Self-Awareness

How does self-awareness impact your leadership style?

In a recent article for the Harvard Business Review, Dr Tasha Eurich stated that her research into self awareness found that although the majority of people questioned believed that they were self aware, actually only 10-15% of people fit the criteria.

High self-awareness is important for leaders as it makes them more effective, increases employee satisfaction and leads to higher profits.

Eurich identifies two type of awareness, which we each possess in varying degrees:

  1. Internal self-awareness, which represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions and impact on others. People who scored highly in this category had higher job satisfaction, social control, and were happier. They were also less susceptible to anxiety, stress, and depression.
  2. External self-awareness, which is understanding how other people view us. Leaders who scored highly in this category were better at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives, meaning higher rates of employee satisfaction.

You can see that to be an effective leader it is important to have a high level of both internal and external self-awareness.

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Eurich identifies four self-awareness archetypes as outlined in the infograph above. Do you recognise yourself?

If you would like to learn more about self-awareness or our emotional intelligence programmes, please contact us today.