Business Bites: Self-awareness

Being self-aware helps you to make better business decision

Self-awareness is the ability to understand your thoughts, feelings, and behaviour; and recognise the impact they have on yourself and others. This leads to you being more in tune with your emotions, strengths, and areas for development. But are there any benefits to a leader being self-aware?

Mira Brancu, in her article ‘How intentional self-awareness can grow your career‘, poses the question: “What do you mean by self-awareness and why is it so important?”

Brancu writes: “You need to know where you stop and someone else starts. What do I mean by that? We each have our own personal ‘baggage’ that we bring to a relationship: our perspectives, mindsets, experiences and preferences. Unless you’ve done a lot of self-awareness work, much of that baggage is outside your awareness.

“Have you ever found yourself:
• Taking some things more personally or becoming more defensive about certain comments?
• Having a strong negative reaction to a certain kind of personality style?
• Digging your heels in with someone about an issue?
• Needing to be liked or pleasing certain people?
• Avoiding certain conversations with certain people?
• Feeling stuck about how to address a conflict?
• Dismissing feedback if it comes from specific people?

“How do you know when it’s your issue, or theirs, or some combination?

“If you haven’t done some work to understand yourself well — what makes you tick, what your biases are when making decisions, what your triggers are and why — then you are functioning at a significant disadvantage. You are increasing the chance of making inaccurate assumptions, repeating past unhealthy interpersonal dynamics, or simply addressing problems in less effective ways. All of these can lead to unfortunate missteps that can sabotage or shortchange how much you can truly grow in your career.”

Benefits of being self-aware

Additional benefits to being self-aware include making better decisions and being able to navigate complex situations; being more creative, building stronger relationships, inspiring loyalty, and commitment from others. Self-awareness also encourages us to consider if we are a more authentic version of ourselves.

For leaders specifically, self-awareness enables them to understand their values, biases, communication style and what drives them. This allows the leader to tailor their approach to an individual employee’s needs.

A self-aware leader is able to provide constructive and empathic feedback, which will land well with the employee, encouraging the employee to feel more focused and motivated to achieve their goals. The leader is also better able to manage their own emotions, ensuring that their emotions do not stand in the way of the advice, guidance and support they provide to the employee. This provides an open environment, where employees feel truly heard and supported on their journey toward their goals.

In her book – Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think – organisational psychologist, Tasha Eurich, explains how developing self-awareness (knowing who we are and how others see us) helps us to be fulfilled, confident, and successful in life and work.

Eurich’s research shows that self-awareness is the foundation for high performance, smart choices, and lasting relationships. It also shows that most people don’t see themselves as clearly as they could.

She writes, “Our data reveals that 95 per cent of people believe they are self-aware, but the real number is 12 to 15 per cent. That means, on a good day, about 80 percent of people are lying about themselves – to themselves.”

Cultivating self-awareness

Self-awareness is a skill that you can work on and develop. Critical elements include questioning assumptions about yourself by asking for feedback. To apply this concept in the workplace, first, ask for feedback from every member of the team. Create a safe environment for people to share their truth when giving feedback. Most importantly, make sure this is a continuous practise and not just a one-off event.

The key to effective self-reflection is to focus on something for a defined period of time and not to ‘beat yourself up’. For example, instead of focusing on why you may have done something, think about what you can do differently next time or what kind of support you need. Self-reflection should move you forward productively.

The most productive work environments, according to Eurich, are built around people being humble, open, honest, and willing to learn and grow.

Here are five proven ways to cultivate self-awareness:

1. Dedicate time each day to think about and write down, what has happened during the day, how it made you feel and how it has influenced your actions. By writing it down, you are able to identify recurring actions, thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, helping you to develop a greater understanding of yourself. It is helpful to question your assumptions about yourself and others, as this can provide a more accurate understanding of your motivations and biases.
2. Asking others for feedback on your actions, behaviours and communication style can provide an insight on how you come across and others’ perceptions of you. It can be difficult to not be defensive when others highlight areas for improvement but look at this as a positive conversation to help your development.
3. Consider your reactions to situations: why did something upset you or make you cross; and are there certain triggers or people which cause this reaction. From this, consider how you can manage these situations, your feelings and your responses going forward.
4. Reflect on what truly matters to you  – your values. Consider your reasons behind those values and how your actions align with those values. Where your actions do not align with those values, consider what you can change to ensure you are being authentic to yourself.
5. Acknowledge your weaknesses and mistakes; and consider how you can learn from your mistakes. Push yourself to try new things to broaden your perspective and ensure you continually develop.

By consistently engaging in these activities, you can gradually develop a deeper understanding of yourself, your thoughts, feelings and actions, ultimately leading to greater self-awareness and personal growth, resulting a stronger ability to mentor others.

Eurich offers one last piece of advice: “Working on your self-awareness will put you ahead of 80 per cent of your peers. Don’t put pressure on yourself to do it quickly—be open to what people tell you so that you can make a significant improvement“.

Other useful reading
Eurich T. Managing yourself. What self-awareness really is (and how to cultivate it. 2018. Harvard Business Review. 
Cecchi-Dimeglio P. How self-awareness elevates leadership effectiveness. 2024. Forbes.
Nell Derick Debevoise N. Purpose, self-awareness, willingness to change and tenacity. 2024. Forbes.

Do you have a topic you’d like to see covered in Business Bites? Email the editor Nicky Collinson at ncollinson@abdo.org.uk