Written by: Claire Walton, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
We are all so busy with so many demands on our time that it is easy to get complacent with our self-development. Leadership self-awareness takes practice and it’s worth it. If we don’t keep developing ourselves we will not thrive as leaders and as people.
Self-development starts with self-awareness and because self-development needs to be continual so does self-awareness.
What are some of the barriers to self-awareness?
Many of my clients arrive at their first coaching session thinking they are self-aware and yet struggling with many aspects of their role and their life.
Clients can often put up several barriers:
One of the biggest barriers to developing their self-awareness practice is a reluctance to slow down to become more aware in the moment and notice their thoughts, feelings, behaviour, and the impacts of each.
Another barrier is the lack of belief they can carve out a small amount of time daily for self-reflection knowing that this will make them more efficient and effective in the long-term, and that this will give them that time back and some.
They find it difficult to accept they are not expected to be perfect; its human to make mistakes, and all humans have a lot to learn even those constantly developing themselves.
They don’t receive critical feedback from others and therefore can assume they are doing okay, and any issues lie with others.
Clients need to be convinced that the work is worth the result. So what is the Return of Investment (ROI)?
Why is it worth it?
Because it makes us better people and better leaders
It protects us from outside influences that are not aligned to our purpose, values, and vision of success
It improves the quality and the value of our relationships
It improves our self-control, preventing us from making bad decisions and behaving badly toward ourselves and others
Leadership self-awareness also creates higher results in goal achievement
It improves self-confidence which improves performance and well-being outcomes
It ensures you are more efficient with your personal resources
It means you are less likely to be victim to the agenda of others versus yours
It is associated with higher job and happiness
It is negatively related to anxiety, stress, and depression
Reflecting with a coach and working through feedback with a coach is most likely to enable effective critique with self-compassion and effective actions for onward development that the leader is more likely to act upon consistently and gain the benefits from. Trying to work things through on your own encourages subjectivity.
Steps you can take to improve your self-awareness and change your thoughts, behaviour, and impact
Thinking
Notice your thinking
Think about your thinking
What biases do you hold?
What beliefs, conditioning or values are driving you?
In what way are these helpful?
In what ways are these unhelpful?
Which parts of you are driving your thinking?
In what way is this part being helpful?
In what way is this part unhelpful?
Behaviour
Observe your behaviours
Do they match your intent?
How do these behaviours make you feel?
Impact
Alter your thinking - Focus on what is more helpful to you
Notice how this changes your behaviour
What is the impact on others?
What is the impact on you?
How does this increased self-awareness change your success outcomes?
How does this increased self-awareness change the success outcomes of those around you?
This process of self-awareness requires you to
Improve your ‘in the moment’ meta thinking, (thinking about your thinking).
Improve your physical sensing of feelings, noticing how you are feeling, literally the sensations taking place in your body and how your body posture and facial expressions are changing.
To proactively sense the impact on others and on outcomes in the present.
To regularly and consistently self -reflect. This can be both close to the event and after some time has passed, as impact on long-term outcomes are not always immediately obvious.
To achieve each of the above you need to be prepared to
Slow down
Create time in your day to take a pause
Practice consistently
Be patient enough to practice for long enough to experience the results (normally within weeks)
Is self–observation enough?
No! Self-observation is just one part of the process of gaining self-awareness. We also need Input from others.
Input from others helps us see our thinking, behaviour, and impact from another person’s perspective. Leaders who want to be self-aware must proactively work on seeing themselves clearly and getting feedback to understand how others experience them.
Research, my own lived experience, and that of my clients shows that leaders who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. Subsequently they tend to have better relationships and greater success outcomes.
“We’ve found that even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria.” HBR.
Watch out if you are a senior leader
In my experience more senior leaders are less likely to be self-aware than inexperienced leaders.
Whilst inexperienced leaders are still developing self-awareness skills, they are hungrier for feedback and people are more comfortable in giving them critical feedback and support to work with the feedback
Interestingly, more senior, experienced leaders can become more complacent, believe they know themselves, their strengths, and weaknesses and that they apply this knowledge well and are less likely to ask for feedback.
When they ask for feedback it is rarely forthcoming and when it is, it is often focussed on the positive. This is because more junior or less influential people tend to be less comfortable in critiquing them. And of course, the more the feedback is necessary, the less likely the feedback is forthcoming and constructive.
None of us is perfect – you may need to seek help from a coach
If you are a senior leader and you are not receiving the critique you ask for, take this as a sign that something needs to change. A confidential 360 administered by an external coach can increase the chance of quality feedback as those respondents asked to complete the 360 will have more confidence in the anonymity of their responses and the skills of an external coach in delivering the feedback to the leader.
A skilled coach will also be prepared and able to give you constructive feedback based on how you show up with them. A skilled coach can also help you to improve your self-awareness strategies and identify exercises you can do and changes you can make to learn and grow, achieving more success for less stress.
Claire Walton, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Claire Walton spent over 20 years leading teams to achieve major changes in large organisations across the UK and Europe. Having trained as a coach in her 20’s, she has 30 plus years coaching experience. In 2014 she started to build the brand ‘Leaders are MAD’ to help leaders make a difference for themselves, their teams, organisations and the customers and communities they serve. Claire’s clients describe her as authentic, empathetic, challenging and inspirational. They describe her work with them as transformational. Claire is also a best selling author and keynote speaker.
