Self-Awareness

What?

Understanding yourself as a person is vital in being a leader. Knowing how you best communicate and interact with the people around you can make a world of difference when leading. Self-awareness is similar to humility, which I talked about in my previous blog. According to Indeed, “Self-awareness in leadership is an understanding of how your personality traits, habits and abilities affect your interactions with the people around you, particularly in the workplace.” (“The Importance of Self Awareness in Leadership”, 2021). I feel more can be added to this definition. I feel self-awareness is also linked to your knowledge and experience. Taking humility into play with your self-awareness can provide you with a flow of construction within yourself and others.

So What?

Why should we be self-aware as leaders? Chinwe Esimai from Forbes states that “Self-awareness is empowering because it arms you with knowledge and enables you to make better choices — to change or grow.” (Esimai, 2018). Changing and growing as leaders is what makes us stronger and better suited for our teams. Morphing with your peers to work with them, rather than against them can benefit your team’s communication, work ethic, productivity and much more. This changing and growing extends outside of specific forms of leadership (i.e. sports captain, president, CEO, manager, etc.). Taking new emotional/self-awareness/intelligence into your one-on-one relationships and life will greatly improve your interpersonal skills. 

Now What?

 There are many ways in order to become self-aware and many websites that give you tips — one being the Harvard Business Review. It states five ways: meditate, write down your key plans and priorities, take psychometric tests, ask trusted friends, and get regular feedback at work. (Tjan, 2015) While these are all great suggestions, I believe becoming self-aware is more of a personal journey and not a one-size-fits-all deal. For myself, I started becoming more self-aware in college. College was the first time in my life where I could sit back and form my own opinions separate from my parents. While my parents did influence many of my opinions, that didn’t stop college from skewing some of them. Another way I became more self-aware was creating new friendships and having multiple different types of friend groups. When I was in high school, I caught myself only surrounding myself with people who shared the same opinions as me which led me to be single minded. It made me mad and fight other people for having differing opinions from me. I learned over time that listening, viewing the world from their point of view, and either taking or leaving that opinion would leave no hard feelings, at least on my end. College has allowed me to take in new information and opinions with more clarity and level-headedness. I believe I have greatly worked on my self-awareness. That being said, I know I still have a long way to go, as do all humans who hope to evolve constantly for the greater good. I strive to always find more ways to improve myself, not only as a rising leader in the world, but also as a person who is about to graduate and join society fully. Virginia Tech has given me a lot of viable life lessons, but there is definitely more education on the table once I join the workforce. 

References:

Esimai, C. (2018, February 16). Great leadership starts with self-awareness. Forbes. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2018/02/15/self-awareness-being-more-of-what-makes-you-great/?sh=2b46140f40dd. 

The Importance of Self Awareness in Leadership. Indeed Career Guide. (2021, March 10). Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/self-awareness-in-leadership. 

Tjan, A. K. (2015, February 11). 5 ways to become more self-aware. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2015/02/5-ways-to-become-more-self-aware.