A Primer on Self-Awareness

Do you see the words “self-awareness” and think they’re just another part of the buzzword lexicon that will lose popularity and fade away in due time? If so, you might be right. But is self-awareness a passing fad when it comes to professional growth, skill building, and career advancement? The answer is an emphatic “No!”

As a topic of discussion in any dignified development regimen, whether school-based, work-based, or otherwise, self-awareness can be perceived as a tired concept lacking the sex appeal of a fresh idea. Ironically, those who hold this view likely lack the skill altogether. I’d like to suggest that in our dynamic, rapidly changing business environments where collectively we’re technologically rich and relationally poor, being highly self-aware is as vital as ever.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in my young career developing the skill and reflecting upon that experience. Achieving full, complete self-awareness is elusive and impossible; exercising its muscle is a lifetime journey. At times it can seem both arbitrary and scripted, confusing and comprehendible.

Self-awareness. What is it, actually? How does one cultivate it? Why is it important? What tools are available to me? How does it play out in real life?

I offer up this response.

What is it?

One of the first definitions regarding the concept of self-awareness came from psychologists Shelley Duvall and Robert Wicklund in their landmark 1972 book, A Theory of Objective Self-Awareness: “When we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves.” Over the course of time, scientific research and the experiences of many has added to this work.

Self-awareness can even be broken down into internal self-awareness versus external. The internal piece encompasses a knowledge and understanding of your values, passions, goals, behaviors, responses, etc. The external side is understanding how other people view us in terms of those same factors I just listed.

The definition that guides me is pretty simple: “My understanding of the effect of me on you.” While this one leans hard toward the external side of self-awareness, I can’t get there without working on the internal. It’s also important to note that the elements of the cognitive triangle (thinking, feeling, behaving) form the base for us to build our self-awareness on, regardless of the nuances of the definition.

Why is it important?

A few years back I learned a very valuable equation: Effective Leadership = fx(Self-Awareness)(Self-Management). Self-awareness is the understanding, self-management is the action, and the function of those two together equals effective leadership. Or to use a phrase from my good friend and mentor, Dr. Michael Frisina, self-awareness is a “precondition for success.”

In a bit more detail, Dr. Frisina states, “Learning and practicing self-awareness, leaders become comfortable with their internal thought processes, values, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, and emotions. They become self-managers, careful about how they present themselves to others and how they respond to events in the external world around them. Consequently, a self-aware leader is in a better position to collaborate and connect with others increasing both their influence in relationships and their effectiveness in achieving results.”

Self-awareness is the precondition for building relationships, building trust, establishing culture, effectively communicating, growing your skillset, executing as an individual and collectively as a team. All of these things have the potential to make followers out of people, but not if the leader lacks self-awareness. Never forget that a person who believes he or she is leading but has no one following is merely taking a walk (Malawian proverb).

When people see you constantly in a certain behavior, they form a cognitive disposition to always see you in that way, whether you display that behavior or not. That awareness, of your behavior, of the thinking that leads to that behavior, and of your understanding of others’ perception of your behavior, is a gamechanger for effective leaders.

My good friend and rising healthcare rock star Vaughn Williams put it this way: “Self-awareness, aligned with a commitment to continuous personal improvement, is essential as a leader. It’s important not only for your development, but when others see you embodying it, you are creating a culture of reflection, transparency, and continuous improvement for others to participate in as well.”

And make no mistake, self-awareness is not just a young person’s game. Professionals at all stages of their career, CEO or not, should be investing time and energy into this work. Believing otherwise represents another gap in self-awareness.

Usefulness of Assessments

Let’s face it: there is a summer’s harvest worth of tests and evaluations available to us to measure everything from personality to strengths to what type of vegetable you are (we have BuzzFeed to thank for some of the less scientifically-valid ones). Vegetables aside, there is a role for many of these assessments to play in our journey of self-awareness as long as we recognize they are imperfect, never paint the whole picture, and should be used with a grain of salt. They are meant to inform, and how we use the results is probably more important than what the results actually are.

