{"id":22411,"date":"2023-07-07T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-07T06:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davies-group.com\/consulting\/blog\/great-leadership-begins-with-great-self-awareness\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T16:09:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T16:09:00","slug":"great-leadership-begins-with-great-self-awareness","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/davies-group.com\/consulting\/blog\/great-leadership-begins-with-great-self-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Leadership begins with Great Self-Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever felt mildly annoyed\/ highly irritated by a co-worker, team member or subordinate, who did not do things the way you do? Or perhaps maybe had the exact same flaws as you? Have you ever \u2018criticised\u2019 someone under the guise of feedback because your own subjective feelings got in the way?<\/span><\/p>\n

Carl Jung, one of the greatest minds in psychology once said:<\/span>\u201cEverything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The behaviours described above are a small subset of many such behaviours – where we often judge others, are defensive, maybe display a lack of empathy, etc. These are quite common and often happen subconsciously.\u00a0What if I told you that the greatest reason for all these behaviours, is often tied to a lack of self-awareness and self-acceptance?<\/p>\n

In a recent series of experiments and studies conducted by S. Krol and J. Bratz, published by the APA in February 2021, emerged a clear proof that lacking a clear and stable sense of self greatly undermines empathy and helping behaviour. In fact, how strongly you understand and accept yourself is directly proportional to your empathy for others.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But what truly is self-awareness? And how does one achieve it?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The pursuit of what the \u2018self\u2019 is or what consciousness truly is, is an area of a lot of research and debate among the scientific and philosophical communities. The aim of this article, though, is to not shed light on this ongoing pursuit or debate, but to talk about self-awareness from the perspective of emotional intelligence and how self-awareness is a primary need for Leadership.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is self-awareness?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not to be confused with consciousness, which is more about being aware of one\u2019s existence. Self-awareness, from a psychological lens, is simply defined as the experience of one\u2019s own personality or individuality.\u00a0It is often formed by the practice of reflective and evaluative processes during individual experiences (Crook 1980 & Morin 2011).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

These processes enable an individual to not only understand their own strengths and weaknesses (Cherniss & Goleman 2001) but also understand how others perceive them (Baumeister 2005, Taylor 2010). Therefore, anticipating how others perceive you and evaluating your own actions according to your personal and collective beliefs and values, as well as caring about how others evaluate you, is a huge part of self-awareness.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Self-awareness is also directly linked to emotional intelligence. It is believed that self-awareness affects your emotional intelligence and vice versa (Ashkanasy & Dasborough 2003; Gill, Ramsey and Leberman 2005; Goleman 2001).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How can being self-aware make you a better leader?<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important part of being a leader is maintaining the desire to keep on learning. This means, learning about yourself, your peers and about the people you serve<\/span><\/i>\u201d \u2013 Brian Koval.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Researchers today contend that self-awareness is a crucial component of leadership.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Only when a leader is relatively self-aware can he or she appreciate and understand their own personal strengths and weaknesses, and core values. This type of awareness means that they can be vulnerable, authentic, ask and receive feedback well and focus on their growth.\u00a0Additionally, as we have already seen, self-awareness is directly connected to empathy and a need to help others.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Research further indicates that leaders who aren\u2019t self-aware, can cut a team\u2019s success by half and they can be really tough to be around as most often:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n