LEADERSHIP BY EXAMPLE
CPD
The importance of self-awareness in educational leadership DAVID CARNE, school business professional and executive coach, explores how to improve self-awareness
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n 1977 a researcher at the University of California, Berkley, asked around 600 college professors to rate the quality of their teaching. One would assume that college professors, being well-educated and, presumably, wellaware of the components of good teaching, would be well-qualified to assess where they sat within the performance hierarchy; however, the results told a different story. A staggering 94% of them believed their teaching was better than that of their colleagues, and almost 70% believed their skills and abilities were in the top quartile. College professors are bright people, but they were astonishingly poor at objectively assessing their own abilities. Indeed, research shows that, when asked, on average, people tend to over-estimate their intelligence, leadership skills, fairness and even funniness compared to others. Conversely, in my experience of coaching executives and leaders, I am struck by how many leaders and managers doubt their abilities and question their leadership skills. We call this ‘imposter syndrome’ and 70% of us will experience it at some point in our lives. Neither the delusional arrogance of the college professors or the crippling grip of imposter syndrome are desirable
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March 2022
traits in leaders. Believing we know better than everyone else leads to us making disastrous leadership decisions; equally disastrous is the hesitancy of the leader suffering from imposter syndrome who fails to act when the situation demands. Being willing to admit areas in which we could do better, and to let go of unjustified self-doubt, are hallmarks of self-aware and emotionally intelligent leaders. So, how do we improve our self-awareness as leaders? I propose five activities that may support this.
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BENCHMARKS As school business professionals we are extremely lucky to have frameworks such as the ISBL professional standards against which we, and others, can measure ourselves. We may be not as bad - or as good - as we think we are, and professional standards provide objective benchmarks which help us determine our current position and set goals for professional self-improvement.
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FEEDBACK We can gain insights into how our attitudes, behaviours and styles of communication are affecting our work by getting feedback from others, both formally and informally. Often others do