Here are a few well-known and reputable assessments you’ve likely taken or at least heard of:

-         CliftonStrengths (i.e. Strengthsfinder): Measures your talents – your natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving – and categorizes them into the 34 themes.

-         DiSC?: Measures dimensions of your personality, assessing tendencies and preferences, or patterns of behavior, with no judgment regarding value or alignment with a skill set or job classification.

-         MBTI? (i.e. Myers-Briggs): A psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how people perceive the world and make decisions.

-         Profiles Performance Indicator?: Measures an individual’s motivational intensity and behaviors related to productivity, quality of work, initiative, teamwork, problem solving, and adapting to change, as well as response to stress, frustration, and conflict.

So what’s the best way to use our results from any one of these, or other, assessments? The answer is about framing.

The results provide insights into answering the question, “Who am I?” Your responsibility is to use those results to begin answering a different set of questions: “How do I…?” “What are the ways in which I…?” “When am I most likely to…?” We need to take an understanding of ourselves and go up a level to understanding ourselves in the context of the life we live and the things we do. As an example, take your results and start to answer these questions, “How do I…?”

Most assessments will help you get a start on these questions, but your responsibility is to go deeper and finish the job.

When talking about self-awareness, we might be tempted to focus on the why question, which we think of as typically leading us to the root of what we’re trying to figure out. However, this is potentially problematic. “As it turns out, “why” is a surprisingly ineffective self-awareness question. Research has shown that we simply do not have access to many of the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and motives we’re searching for. And because so much is trapped outside of our conscious awareness, we tend to invent answers that feel true but are often wrong…Consequently, the problem with asking why isn’t just how wrong we are, but how confident we are that we are right [in our assessment].” (Tasha Eurich, HBR, 1/4/18)

These types of tests and assessments are not a self-awareness holy grail, but they do give us valuable insight, provided we take the information to the next level. Above all, this step requires us to be honest with ourselves, not dismissing results but looking deeper into what they reveal about our thinking, feeling, and behaving.

The Doing

So how does one cultivate self-awareness? What must I actually do? As it turns out…nothing earth-shattering.

Building self-awareness is not a journey that is awaiting the elusive discovery of some unknown practice. In fact, building self-awareness happens through a combination of well-known habits, done with intention. That’s the secret sauce: habit and intention. If you’re looking for a flashier answer, I wish you all the best in finding one.

Here are some of the most helpful habits to nurture self-awareness.

-         Feedback: This can be a formal process, as in a job evaluation, or more ad hoc, such as asking about your performance after a project or what experiences you would help you sharpen a skill. There’s no frequency that’s necessarily better or worse; most important would be that the feedback is honest and constructive. And don’t just seek out people you trust; I heard someone say once that you should listen to your enemies (or said more lightly, those with whom you may have some friction) because they will tell you things about yourself that your friends never will.

-         Journaling: I’ve always said that I write to know what I think. Taking the time to write allows for greater articulation and reflection on an experience, observation, etc. than I would otherwise have if not written out. The result is a deeper understanding. Journaling is a matter of learning for our experiences; that deep learning doesn’t happen simply by having gone through it in first place.

-         Solitude: You cannot think yourself into being self-aware, but thinking is certainly an invaluable part. Take time, quiet time, to be introspective. Get away from the noise, the screens, and all the distractions…be alone. Exercise your mental muscles through reflection and introspection. In solitude, you’re likely to make observations you wouldn’t make in any other setting.

-         Coaching: Engage in a coaching relationship. There is a lot to be gained from a formal, structured coaching process as you draw on someone else’s professional qualifications and experience. Coaching relationships can take many forms, but having a bona fide “third party” as part of your journey will only serve to add value.

-         Read: I told you this isn’t earth-shattering stuff. Similar to your media consumption, what you read will absolutely shape who are, how you think, and how you act. A mentor once shared that who you are in 5 years will be determined by two main things: what you read and who you associate with.

