What do you believe is most important in a good leader?
Do you ever wish you understood yourself better when you were younger? I made many mistakes as a leader that would have been avoided if I had known myself better. Self-reflection and the resulting self-awareness is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves and our teams. Let us increase our self-awareness today by reflecting on our issues, actions, reactions, conflicts and triumphs. Our families, teams and workplaces will become better as we understand ourselves better. #LeadershipDevelopment #Coaching #Training #WorkingGenius
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Beatrice Chestnut is the author of the excellent book, the ‘9 types of leadership’. In a nut shell the book considers how our personalities as discussed within the Enneagram model affect our leadership. Chestnut helps us understand ourselves and those we work with better. As our self-awareness increases we are able to lead with greater insight, wisdom and understanding.
I started a new roll some time ago and once I’d signed the contract I reached out to my future staff to start building relationships before I started so we could hit the ground running. One of the staff asked a really insightful question. They said something like, ‘I see that you love leadership, so what is the most important trait of a good leader?’
My reply was, ‘self-awareness’. I went on to explain how this works out. If I don’t understand myself, my reactions, my tone of voice, my shortcomings and strengths, then how can I expect to be effective in leading others to be better understand themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, goals and values?
If I am self-aware then when we go through conflict, I think through my reactions and whether they were positive or negative. I am better positioned to ensure the relationship stays in tact, increasing productivity due to greater understanding of one another. If I am self-aware I understand my strengths and capitalise, whilst actively seeking others who will complement my weaknesses to ensure the workplace is well rounded.
Chestnut found significant anecdotal evidence that self-awareness increased productivity, increased happiness amongst employees. It enabled greater and more truthful communication, enabled less turn-around amongst staff and further even chief financial officers have regularly said that increased self-awareness made a significant and positive difference to the bottom line.
Over the next few weeks I am going to be considering a bunch of topics relating to self-awareness. I hope you are encouraged to spend some time thinking through, ‘what can I do today to become more self-aware?’ If you are unsure of where to start there are many books that can help you or contact me. A good executive coach asks good questions that will help you better discover your geniuses, you weaknesses and a path toward greater self-awareness.