Self-Awareness - What is that good for?

Let’s make this week a Self-Awareness week

I spent Saturday with fellow practitioners from The Leadership Circle Community, digging into Scaling Leadership throughout organisations.

A lot to share from that gathering, and I chose Self awareness because it came out as the most important dimension, as expected. 

What is it and what does a high score mean for your leadership?

Self-Awareness measures your orientation to ongoing professional and personal development, as well as the degree to which your inner self-awareness is expressed through balanced perspective and high integrity. 

Scoring high on self-awareness is a positive indication of your leadership! 

It suggests you actively pursue and value personal and professional development

You are an alive and vital person

Having developed your sense of purpose, you act from your inner center, consciously expression your core values

You are trusted to 'walk your talk' 

And people respect you as someone who acts with integrity

Your sense of self-esteem is based on an inherent appreciation of your life as a journey of learning and development. 

You are not perfect. In fact you know even more clearly than most about your imperfections.

You know that you are a mix of strength and weakness, light and dark.

You are less likely to deny the weak and undeveloped parts of yourself. 

You accept that these aspects are there, admit when you make mistakes or hurt others, and use these experiences to improve.

You become less defensive when others criticize you. 

You have less to defend because you see more of the full complexity of yourself.  This frees you to engage more powerfully and compassionately.

You have less need to get your sense of self-esteem from having others look up to you or your accomplishments. While you enjoy this, it doesn't define you. 

As a consequence, you lead in  a way that strengthens the innate capabilities of those who work with you. 

You see in the weaknesses of others your own struggle to grow. Instead of judging them, you want to help them grow!

Others' talents or successes don't intimidate you. This allows you to surround yourself with very capable people and celebrate their achievements

PS: As a certified Leadership Circle Practitioner, I use The Leadership Circle as a 360-tool to assess, intepret and guide leadership profiles in terms of leadership effectiveness and potential utilisation.