Improving Your Leadership Starts with Being Self-Aware

We often think of self-awareness as understanding our strengths and weaknesses. While being introspective is important to understanding ourselves, it’s only part of the picture. True self-awareness requires both external and internal perspectives on your skills and abilities.

FMI has spent decades developing models and means for helping leaders gain perspectives from those around them. We’ve then turned our research into action by showing people how to transition self-awareness to leadership behaviors.

We often conduct these 360-degree reviews and discover critical insights. An accurate assessment of your own level of self-awareness takes effort and vulnerability, but the commitment will yield positive results.

It’s hard to know where to start, but we recommend these questions can help you:

• Are you part of the 80% of leaders who think they are self-aware but do not demonstrate self-aware behaviors?
• How would you know if you were not self-aware?
• What are your strengths and weaknesses?
• Where are you best positioned to do your best work?
• What is your personal mission?
• What legacy do you want to leave for your family, colleagues and community?
• Have you aligned your behaviors around your personal mission?
• Who has the ability and willingness to give you accurate and candid feedback?

Once you’ve thought about these questions, you can start building your self-awareness by:

• Making a list of your personal strengths and weaknesses
• Getting feedback from trusted advisors and those closest to you on your list of strengths and weaknesses
• Developing a personal mission statement
• Going through a leadership 360 assessment
• Reviewing or completing a personality assessment
• Attending the FMI Leadership Institute
• Developing feedback skills
• Receiving feedback from other industry leaders

Developing Internal Self-Awareness

Developing internal self-awareness is primarily about working on your own leadership skills and capabilities. Building a deeper understanding of self takes time, effort and practice. The goal is to discover how to lead in the most effective manner possible.

Here are two steps you can take right now to start deepening your internal self-awareness:

1. Understand your strengths and weaknesses. Analyze what you are good at, where you are best positioned to succeed and what you enjoy doing the most. Write down your strengths and weaknesses. How do they affect your current role? Do you need to shore up any weaknesses? Do you need to bring additional strengths into your role? Be candid with others about your assessment and be open to their perspectives and feedback.
2. Assess your personal mission. Why do you work? What legacy do you want to leave for your family, your job and your community? Align your activities and behaviors around those objectives. How do you want to be evaluated on your progress and growth? Are you behaving in a way that others would believe in your personal mission? Continually assess your progress and make the necessary changes.

Building External Self-Awareness

Develop an environment where people feel comfortable giving you candid feedback—an exercise that’s particularly vital at the senior leadership level. As leaders move up in an organization, it becomes riskier for others to give them honest feedback.

Use these steps to start building more external perspectives and encouraging others to provide feedback:

1. Start early to create an environment of feedback across the organization. Recognize that you may have blind spots and listen for the clues that others might see them. In a situation where even the newest team member can challenge the most tenured individual, the senior leader’s blind spots will come to light more quickly. Ask those closest to you to evaluate your progress.
2. Take a few minutes to evaluate the people you work with and their ability and willingness to provide honest and open feedback. A key component of your external feedback environment is the trusted leaders around you who are willing and courageous enough to be honest. Who disagreed with you recently about a decision you were 100% committed to making? Who changed your mind unexpectedly about something? Who shared feedback with you that got your attention or surprised you?

Self-Aware Leaders Get Results

There is a clear link between companies with stronger financial rates of return and leaders with higher levels of self-awareness. There is a palpable energy that drives these self-aware teams and organizations forward, and it manifests itself with growth and development, challenge and acceptance. Focus on developing your self-awareness and watch how it challenges and raises all the leaders around you.