Self-awareness is an essential skill for a leader in any position. But the catch-22 is very few would actually categorize themselves as lacking self-awareness. We unknowingly get ourselves into binds because we think we’re self-aware, but those around us don’t.
There are two parts to self-awareness: understanding ourselves and understanding how others see us. Both require telling the truth — telling the truth to ourselves and inviting other people to tell us additional truths we aren’t aware of yet.
To get closer to the truth:
- Become curious about your actions. “Even if I never admit this to anyone else, how did I come to make this choice or decision [to say that thing, to blurt this out, etc.]?” NOTE: Use “how did I come to…” instead of “why”. Why kicks off a justification / rationalization and “how did I come to…” elicits greater exploration.
- Build a group of by-your-side critics — people who you know are on your team and you can trust to tell you the truth about yourself.
Our fear of what we might hear keeps us from taking these steps. It’s our residual fear of truth. But we can move through fear. Especially if we remember:
- We get to choose to add layers of story to the truth. “I’m bad, I’m not good enough, I’m the worst” are layers of the story, never the truth.
- All behavior is purposive. Whether you realize it or not, you have some intent behind every behavior. What would it take to see your behavior as an exquisite strategy that helped you at one time (when you were a kid, at your last job), but no longer serves you?
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Some Things I Read Last Week:
- HBR: Cracking the Code of Sustained Collaboration “The task for leaders is to encourage an outward focus in everyone, challenging the tendency we all have to fixate on ourselves—what we’d like to say and achieve—instead of what we can learn from others.”
- NYTimes: How Small Habits Can Lead to Big Changes “By making our microsteps too small to fail, we can make those first, small changes on which we can begin to build a new and healthier way of living and working. There’s nothing wrong with aiming big — but we can help ourselves by starting small.”
What I’m Working On This Week:
Looking for the positive intent behind other people’s actions (and my own).