Self-awareness is the knowledge we dynamically formulate about our needs, values, strengths, shortcomings, aspirations, and how others view us. Without self-awareness, our behavior is reflexive, guided by conscious and unconscious learned-responses (habits) and the pleasure principle; we do what feels good, we avoid what does not.
Without self-awareness, we will struggle to achieve an accurate understanding of how our actions impact others.
Brief Case-Study:
Gene is a finance manager in-line to become the CFO of a midsize Pharma. Gene realizes his gift for numbers and his ability to think critically in real-time. The latter has helped him in presentations as well as defend the company’s investment portfolio to analysts and external stakeholders. Gene views himself as indispensable, but his sense of entitlement translates into an attitude of being exempt from the need to play by the rules. Gene’s inflated confidence in his abilities is also his greatest weakness. Gene is known to steamroll anyone in his way.
When Gene was passed over for a peer to succeed the CFO role, he reacted with shock and disbelief. The story may have ended much differently had Gene been aware of his behavior and how he was impacting others. Had Gene been able to garner stronger self-awareness, he would learn more about:
In sum, deeper self-awareness would have helped Gene become the master of his behavior rather than his behavioral reactions guiding him.
So how do we achieve self-awareness? There are a number of ways to ‘look into the mirror’ and learn about your self. The first step is simply to acknowledge the need and carve out time to answer deep questions, such as:
Next, it’s critical to find out how your network views you along these same questions. Though potentially uncomfortable, soliciting feedback from your peers and trusted colleagues can surface new insights, affirm internally-generated hypotheses, and provide you with a sense of any areas where you view your self differently from how others view you.
At AIIR, we view Self-Awareness as the bedrock that enables change and development to unfold. We believe it is so essential to successful change, that we spend between 30-40% of any given coaching assignment providing our client an opportunity to cultivate deep self awareness through our comprehensive assessment-feedback process.
After all this talk about the criticality of self-awareness, though, I must fess up that self-awareness alone is not enough! Keep an eye out for our next blog post in this series, where we’ll talk about the difference between Self-Awareness and Strategic Self Awareness.
Yours Truly,
Jonathan
