Self Awareness Case

Self-Awareness for Leaders

Leadership skills and abilities start with an awareness of self. The innate ability to recognize your strengths while admitting your weaknesses is a learned trait or ability. This ability of owning your mistakes and failures to your subordinates will garner the respect and trust of an effective leader.

A self-aware leader has to work at becoming self-aware. There are several methods in which he / she can self-access. Case in point, a leader should solicit feedback from their co-workers and subordinates. He / she should create an atmosphere free of fear and the freedom to speak freely. He / she must be able to listen without defending their actions. By simply listening they may hear all that is required to change and correct unwanted leadership traits. By allowing this free flowing communications it will create an atmosphere of trust and effective dialogue. One of the biggest self-awareness issues in leaders, is that they may not see how they come across to others. They may not see themselves clearly. This inability to see oneself can create misunderstanding, lack of trust and respect. This is why it is important to ask for constructive feedback.

Self-assessment can be achieved by self-testing. However, the limitations of this type of assessment would be in how a person view's themself. It is something akin to listening to your own voice without the ability to really hear yourself. This type of testing is only reliable if you perceive yourself clearly and are absolutely honest with yourself. Many are not absolutely honest with themselves. Therefore some self-assessment test are not good for certain types of leaders. As a leader, you would have to create some checks and balances to make sure you are seeing yourself clearly.

Leaders who are not self-aware cannot effectively lead. They cannot always see the forest for the trees so to speak. It places