Find Ways to Build Self-Awareness

I have observed many times that building and sustaining self-awareness is important to leaders. Powerful and competent leaders sometimes have very little self-knowledge because they do not have sufficient opportunities to see themselves as others see them. It is often also true that the higher a manager rises in the organization, the more isolated he or she becomes, which allows relatively fewer opportunities for real feedback to occur in the everyday work environment.

Part of self-awareness is handling emotions. In CCL's research on derailment and career patterns an important finding is that one of the greatest barriers to a person's progressing to the level of general manager is difficulty with emotional self-management. We can observe many examples of this in our everyday work life. For instance, how many of us know a brilliant manager who just can't rise above temper tantrums or who gets extraordinarily depressed when he or she doesn't win the new business?

I suspect that confidence in our abilities to handle our own feelings, sometimes called emotional intelligence, is a prerequisite for succeeding as a leader. After all, the essence of the manager's job is to absorb the emotional strains of uncertainty, interpersonal conflict, and responsibility and still display adult behaviors. Perhaps there is a developmental ring to Ralph Waldo Emerson's assertion that character is higher than intellect.