Self-awareness seems to have become the latest management buzzword — and for good reason. Research suggests that when we see ourselves clearly, we are more confident and more creative. We make sounder decisions, build stronger relationships, and communicate more effectively. We’re less likely to lie, cheat and steal. We are better workerswho get more promotions. And we are more-effective leaders with more-satisfied employeesand more-profitable companies.
Self-awareness is the entry point to effective leadership. It is only by understanding ourselves that we can fully understand what our impact is on others. Moreover, emotional self-awareness has a compounding effect as the foundation of building all of the emotional intelligence competencies e.g. emotional self-control, adaptability, empathy and conflict management all begin with a foundation of emotional self-awareness. If someone is low in emotional self-awareness, an individual’s chance of demonstrating strength in other areas is low. It is so fundamental in personal and leadership development, that I want to refer to some important research conducted by Dr. Tasha Eurich and I encourage everyone to continue to work on developing self-awareness through asking the right questions about the impact of one’s behavior to others and personal reflection. One can also cultivate self-awareness by seeking effective executive coaching. A coach can help us see what is not readily apparent to us, and can also help us learn practices to become more self-aware, like noticing triggers and emotions in our day-to-day interactions.
Dr. Tasha Eurich’s research estimates that only 10%–15% of the people they’ve studied actually fit the criteria. Three findings in particular stood out, and are helping us develop practical guidance for how leaders can learn to see themselves more clearly.
#1: There are two types of self-awareness
The first, internal self-awareness, represents how clearly we see our own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others. Dr. Eurich’s research has found that internal self-awareness is associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness; it is negatively related to anxiety, stress, and depression.
The second category, external self-awareness, means understanding how other people view us, in terms of those same factors listed above. Our research shows that people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives. For leaders who see themselves as their employees do, their employees tend to have a better relationship with them, feel more satisfied with them, and see them as more effective in general.
It’s easy to assume that being high on one type of awareness would mean being high on the other. But surprisingly enough, the research has found virtually no relationship between them. As a result, we identify four leadership archetypes, each with a different set of opportunities to improve:
Ref. Dr. Tasha Eurich
Introspectors
They are clear on who they are but don’t challenge their own views or search for blind spots by getting feedback from others. This can harm their relationships and limit their success.
Aware
They know who they are, what they want to accomplish, and seek out and value others’ opinions. This is where leaders begin to fully realize the true benefits of self-awareness.
Low Internal Self-Awareness
Seekers
They don’t yet know who they are, what they stand for, or how their teams see them. As a result, they might feel stuck or frustrated with their performance and relationships.
Pleasers
They can be so focused on appearing a certain way to others that they could be overlooking what matters to them. Over time, they tend to make choices that aren’t on service of their own success and fulfillment.
Note: This maps shows internal self-awareness (how well you know yourself) vs. external self-awareness (how well you undertand how others see you).
When it comes to internal and external self-awareness, it is tempting to value one over the other. But leaders must actively work on both seeing themselves clearly and getting feedback to understand how others see them.
The bottom line is that self-awareness isn’t one truth. It is a delicate balance of two distinct, even competing, viewpoints. Highly self-aware people are actively focused on balancing the scale. If you’re interested in learning where you stand in each category, a free shortened version of Dr. Eurich’s multi-rater self-awareness assessment is available here.
#2: Experience and power hinder self-awareness
Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that people do not always learn from experience, that expertise does not help people root out false information, and that seeing ourselves as highly experienced can keep us from doing our homework, seeking disconfirming evidence, and questioning our assumptions.
And just as experience can lead to a false sense of confidence about our performance, it can also make us overconfident about our level of self-knowledge.
Similarly, the more power a leader holds, the more likely they are to overestimate their skills and abilities. One study of more than 3,600 leaders across a variety of roles and industries found that, relative to lower-level leaders, higher-level leaders more significantly overvalued their skills (compared with others’ perceptions).
Researchers have proposed two primary explanations for this phenomenon. First, by virtue of their level, senior leaders simply have fewer people above them who can provide candid feedback. Second, the more power a leader wields, the less comfortable people will be to give them constructive feedback, for fear it will hurt their careers. Business professor James O’Toole has found that, as one’s power grows, one’s willingness to listen shrinks, either because they think they know more than their employees or because seeking feedback will come at a cost.
But this doesn’t have to be the case. One analysis showed that the most successful leaders, as rated by 360-degree reviews of leadership effectiveness, counteract this tendency by seeking frequent candid feedback (from bosses, peers, employees, their board, and so on). They become more self-aware in the process and come to be seen as more effective by others.
Dr. Eurich’s research has found that people who improved their external self-awareness did so by seeking out feedback from loving critics — that is, people who have their best interests in mind and are willing to tell them the truth. To ensure they don’t overreact or overcorrect based on one person’s opinion, they also gut-check difficult or surprising feedback with others.
#3: Introspection doesn’t always improve self-awareness
It is also widely assumed that introspection — examining the causes of our own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors — improves self-awareness. After all, what better way to know ourselves than by reflecting on why we are the way we are?
Yet one of the most surprising findings of Dr. Eurich’s research is that people who introspect are less self-aware and report worse job satisfaction and well-being. Other research has shown similar patterns.
The problem with introspection isn’t that it is categorically ineffective — it’s that most people are doing it incorrectly. To understand this, let’s look at arguably the most common introspective question: “Why?” We ask this when trying to understand our emotions (Why do I like employee A so much more than employee B?), or our behavior (Why did I fly off the handle with that employee?), or our attitudes (Why am I so against this deal?). The problem with introspection isn’t that it is ineffective—it’s that most people are doing it incorrectly. As it turns out, “why” is a surprisingly ineffective self-awareness question. Research has shown that we simply do not have access to many of the unconscious thoughts, feelings, and motives we’re searching for. And because so much is trapped outside of our conscious awareness, we tend to invent answers that feel true but are often wrong.
Consequently, the problem with asking whyisn’t just how wrong we are, but how confident we are that we are right. The human mind rarely operates in a rational fashion, and our judgments are seldom free from bias. We tend to pounce on whatever “insights” we find without questioning their validity or value, we ignore contradictory evidence, and we force our thoughts to conform to our initial explanations.
Another negative consequence of asking why — especially when trying to explain an undesired outcome — is that it invites unproductive negative thoughts. In Dr. Eurich’s research, she has found that people who are very introspective are also more likely to get caught in ruminative patterns. For example, if an employee who receives a bad performance review asks Why did I get such a bad rating?, they’re likely to land on an explanation focused on their fears, shortcomings, or insecurities, rather than a rational assessment of their strengths and weaknesses.
So if why isn’t the right introspective question, is there a better one? My research team scoured hundreds of pages of interview transcripts with highly self-aware people to see if they approached introspection differently. Indeed, there was a clear pattern: Although the word “why” appeared fewer than 150 times, the word “what” appeared more than 1,000 times.
Therefore, to increase productive self-insight and decrease unproductive rumination, we should ask whatnot ask why. Whatquestions help us stay objective, future-focused, and empowered to act on our new insights. Examples of whatquestions are: “What are the situations that make me feel bad, and what do they have in common?” or “What are the steps I need to take in the future to do a better job?”.
Consequently leaders who focus on building both internal and external self-awareness, who seek honest feedback from loving critics, and who ask what instead of why can learn to see themselves more clearly — and reap the many rewards that increased self-knowledge delivers. And no matter how much progress we make, there’s always more to learn. That’s one of the things that makes the journey to self-awareness so exciting.