Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal (Northouse 2016, pg 6). While it is important to get to know and understand the people that will be working for you, it is also important that as a leader you get to know and understand yourself. Being cognizant of how you perform as a leader will allow you to improve your leadership skills. When one fails to understand themselves they are unable to be fully effective. Self-awareness is essential to leadership. Without self-awareness one cannot understand their strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing yourself is not only beneficial to you, but also to your organization. New research by Korn Ferry analysts David Zes and Dana Landis provides a stalwart challenge confirming with a large body of data the direct relationship between leader self-awareness and organizational financial performance (Cashman, 2014). Understanding yourself and coming to reality with the truth is not always easy, but it will allow room for growth. No one is perfect and everyone can improve in some aspect of their leadership abilities. Being self-aware will allow you to pay attention to how you operate in your leadership position. If you are having issues, but not aware of those issues then you will be unable to address those issues. Not being self-aware can hinder the organization.
The four-lenses assessment is a proven personality assessment which helps organizations build a solid understanding of the innate talent and potential of its individuals (4 lenses, nd). In a leadership course I attended we had to take the assessment and it was interesting to find out more about myself. There were qualities associated with the colors: green, gold, orange, and blue. I was a gold which meant that I was a rule-follower, organized, and structure-oriented. Orange was my blind spot which was personalities that were free-spirits, spontaneous, and care-free. I had absolutely no qualities in the orange category, but knowing that I struggled with orange personalities allowed me to try to understand the personalities better. Orange personalities lives life on the edge, they are risk takers, easily distracted, adventurous. It was tough try to understand why those with the orange personalities acted certain ways, but I learned to appreciate them for their uniqueness and the bright ideas that they brought to the table.
Had I not taken that assessment I would not have known my personality type or how to deal with the personality types that are different than mine. That assessment allowed me to self-reflect on how I operate on a day to day basis. I understood why certain actions frustrated me and that allowed me to alter my expectations based on the fact that no two people are the same and their way of operating does not make it wrong. Being able to understand my strengths allowed me to use them more and being able to understand my weaknesses allowed me to tailor them to positive actions.
Although I am a leader within my organization I still have a supervisor that provides me with feedback often. The feedback that I am given allows me to get a better understanding of how I am performing in the organization. I am made aware of my performance which allows me to enhance or change for the betterment of the organization. I love my job and I want to be an effective leader. Being able to be self-aware will allow room for improvement of my weaknesses and a continuation of my strengths. As a leader we owe it to ourselves and our organization to know ourselves better so that we can effectively lead the way.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.
Cashman, K. (2014). Return On Self-Awareness: Research Validates The Bottom Line Of Leadership Development. Retrieved October 06, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevincashman/2014/03/17/return-on-self-awareness-research-validates-the-bottom-line-of-leadership-development/#2618075d2b11.
4 Lenses™ Assessment. (n.d.). Retrieved October 06, 2016, from http://www.shipleycommunication.com/assessments/4_lenses/.