Self-awareness in leadership, key to excellence

The importance of soft skills in leadership is no longer up for debate. When experts are asked about the most important skills to be a good leader, emotional intelligence, empathy, listening, and vulnerability are often mentioned. As these behavioral and interpersonal skills become non-negotiable, they all stem from one core aptitude that serves as the foundation for other skills’ development: self-awareness.

According to Harvard Business Review, this aptitude is even worth more than an MBA! Yet, it is more complex than it appears: even though most leaders believe they have a good self-awareness, only 10% of them do.

What is self-awareness?

Self-awareness is the ability to identify, understand, and manage one’s own emotions, values, beliefs, and behaviors.

For a leader, it means becoming aware of their strengths, areas for improvement, blind spots and biases to better understand how they influence their leadership style. To be fair and objective, self-awareness must also include the perception that others have of us. Hence, there are two types of self-awareness: internal and external self-awareness.

Assessment tools can be particularly useful for exploring both aspects of self-knowledge. The Johari Window, for example, is interesting because it looks at these two aspects from four angles to compare what we know about ourselves with what others know about us.

• The public area: what we know about ourselves and share with others (e.g., physical appearance, values, academic and professional background, for example).

• The hidden area: what we know about ourselves but don’t share with others, our “secret garden”, so to speak.

• The blind spot: what others know about us, but we are unaware of. It refers to perceptions, rumors, language tics, everything that makes up the image that others have of us and that we do not realize, or think is very different.

• The unknown zone: What neither we nor others know about which can be revealed, for example, during a career evolution or new experiences.

Why is self-awareness important in leadership?

A Gartner study shows that leaders in the top quartile of self-awareness are 10% more effective than others. They demonstrate better collaboration skills, problem-solving abilities, inspire trust and a more creative mindset.

By cultivating greater self-awareness, leaders can observe, understand and recognize their operating patterns. This leads to better awareness of their behavior in various situations. For instance, under pressure or resistance, they can recognize how they typically react and adjust accordingly to stay aligned with their goals.

This ability to adjust one’s behavior is at the very heart of training, coaching and leadership development programs, but their effectiveness is inherently tied to self-awareness.

Indeed, knowing what we call our natural preferences, the behaviors that are deeply rooted in each of us and are expressed without effort or intention, is one of the keys to self-awareness. This is exactly what SuccessFinder psychometric assessment measures through over 85 behavioral traits, it provides the most nuanced and accurate data on the market.

The benefits of good self-awareness

Self-awareness is the first component of emotional intelligence. A leader aware of themselves is a source of growth for both his team and his organization.

More fulfilled teams

A leader who has a good self-awareness can build relationships based on transparency and openness, contributing to create a safer and more inclusive environment. When you know yourself, it becomes easier to detect similarities and difference with others. This naturally fosters empathy and makes you more attentive to others’ experience.

Better self-awareness also enhances credibility and self-confidence, enabling the leader to approach relationships with humility, honesty and transparency, without fear of feedback. A leader who is open to constructive criticism will welcome and use it to improve – and will also approach giving feedback to their team with the same mindset. By leading by example, they create an environment conducive to continuous development and encourage healthy communication.

Such leaders particularly stand out during organizational changes, crises and while working with diverse teams, because their solid self-awareness helps them manage complex situations with greater ease and effectiveness.

More reliable decision-making

Being aware of one’s own biases is another key benefit for self-aware leaders. We all have biases that shape our vision of the world and how we interact with it. A leader who is able to recognize and be aware of his or her biases can avoid making decisions guided by instinct and prejudices.

With detailed data for each assessed profile, SuccessFinder is an excellent tool for eliminating biases and thus making informed HR decisions, based on reliable and accurate data.

And yet: truly self-aware leaders are rare.

How to develop real self-awareness?

Simply asking yourself a series of questions and engaging in introspection is not enough, because we are not objective beings, especially when it comes to evaluating ourselves. A study conducted on over 350,000 people shows a correlation of only 0.29 (out of 1.0) between their skills according to their own self-assessment and an objective assessment of their skills.

An external perspective is therefore essential for true self-awareness, as mentioned earlier. To that end, it is wise to use 360° evaluation tools: gathering feedback allows the leader to develop self-awareness and reap the benefits mentioned earlier.

Another interesting method to develop self-awareness, often used in coaching, is to ask “what” rather than “why”. For example: “what makes me feel bad and what do these situations have in common” vs “why do I feel bad?”. Our human brain does not function rationally. The “what” approach seeks something more objective, focused on the future, whereas the “why” attempts to justify.

Even if they are popular, training programs aimed at increasing self-knowledge often has little real impact on the effectiveness of leaders and organizations. According to this study conducted for the Harvard Business Review, while most people think they know themselves well, only 10 to 15% actually do.

This is especially true for experienced leaders at higher hierarchical levels. These leaders have fewer opportunities to receive feedback because they have few or no superiors, and their vast experience may lead to ideas deeply rooted over time that they don’t question.

Conclusion

Thus, it’s clear that introspection alone is not enough to develop true self-awareness, which will positively influence team performance. It is built on both internal and external perceptions: collecting honest feedback, asking the right questions, and using unbiased tools. A comprehensive psychometric assessment like SuccessFinder easily integrated into a 360-degree evaluation, meets the need for a detailed analysis, tailored to the leader’s and organization’s needs and objectives.

Self-awareness is an essential skill for any leader who aspires to excellence. By committing to a continuous development process, leveraging evaluation tools, and remaining open to feedback, a leader can not only transform their own leadership, but also create a lasting positive impact on their team and organization.