self-awareness and believe leadership is giving orders or getting things done single-handedly, while others believe in teamwork and delegating. There’s no right or wrong approach to leadership, but different actions lead to different results. Here are four things I’ve noticed tend to limit leaders’ success:

  1. They can only do it their way. Leaders come in with one vision or one methodology that they follow regardless of outcome.  This approach limits their ability to find new and more effective ways of doing things as well as using their employees’ input.
  2. They don’t use our employees’ talents. People who come in with a single-minded vision often forget that they’re sitting on a potential gold mine of talent and ideas. When leaders only use their own ideas and perspectives they limit their chances to do even more with the help of their employees.
  3. They don’t praise. Many leaders simply give directives and then wait for things to be done to their satisfaction. The key here is that they focus only on getting things done rather than encouraging and praising employees along the way.
  4. They don’t plan efficiently. Leaders often go in with plenty of good intentions but spend all their time putting out fires. This reactive approach to leadership ensures they will only focus on the latest emergency limits their ability to organize our workplace.

These practices aren’t evil but they are representative of many of our workplaces. Leaders who address the issues we’ve talked about here not only find they increase their chances of success but they also enjoy their jobs more. What will you do to develop self-awareness and increase your leadership success?

Cheers,

Guy

Lack of Self-Awareness Leads to Uninspiring Leadership

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Many intelligent, dedicated professionals practice the time-honored tradition of uninspiring leadership. They don’t do it on purpose, it’s just that they’re used to the “Giving Orders and Controlling People” model of leadership instead of leading with self-awareness. Uninspiring leadership doesn’t have to be the norm because there are positive alternatives available to anyone who chooses to use them. The first step to shifting your leadership approach is to assess whether you practice uninspiring leadership, that is, behaviors like the following:

  • Lack of empathy.
  • Getting angry at people.
  • Not trusting employees.
  • Lacking organization.
  • Not delegating.
  • Not admitting mistakes.
  • Not believing change is possible.
  • Adhering to one way of doing things.
  • Continuing to do things that don’t work.
  • Thinking you have all the answers.
  • Resistance to new ideas or approaches.
  • Not listening to people.
  • Imposing solutions from outside.
  • Not asking for or valuing employee input.
  • Lack of self-awareness.

If you want to do the things on this list, you’re welcome to and you’ll see results based on your actions. If you’d rather inspire yourself and others, then you’ll do the opposite of these things, for example: If you don’t currently delegate effectively, work on learning how to delegate. Inspiring leadership is about having the self-awareness to let go of the thoughts and behaviors that don’t work and replacing them with new approaches that yield positive results. This gives you the power to choose how you think and behave in the workplace and what kind of leadership style you prefer. What will you do to increase your self-awareness and practice inspiring leadership?

Cheers,

Guy

8 Ways Self-Awareness Helps Leaders Inspire and Motivate

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Most leaders have a grasp on how to give orders but much less of an idea of how to inspire and motivate beyond setting a positive example or giving enthusiastic speeches. The missing element is self-awareness, as in the leader’s knowledge of himself (or herself) and how he affects himself and others. Here are some examples of how self-awareness builds leadership excellence:

  • Self-awareness helps leaders manage  their own thoughts, emotions and behaviors so that they don’t transfer or project them onto employees.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders behave consciously and proactively instead of reacting based on their unresolved inner hurts or ego.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders get out of the way and let their employees shine.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders feel more balanced.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders build happier workplaces.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders get rid of behaviors that don’t work and replace them with positive ones.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders evaluate their strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Self-awareness helps leaders welcome change and ambiguity.

Inspirational and motivational leaders understand that they have to be healthy in order to help their employees thrive. What would you add to this list?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Everyone Being on the Same Page

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A frequently overlooked detail of team building is that it is most effective when everyone has self-awareness and is on the same page. If you’ve ever tried to build a team and had it go off course due to one or two individuals, you can be quite certain it’s because not everyone is self-aware enough to be on the same page and practice the same behaviors. For example: You’ve worked diligently to create a great team and then someone else joins the group who throws everything off-balance. Perhaps the person has a strong personality or different vision, he or she can make the whole team unravel.

The effect on teams of having even one person who lacks self-awareness and isn’t fully on board with the process is that your team is only as strong as that person. This happens a lot in organizations where much of the decision making is done by one leader and not by a team. In workplaces like that you get teams that function based on the perspective of one person rather than the input of many.

The challenge in team building is to create an environment where everyone has an important voice and is an equal part of the group instead of having one or two people making decisions for everyone else. A positive way to help your team members get on the same page is to set some basic guidelines for participation. Train everyone so that they understand that everyone’s voice is equal and that no one person is more valuable than the next. Make sure you have a  in your meetings who understands how to get rid of power differentials and the interactions that sidetrack successful team meetings. If a new person joins the group, bring them into the process and train them on the guidelines as well as encouraging team members to model positive behaviors. If someone insists on derailing the process keep reiterating the group guidelines and practicing the positive behaviors. Team building isn’t a one-shot process, it takes time and deliberate effort to make it work.

The idea with team building is to create an atmosphere where everyone feels included, valued, important and comfortable participating. This allows leaders to build teams that aren’t derailed by a strong personality or power differentials and, instead, move toward groups where everyone is highly motivated to participate. When everyone on the team is invited and encouraged to provide input you and your organization can achieve greater success because everyone will feel like contributing.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and create stronger teams?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy