Self-awareness and leadership are two things that should never be without each other. Countless innocent people suffer the consequences of working for leaders who are not self-aware and who do things like:

• Work out their personal issues on employees.
• Get into power struggles due to control issues.
• Have unhealthy, overbearing egos.
• Micromanage.
• Create constant conflict.
• Impose their will at all costs.
• Not listen to anyone’s opinion or ideas.
• Play favorites or allow cliques.
• Treat people rudely.
• Only know how to express anger and fake happiness.
• Create a workplace of fear.

The whole point of being a self-aware leader is that you are in touch with your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors to such a degree that you’re able to create a kind, caring, efficient workplace where everyone matters. A leader with self-awareness is likely to:

• Be healthy emotionally and not get his or her stuff on others.
• Not have a need to control or dominate.
• Have a healthy sense of self and respect others’ individuality as well.
• Let people do what they do well.
• Have positive interactions with employees.
• Let other people be part of the decision-making process.
• Listen actively in all settings.
• Bring people together.
• Treat people with kindness and compassion.
• Comfortable dealing with a wide range of emotions.
• Create a workplace of courage.

In my experience training leaders, I’ve found that most of them do things from the first list. The irony is that our workplaces don’t have to be dysfunctional and toxic. The whole point of self-aware leadership is to encourage people to be balanced, and comfortable with themselves. The way you do it is to have ongoing training in place that helps leaders take an honest look at themselves and become healthier by learning and practicing the skills from the second list.

Cheers,

Guy