-         Assessments: See previous section.

-         Pulse Check: In the middle of a meeting, take 30 seconds (in your head!) to assess what you’re thinking, feeling, and doing in that moment. Focus on who you are, in the moment, in the context of what is going on around you. You may well notice little things that add up to make a big difference.

-         Treat Yourself Like a Champion: I can’t take credit for that particular phrasing (Dr. Frisina), but I can certainly testify to the benefits of partaking in habits and activities that bring rest, relaxation, and sound health. The point? Don’t ignore your own needs; your ability to be effective and serve others depends on it.

Examples – The Lived Experience

How does self-awareness manifest itself in our lives? Every individual will have a unique answer, but here is just a small sample of the ways it plays out in mine:

• Taking a walk after an intense or serious conversation
• Going screen-free for a portion of or an entire weekend
• Keeping my cell phone off the table in a meeting (leave in pocket or office)
• Letting people finish speaking without being interrupted
• Jotting brief notes into my cellphone so I can journal about them later in the evening
• Crucial conversations (especially with employees): Writing out the main points I need to convey so I don’t run on and keep repeating myself.
• Being visible to staff working 2nd and 3rd shifts, and connecting with them on a personal level, to the extent that they’re willing to share
• Volunteering for responsibilities that will add to my skillset and give me experience in new areas

What are some of my opportunities for improvement?

• Monitoring my expressions and body language. I’ve have received feedback in the past that my expressions show when I’m disengaged or uninterested.
• Be less reserved in meetings. I like to listen and observe discussion for long period before contributing. The thoughts and ideas are there, but I need to better communicate them. Paula Widerlite, a coach and former colleague, once told me, “You don’t get to sit in a meeting, not contribute, and still be perceived as adding value.”

When it comes to benefitting from these types of practices, one of my former bosses and another current mentor, Mark Herzog, summed up his own experience like this:

“As a ‘recovering’ CEO and C-suite leader for 30+ years I encountered 3 distinct phases of self-awareness and EQ leadership. After accepting the validity of EQ and empathy I gradually became more self-aware and, through years of practice, became more emotionally agile in playing the leadership role. To manage this process I framed on-stage times through two lenses: Awareness (of self, others and the environment) and intentionality (emotional agility and behavioral adaptability to play the leadership role required).

To manage expectations and keep it real, count on three phases of growth. First, you start out unaware and unintentional. Second, you’ll evolve to being sometimes aware and occasionally intentional. Third, you become usually aware and mostly intentional. It is an imperfect and imprecise journey. Be kind to yourself but be resilient and persistent. So few leaders commit to this journey. Being one who does will contribute to your success and, more importantly, significance to those you serve.”

Wrap-Up

World-famous quality guru W. Edwards Deming once said, “You don’t need to change – your survival is not mandatory.” It’s true that you don’t have to increase your self-awareness, but don’t expect a whole lot of growth and promotion to follow, let alone the effectiveness you seek.

We already possess so much of what is needed to improve our self-awareness. Often times, its about putting in the work. “Learning is less a function of adding something that isn’t there than it is of recognizing, reinforcing, and refining what already is.” (Buckingham and Goodall, HBR, March-April 2019 Issue)

Here are a few closing thoughts and takeaways:

• The manifestation of self-awareness does not always play out in the presence of other people. Self-awareness is not meant to always be public; our thinking, feeling, and behaving in private is just as crucial to our success in becoming effective.
• Make the connection between your emotions and your behavior. Every behavior has a driver.
• Self-awareness may not always change your present circumstances. It won’t necessarily get you out of a toxic work culture and its not guaranteed to change your boss. We can control our contributions to the things around us, but self-awareness isn’t a guarantee to change the outcome.
• Be patient. Consistency over time is the most important underlying principle to seeking growth.

I know there is still a world of things to say about this topic; we've merely scratched the surface. But this should serve as a good starting point for anyone looking to take on the endeavor. I, and many others, assure you the rewards are worth it.

Let’s get to work.