From Insight to Impact: How Self-Awareness can Transform Your Leadership

In the world of leadership development, few competencies hold as much importance as self-awareness. Though it may appear deceptively simple, self-awareness is one of the most important skills for transformational leadership in today’s volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) environment.?

The Center for Creative Leadership categorizes self-awareness as one of the "fundamental 4" core leadership skills, alongside communication, influence and learning agility. McKinsey also recognizes the critical need for self-aware leaders. In their research, they acknowledge that today’s leaders are expected not only to guide themselves and their peers but to also exemplify the mindset and skills essential to orchestrate teams and lead at scale. To achieve this, leaders must cultivate an awareness of both themselves and the operating environment around them.?

Self-awareness serves as the foundation upon which other capabilities can be built. A strong foundation is crucial because it enables leaders to operate more consciously “above the line”, guided by openness, curiosity, and a commitment to learning and growth. Leaders operating above the line are adept at managing their emotions and remaining calm under pressure. They tend to make better decisions, build stronger relationships, and foster a more positive working environment.?

Conversely, leaders who function "below the line" often operate on auto-pilot, displaying closed-mindedness, defensiveness and a commitment to being right. Their actions and decisions stem from an unconscious and unhealthy leadership stance driven by stress, fear, and reactivity. When operating below the line, we are not in our best leadership state. We are less likely to be open to feedback, and we’re unlikely to be able to make sound decisions. Consider for a moment how the quality of your decisions differs when made from a place of well-being versus when you're fatigued, stressed, and running on empty.?

To move above the line, we need to increase our self-awareness. We need to understand how our habitual patterns, triggers and blind spots are influencing our thoughts, emotions and actions.? Armed with this awareness, we can recognize and assess where our behavior is supporting or hindering our leadership effectiveness. From here, we can make different choices to elevate our impact.?

The Internal & External Landscape

Tascha Eurich, an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times bestselling author, has conducted extensive research in this area. Her findings show that internal self-awareness is intrinsically linked to higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness. However, internal awareness in isolation has limitations as it can often fail to surface our blind spots. This highlights the necessity to cultivate external awareness.? As leaders, it is important to question: How do others perceive me? What strengths and limitations do others attribute to me? How does this impact my effectiveness as a leader??

Eurich’s research also shows “that people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. For leaders who see themselves as their employees do, their employees tend to have a better relationship with them, feel more satisfied with them, and see them as more effective in general”.?

This research reinforces that self-awareness isn't solely about internal introspection; it's a dynamic interplay of introspection, extrospection and an acute awareness of one's external environment.? Both internal & external feedback offers leaders invaluable insights that can shift leaders from a closed and protected stance to one that’s grounded in openness and curiosity. The pivotal skill lies in consciously being able to identify whether you are operating above or below the line at any given moment. This is the key to breaking free from the patterns limiting our leadership impact.?

Tools for Cultivating Awareness

Here are 5 tools that can help you increase your internal and external awareness.?

Practicing Presence

Research shows that as much as 40% of our daily behavior is habitual, and 95% of all cognition—the thinking that drives our decisions and behaviors—occurs unconsciously. Practicing presence through a daily mindfulness meditation practice is the most important practice for cultivating self-awareness. When we are present, we are aware of our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations in the present moment. This allows us to see our patterns of behavior more clearly and make more conscious choices.

Try to notice the moments where you feel closed, defensive or triggered and get curious about what might be happening for you. Gently explore your thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment.

If you don’t already have a mindfulness practice, I highly recommend beginning one. Start small with 5 minutes a day and gradually increase. I use Insight Timer.?

The Enneagram

The Enneagram, in my view, is the best tool for developing internal self-awareness and understanding when we’re operating above and below the line. The Enneagram is a framework and map of awareness that describes nine personality types, each with distinct patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving that influence the way we act and interact in the world.?

The Enneagram illuminates the core motivations that drive our behavior, opening up new insights and a path for growth. Leaders who leverage the insights from the Enneagram witness profound shifts in their relationships with themselves and with others, both personally and professionally. I use, and recommend the iEQ9 Individual Professional assessment by Integrative9.?

The Johari Window

The Johari Window, developed by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, is a framework that can help you understand yourself and how others perceive you. You can use one-on-one with team members and colleagues, or in a group or team setting. It comprises of four quadrants:?

1. Open: The Open Area represents the things that you know about yourself and that others know about you. This can include behavior, knowledge, skills and public history
2. Blind: The Blind area represents things about yourself that you aren’t aware of, but that others know about you.?
3. Hidden: The Hidden area represents things that you know about yourself, but that you keep hidden from other people.?
4. Unknown: The Unknown area represents aspects that are unknown to you and to others. This could be due to inexperience or untapped potential.

To use it, you select 5-6 adjectives that best describe you, and then you have your colleagues do the same, choosing the adjectives they think describe you best. Then you plot each on the four quadrants. This can help to identify which adjectives you agree you possess, which ones you see but they don’t, and which ones they see but you don't.?

The opportunity with the Johari window is to increase the open quadrant by sharing feedback and thus reducing the blind quadrant. You can find out more about how to use the tool here.?

360 Feedback

Seeking feedback from others is a powerful way to gain insights into your blind spots and areas for development. A 360-degree feedback process allows you to gather feedback from a variety of sources, including bosses, peers, and direct reports to evaluate skills, strengths, limitations and overall effectiveness. It provides a well-rounded insight into what’s working and what’s not and provides insights to explore potential development and growth areas. There are many different 360-degree feedback tools available, but my preferred approach is an interview-based 360. This type of feedback process involves conducting one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders and allows for more in-depth feedback into strengths and limitations.?

Feedforward Exercise

From feedback to feedforward - Marshall Goldsmith’s exercise is a fantastic tool you can use with groups and teams to help gain insights and feedback in a fun and proactive way. By asking others for their suggestions and ideas, you can gather valuable insights and broaden your perspective. This exercise encourages a forward-looking mindset focusing on future actions and improvement rather than dwelling on past mistakes. Here’s how it works:?

• Assemble your group or team together.
• Have each individual identify one behavior they would like to change, for example “I would like to be more vocal in meetings.”
• In pairs, each individual shares this behavior 1:1 with another participant.
• They ask for FeedForward—one or two suggestions that could help them to achieve this change.
• They listen to the suggestions and take notes—without commenting.
• After hearing suggestions, participants simply say “Thank you!”
• Then they switch. The other person shares what they would like to change.
• Provide FeedForward—one or two suggestions that can help the other person achieve their desired behavior change.
• Find another participant and keep repeating the process until the end of the exercise.

At the end of the exercise, you can have each participant share one thing they will commit to based on the suggestions they received.

The beauty of feedforward is that it fosters a culture of support, collaboration, and shared learning. It’s also a fun and engaging way to empower each other towards growth and meaningful change.

Awareness for Impact

Undoubtedly, self-aware and inspirational leadership is essential for navigating through these complex and uncertain times, and it is self-aware leaders who can navigate through the challenges of today’s environment and create positive change.?

Recommended Resources:?

Learn more about above the line and below the line leadership at the Conscious Leadership Group here).

About Emma

A certified Executive Coach and Leadership Development Consultant, Emma has over 20 years of international HR and people leadership experience supporting leaders to navigate complexity and change.

Founder at?Change at Play?and Co-Founder at the?Institute of Positive Leadership, Emma supports individuals and organizations looking to unlock their highest potential and inspire meaningful change.