Ask 100 business professionals about the definition of self-awareness, and you may get 100 different answers. The one I find most valuable in my executive coaching practice is adapted from Dr. Reuven Bar-On in his technical manual for the EQ-i 2.0 assessment: “Emotional self-awareness is the ability to recognize your feelings, differentiate between them, know why you are feeling these feelings, and recognize the impact your feelings have on others around you.”
I find the last part of that sentence so important, because it implies or recognizes a mutuality and reciprocity in the relationship that a leader has with their team. An effective leader is not only aware of the deep-rooted complexes that are triggering their unconscious behaviors; they are likewise aware of the impact that acting on them has on the people around them. A wise leader would want to be in control of how they expresses their emotions and the behaviors they choose as often as possible. I find that emotionally self-aware leaders often pull people toward them with their authenticity and genuine presence. They are often more empathetic and able to connect with others in a meaningful way that boosts morale, inspires performance and supports engagement. By contrast, I notice leaders who are not very emotionally self-aware often push others away because those around them can sense their disingenuous behavior.
Leaders with low emotional self-awareness are often self-focused instead of others-focused, meaning they have a one-dimensional perspective. Leaders with poor emotional self-awareness can come across as cold, dismissive or uncaring, and they can be overly direct or described as “all business,” which can sometimes come across as aloofness.
Worse yet, they may give off mixed signals or mixed messages. By this I mean that their words are not in alignment with their tone of voice or body language. When they deliver a message like this, they are often misread or misunderstood, which makes for ineffective communication. Likewise, they can misinterpret what other people are telling them; when you aren’t aware of your own feelings and behaviors, how can you possibly read another person effectively?
For example, let’s say Sharon has a delivery crisis in her department, and they are about to miss a critical deadline. Which type of communication will be more likely to achieve an effective result: if Sharon approaches her team in a laidback tone, a relaxed look on her face and casual posture? Or if Sharon uses a firm tone of voice and rigid posture and looks like she is a little tense, thereby suggesting a sense of urgency? Congruency between body language, tone of voice and facial expressions is important in successful communication.
One client I worked with — I’ll call him Liam — scored very low in emotional self-awareness and exhibited all of the below behaviors:
• Lack of awareness of the impact of his behavior on his direct reports.
• Lack of congruency between his true feelings and his nonverbal communication.
• Self-focused instead of others-focused.
I asked Liam to keep a journal (which he efficiently turned into an Excel spreadsheet) and to stop and assess his feelings at three specific times during the day: 8 a.m., 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. In the beginning, it became clear to me and to Liam that he often did not know what he was feeling in the moment. I then asked him to pick from one of these four feelings: mad, sad, glad or scared.
Then I asked him to add a fourth column to his spreadsheet: who was affected by either his actions or his mood. As you might guess, this was an even bigger challenge. By capturing this data on a daily basis, Liam started to discover how his feelings affected his behaviors and how his behaviors affected other people. As recurrent patterns emerged in his data, Liam became more conscious of his own emotions and those of his direct reports.
If you want to start increasing your own emotional self-awareness, follow the steps below. Once you access your emotions (the first step to increase self-management), you can have more conscious control over how you want to behave and how you want to affect those around you.
Step 1: Start by asking yourself: “Do I know what am I feeling right now? If I am feeling concerned or serious but come across as amiable, will I be able to effectively convey the sense of urgency needed to drive this project?” It is important that people read you as being authentic if you want to achieve buy-in.
Step 2: Keep a journal that tracks how you are feeling throughout different times of the day. Being able to understand what triggers concern, frustration, irritation, anger or sadness in others helps a leader to resist overreacting based only on emotion. Leaders who are tuned in to what they are feeling can change their behaviors if they need to before creating ill will.
Step 3: Ask trusted friends or colleagues to describe you. When one of my clients took an emotional intelligence assessment and was flagged for being “overly positive” in her self-ratings, she was upset when I told her the report was invalid. I asked her to go home, show her family the report and ask for their feedback. At our next meeting, she told me her family agreed she had assessed herself in an overly positive way. Their support assisted me in helping her to understand herself better.
Takeaways
Strong self-awareness is the key ingredient in successful leadership. Better self-understanding breeds better motivation and communication. Effective leaders know that because they are better able to understand their own emotions, they are likewise able to understand the emotions of others and make better decisions for the team.
