Yesterday I hosted a Facebook Watch Party and had a really great time interviewing Dr. Tim Gardner, author of the book The Backpack. If you missed that video on Facebook, you can click here and take a peek. Tim and I had a really cool discussion about how leaders can improve their self-awareness.
The Backpack is a book about how self-aware you are when you interact with others. I think most of us see self-awareness from the perspective of how we see ourselves. But this really misses the point about what the construct of self-awareness is all about.
The thing that people seem to get wrong about self-awareness is not how you see yourself, but rather how others are experiencing you!
Think about that statement for a minute.
When is the last time you walked away from a meeting and thought, “I wonder how that person just experienced me?”
A Story About Self-awareness
I had a coaching client years ago who led a sales and marketing organization. Really bright guy. Very strategic and an excellent implementer as well. He was articulate and fun. People on his team and his peers really appreciated the value he brought to the organization. In fact, I remember a quote from his interview 360 that I did, “…he makes us all better by being on the team.” I mean, who among us doesn’t want something like that said about us?
But there was one thing about him that almost every one of his peers made a comment on when I interviewed them. A self-awareness thing, really. Some of his peers called it a “lack of executive presence.”
When his team was making a presentation to a more senior leader, and that senior leader would ask a controversial question or see the situation differently than the team was presenting, he would acquiesce to the leader. When I probed his peers on this, none of them could really give me a time where he put a stick in the ground to move the idea forward.
When he and I read the 360, his rationale (his level of self-awareness) was that this was intentional on his part. He told me he was very aware of this and his strategy was to listen to the senior leader and then come back another day to advance his cause.
Seemed logical.
Except this is not how other people were experiencing this behavior. What he saw as a strategic strength, others experienced as conflict avoidance.
In this little example, the leader was very self-aware and even intentional with his action to the point he saw it as a strategic advantage. The point about self-awareness is not only is it how aware you are of how you are showing up but how aware are you of how others are experiencing you.
THREE STEPS TO BE MORE SELF-AWARE
Slow Down Your Routine
Routines make things we used to have to think about become unconscious. This distinction is what Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, describes as making System 1 thinking become System 2. System 1 thinking is that automatic unconscious thinking we all do that makes things routine. It is your gut feeling. It is how you have successfully shown up in the past. In the above story, it is the guy seeing conflict as living to fight another day. System 2 thinking is being conscious of what we are doing. It is taking your “gut” feelings and putting some rational thought behind them. It is slowing down enough to notice not only how you are showing up but also being able to realize how others are experiencing you.Challenge Your Status Quo
Are the behaviors that have made you successful in the past going to get you where you want to be in the future? Mix it up a bit and learn. This will give you new insights and recognitions, helping you to slow down and think more about what you are doing. As you are ending a meeting or a conversation with someone, become more cognizant of how you are ending. Research shows us that how we begin and how we finish interactions with people tend to be how they remember us. As you begin your meeting with the person, remind yourself to do more listening rather than talking. Or perhaps end your next meeting with a conscious smile, leaving them with a positive feeling about being with you.Find a Friend/Coach/Mentor
We all need feedback. To ensure that you understand how people are experiencing you, ask them. Having a true friend, coach, or mentor who will really tell you the way it is can be a great place to get helpful feedback. Not that person who always takes your side or tells you what you want to hear. You need someone who can help you move from seeing to recognizing, then help you experiment with new behaviors so that you know what to practice.
My hope for you is a leader is that you become more self-aware so that you can have an inspirational impact on those you lead.
EXERCISE FOR SKILL ENHANCEMENT
Here is an exercise I have used with my clients from time to time to create more self-awareness. To do this you will need a blank sheet of paper and a pen or pencil.
Divide the page into the following five columns: Stop, Do Less, Continue, Do More, Start.
In each column write down one thing that you want to do to work on your self-awareness.
Next, identify one thing others have given you feedback on the past that you want to be more aware of. As an example, think about the person I described above who always would acquiesce to the leader. I have put an example in the chart below on this so you get an idea of how it might work for you.
