As you know if you’ve ever tried to read a mall map, you can’t get to where you want to go without first finding that “you are here” marker.
Self-awareness is more than just knowing who you are. It’s having the insight to fully leverage your strengths and to flex your style in any moment to amplify your impact. Learn how to understand yourself and use that knowledge for good.
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Hey, it’s Rachel Cooke, your Modern Mentor. I’m the founder of Lead Above Noise—we help companies craft amazing employee experiences and run leadership development programs. A lot of my work lately has been with newer leaders—often newly promoted or hired into leadership roles they have ambitions of crushing. Many of them are coming through my SIMPLE leadership coaching program. They show up to the program hungry and curious and ready to do all the leaderly things. So when I kick off my program with a focus on self-awareness—not gonna lie—I’ve learned to be ready for the “are you kidding me???” stares. Because self-awareness seems so quiet when they are just ready to get loud.
But don’t worry. I win ‘em back quickly when I explain that self-awareness is kind of the key to greatness at work. Because as you know if you’ve ever tried to read a mall map, you can’t get to where you want to go without first finding that “you are here” marker. Deep stuff. I know.
Today let’s talk about what self-awareness actually is, how you can acquire it, and how you can harness it for tremendous results -whether you’re a leader or not.
So, official definitions of self-awareness are all over the map. So I’m gonna skip the “technical” and cut straight to plain English. It’s really just the clarity with which you recognize your defaults—your go-to ways of thinking, doing, and expressing yourself. And also, how your defaults show themselves in moments of high stress or pressure.
And finally, it’s about understanding how these defaults are experienced by those around you—colleagues, leaders, direct reports, clients, partners, customers… you get the drift.
Ultimately, understanding your defaults, your defaults under pressure, and the impacts of your default settings on those around you combine to be the measure of your self-awareness.
You can’t change what you can’t see. And self-awareness makes the invisible visible to you.
And the great news—and the reason my program begins here—is that this isn’t just trivia. It’s not just about knowing, but rather about learning to flex your defaults—your natural style—to meet the needs of different situations. Because nothing about you is wholly fixed or permanent.
So, in the SIMPLE program, we use a Social Styles self-assessment to capture how you tend to think and act. It’s not a hard science—but you don’t need a hard science here. You just need a way of understanding your norms and how they show up.
Our assessment helps you define your working style by asking you to reflect on your bias for action, your need for analysis, your capacity for empathy, and your drive to be collaborative.
But even without an assessment, you can do your own personal reflection.
Ask your leader or colleagues or direct reports for feedback. Here are just a sampling of questions you might ask first yourself, and then those around you. And see how well your answers match theirs.
OK, those questions.
You have my permission to edit, add to, or alter any of these questions. But the point is to ask questions—of yourself and others—designed to give you insight into how you tend to work. And how the ways in which you work are generally received by those around you.
In self-awareness, but also in life I guess, it’s not so much about what you know. It’s about what you do with what you know.
Here the goal isn’t just to know your style, it’s to let your knowing inform your action.
If, say, you’re seen as a super collaborative leader or partner, that’s great. No doubt, you’re delivering products or outputs that capture the voices of many stakeholders which means your outcome is generally richer.
But also. Are you potentially—perhaps in moments of stress or uncertainty—allowing yourself to stay too long in the idea-collection stage? And is there an opportunity for you to infuse more discipline into collecting a certain number of opinions before switching into action mode?
Or maybe you find that you’re excellent at painting a clear and detailed vision for your team. You’re so clear and so detailed, though, that your team feels like there is no real room for them to contribute to or influence the shape of the outcome. Maybe your goal then is to lighten up a bit on the details. Use that collaborative spirit to invite others into the visioning process with you. The more others contribute to defining an outcome, the more ownership they’ll feel of it, and the more engaged they’ll be in bringing it to life.
Ultimately there is no singular good or bad way to lead. It’s about knowing how we tend to lead and finding spaces to make small tweaks and changes where they’d serve your team.
Not sure where to begin, what changes to make? Ask those working most closely with you.
And no, it doesn’t need to be awkward. Here are some approaches you might take.
“Hey, I know I tend to be really analytical—I love data and I love to plan. It would be helpful to hear about when and how that serves you, but also when it might hold you back. Is there a different approach I might try sometimes?”
Or “Hey—I’d love to do a quick after-action review of X project. Would you tell me 2 to 3 things I did during that project that felt helpful or supportive and 2 to 3 things you wish I’d done differently in the moment? I’m really working on my leadership style.”
Listen well. Make changes. And be sure to circle back later and ask “How was it that time? Was it better?
Again, permission to edit or add. The goal is to ask a question that unlocks insight that you can put to use. Yours is the opportunity to turn that insight into action.
Remember self-awareness is knowing yourself. But knowing is just trivia. Take your awareness and make something new happen. Any change you can make that enhances the performance of those around you is a change worth making.
Join me next week for another great episode. Check out leadabovenose.com/simple if you’d like to learn more about this program. You can follow Modern Mentor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Find and follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for listening and have a successful week.