BECOMING A MORE SELF AWARE LEADER By Dr. Adrian Cohen
One skill that has been considered to be the most important ability for a leader to develop is self-awareness. Many of the most successful leaders are fully aware of where their strong spots are, and will use that information in order to further boost those areas. Self-awareness also has the ability to boost a companies’ bottom line. Many companies that perform well financially also tend to have employees that have higher levels of self-awareness. Regardless, self-awareness isn’t always easy to find in leaders. Here are a few tips for becoming a more self-aware leader.
Knowing Yourself When it comes to being a leader, the one constant factor is you. Regardless of what comes your way, you are at the center of it all, and that’s why understanding yourself is of the utmost importance. Self-awareness is often described as a core aspect of emotional intelligence, which makes sense as emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others while also being able to use that awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.
Identifying External Factors A great question to ask yourself is, “Why do I do the things I do? And how do others respond to those things?” It’s important to identify the triggers or factors that prompt your behavior and others’ behavior towards you. It’s also smart to think about how you respond and why you respond that way. Asking yourself these vital questions are a great way to go about raising your own selfawareness.
Consider Circumstances Being self-aware means that you’re able to utilize certain personality traits when they’re most needed while also being able to leave other traits aside in the right situations. Many self-aware leaders learn to identify their “outlier tendencies” and are able to adjust the way they act accordingly so they’re perceived differently. It doesn’t usually require going through a complete overhaul of your personality either; it’s about learning to be yourself but doing so with more skill. It’s important to consider what situations require your personality traits and which ones don’t.
Assess Behaviors When trying to become more self-aware, it’s important that you observe the patterns of your own behaviors. Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself if there are tendencies you’d like to change or ones you’d like to start doing more. Being self-aware means that you know what makes you great and using that to your advantage. Over time, add to that list of things that make you great, and build upon it while also figuring out what negatively impacts you and seeking to be less like that.
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