Why self-awareness is a super-skill (and why senior leaders must try even harder)

Mirror, mirror on the wall…

Everyone has heard the story. The magic mirror was used by the Evil Queen to find out who was the “fairest of them all”. Each time the Queen stated the question, the mirror used to respond affirmatively that the Queen herself was The One. Up until one day when the mirror unexpectedly replied,

"Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, But Snow-white fairer is than you."

We all know the story that followed. The Queen hired a huntsman to put her rival to death. Now, it did not have to go that way, did it? Jeff Wiener in his insightful article convinces us that the story wouldn't be the same if the queen actually made an effort and at least tried to understand what it takes to be fairer than Snow-white. He takes the argument even further and asks what would or could have happened if the queen had asked the mirror to list the five things she needed to do in order to be the fairest on the block. Obviously, it was very difficult for the queen to be objective about her beauty and would have been even more so to learn about her flaws. Following the logic of Jeff, ask yourself a vital question: are you the Queen? You may as well flip the script and ask yourself whether you listen to constructive feedback?

Know thyself

It's been more than 2000 years since ancient philosophers encouraged us to see ourselves as we are. Self-awareness (also referred to as self-knowledge or self-insight) in essence is a deep (as opposed to superficial) understanding of our personal strengths, weaknesses, preferences, but also an all-encompassing insight into how these impact people around us through interpersonal relationships.

In practical terms, it is the level of congruence between our self-perception and the perceptions of us held by others. The so-called "arena" in the famous Johari window - those of our traits and behaviours that both ourselves and others are aware of.

Developing self-awareness represents a continuing pursuit of extending our arenas and shrinking our blindspots.

Consequently, developing self-awareness represents a continuing pursuit of extending our arenas and shrinking our blindspots - things about us known to others that we are not aware of. Very much like a blind spot in a vehicle. Even though a big, shiny car is there, slightly behind us, either to our right or to our left, we just don't see it. Unless we flex our neck (old-school approach) or resort to widely available car safety systems (modern-day approach).

Splendid benefits

There is plenty of research suggesting that the level of self-awareness correlates with high-performance. Why? One plausible explanation is that it enhances our flexibility. Self-awareness is the source of interpersonal agility. It contributes to understanding of how we can best perform in specific situations or in a given context. Robert J. Lee and Sara N. King from Center for Creative Leadership in their seminal work 'Discovering the Leader in You' (2001) aptly observe that self-awareness makes us understand our style, our quirks, but also our shortcomings, thus it enables us to know better "when to step forward and when to sit back and listen".

Our understanding of self deepens and becomes more complex at more advanced developmental levels. In other words, we understand more about who we are as we grow grey hair professionally. In this view, self-awareness is the effect of development.

Lack of self-awareness is likely to become a career staller.

The other approach however, suggests the opposite relationship, and thus views self-awareness as an enabler of development. A comprehensive meta-study of leadership potential positions openness to feedback among intervening variables to learning and thus asserts that it is a useful indicator of whether a person will further develop additional skills (Church, 2014). It also means that lack of self-awareness is likely to become a career staller, one that affects leaders in a subtle, pernicious manner. To their own detriment.

Not a skill, but “THE” skill

A meta-skill is a high order skill that allows one to engage with their expertise more effectively. In other words, it is a catalyst that governs one's ability to improve other skills. It is a super-skill that empowers other skills to happen.

Self-awareness is one such super skill. It is key to understanding who we are. That includes knowing our limitations and figuring out where we need to improve or, altenatively, pair up with people who have compensating qualities.

According to, Korn Ferry's FYI (an equivalent of Bible in the field of competence development), self-awareness can be seen as a foundation upon which to grow personally and professionally through development of other skills by engaging in developmental activities, taking on new professional challenges and generally deploying oneself against life (Lombardo & Eichinger, 2004).

Who is your mirror?

How do we shrink our blind-spots then? A widely used approach is through a multi-rater feedback, commonly referred to as 360-degree (or 180-degree for that matter) feedback, a the method where perceptions of our performance are collected from the circle of several relevant viewpoints. As a matter of fact, the proliferation of 360s is said to be one of the most notable management trends in the 1990s. It has over time evolved from a nice-to-have technique to a must-have tool. 

The bad news is that there is no guarantee at all that any feedback inherently leads to positive behavioural change (Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). One explanation may be that most people have well-developed defence mechanisms that protect them from feedback that is perceived as too threatening, and thus from taking steps towards improvement based on it. This defence mechanism often surfaces early in the process when leaders select their raters, subconsciously favouring people they like over those they have a more difficult relationship with. Or they choose people that don't know them very well. Consequently, empirical research suggests that, on average, the changes made by leaders after receiving 360s are positive, but relatively small and that it is unrealistic to expect that it will lead to development for all leaders (Hezlett, 2008).  

Ask yourself a very simple question: who will tell you the truth?

The best approach you can take, either when choosing respondents in our 360 assessment or upon asking for an individual, informal, face to face feedback, is to ask yourself a very simple question: who will tell you the truth? Come rain or shine. Who are the people in our lives that know us very well and whose judgments we trust? And we should not limit ourselves to professional domain.

It is lonely at the top

Receiving honest and valuable feedback is an uphill battle. Even more so if you are a senior leader. Senior executives tend to be shielded not only from organisational problems and data, but also from reliable information about themselves. They risk becoming surrounded by a team of 'yes-sayers', people who "create an echo chamber that amplifies their views rather than enriching them" (Ashkenas, 2017). That also includes self-view, ultimately leading to extension of one's blind spot.

Top leaders must acknowledge that people have what is called organisational savvy. A skill of manoeuvering comfortably through complex policies, processes, and - what is key in this context - people-related organisational dynamics. That is where organisational savvy can easily become political savvy. Our reports may not tell us what they really think about us simply because they may prefer not to jeopardise their relationship with us. Or worse, they may fear that honest and straightforward feedback may backfire on them sooner or later, adversely affecting their chances of the next promotion of salary rise. Or simply because they think we have overtime become complacent with our self-view: power makes leaders less likely to listen to advice. Our peers may be equally reluctant to share what they really think about us too. One good reason is that we may one day become their own bosses and they have no guarantee we will not let the past feedback-related resentments fester...

The higher up the ladder, the quality feedback becomes more and more sought-after commodity, a one that is very hard to get. If we let ourselves to accept this reality, it may well become the beginning of a vicious cycle. And it's difficult to pull out of the blindspot tail-spin...

Self-awareness is a very complex competence. It is important that we understand how it works, along with its multiple facets. It is transferrable; it can be learned like anything else. Last but not least, it's linked with the attitude that we have towards feedback. Do we really want to hear it? Do we want to act based on it? Change our behaviours? Self-awareness, like any competence, emanates from combination of knowledge, skill and proper attitude. And like any other competence, it gets better with deliberate practice.

Authentic leaders are true to themselves and expressing who they are.

It's hardly possible to express who we are, if we don't know ourselves.

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References:

Ashkenas, R. (2017). How to Overcome Executive Isolation, Harvard Business Review online article.

Church, A. (2014). What Do We Know About Developing Leadership Potential? The Role of OD in Strategic Talent Management. OD Practitioner. 46, pp. 52-61. 

Hezlett, S.A., 2008. Using Multisource Feedback to Develop Leaders: Applying Theory and Research to Improve Practice. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 10(5), pp.703–720.

Kluger, A.N. & DeNisi, A., 1996. The effects of feedback interventions on performance: A historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory. Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), pp.254–284.

Lombardo, M. M., & Eichinger, R. W. (2004). FYI: For your improvement: a guide for development and coaching.