Self-Awareness: The Key to Authentic Leadership

Who you are, is how you lead.

Leadership is about authenticity. Who you are is how you lead.

I have seen many leaders crumble by the facades they present. When the pressure is on, the "real person" comes out. Reverting back to type is a common phrase that describes this behaviour. In my experience, I have found people revert back to type, only when they haven't taken their previous errors and modified their behaviours. In other words they don't learn from their experience. They haven't learnt a better way. They put up a facade to let others believe that they have....but as they say, facades crumble.

Not putting the effort into knowing who you are, stalls many leadership careers. Pretending to be someone or something you are not, creates other issues. Trying to be everything to everyone is another common flaw. Is it any wonder Authentic Leadership is a trending topic around the world today.

Authentic leadership starts with Self-Awareness. Self-aware leaders go to great lengths to learn from their mistakes and errors. They understand their strengths, their weaknesses and impacts on others. They take the lessons. They learn to maximise their strengths and work on their weaknesses. And the importance of knowing your impact on others can never be underestimated.

A leader I knew during my career could never get away from being called "Mr Smith". No matter how hard he tried he could never step away from the formal name from the people he led. He was a large man and quite stern looking, so he intimidated people without trying. He realised he needed to break away from what he saw as his "school teacher" formality. He went to great pains to connect with people at their level. He moved away from the constant work and task communication and connected with what they valued and treasured, and slowly the formal name started to ease. He started to connect better with his team and because of this he started seeing a better team. He saw greater initiative and constant improvements. The formal approach and perception of intimidation had curtailed his team engagement, and when he worked to connect with his team at their level, the results multiplied.

Now my colleague created a better leadership and team environment by having the self-awareness to understand the reasons behind the formal approach, and the desire to change it to create a better environment. Many leaders I have known and worked for, would not have the self-awareness and some would welcome the perception as it created fear and intimidation as the major influencing aspect.

Self Awareness Leads to Insight

Self-Aware leaders should ask themselves the following questions if they want to maximise their leadership skills and effectiveness.

• What drives me? What is my purpose?
• How am I currently feeling?
• What is my mindset and how is that affecting my attitude to others?
• How am I impacting others?
• How are others around me feeling and reacting?

Self-aware people don't need a campfire and guitar to reflect. They create time daily to reflect and analyse. Many of my clients have a process to reflect daily. They include things like:

• A daily walk alone with your thoughts
• A routine time and place to stop and think, eg. A bench overlooking the Brisbane River, a particular chair in their office/home
• Some meditate.
• Some even lie down and still their mind to reflect.

People should have a regular process to pause and reflect, because this is the key to becoming self-aware. Reflection leads to self-awareness and self-awareness is one of the first steps in becoming an authentic leader.

If you really want to improve your results, ask yourself.

Who are you? What is your purpose? What impact are you having on others around you? How am I feeling? How is my team feeling?

Tony Curl is a leadership coach and business consultant. He combines international certification with his 30 years of Operational Leadership with some of Australia's biggest retail names. He can be contacted by visiting his website at Think & Grow Business