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as professor at Babson College, I have been studying leadership for over twenty years. I’ve worked with over 50 firms to help their employees thrive and asked tons of of leaders how they define self-awareness. Almost everyone talks about how well they know their strengths, weaknesses, values and goals. This sort of internal self-awareness is crucial to our skilled development.
But there is one other element of self-awareness that is equally essential to entrepreneurial success. External self-awareness is the ability to predict how others perceive our leadership, including how they perceive us, our actions, and our selections. It allows us to higher collaborate, lead and motivate our teams – and yet my research and the results of others tests shows that only about 10-15% of leaders, including entrepreneurs, embody it.
The excellent news is that with practice, any leader can turn out to be more externally self-aware. Here’s why external self-awareness is so necessary and how you possibly can start building it.
Most of us are not as outwardly self-aware as we think
When my wife and I took our 4 children to Disneyland for the first time, I used the trip to test my external self-awareness. I’d look after my children all week long. Finally, I predicted each child’s favorite moment based on the selections we as parents made about what to do with them at Disney. It’s easy I remember pondering. My oldest son raved about Space Mountain. My daughter couldn’t get enough of Carousel.
I made all 4 of my predictions. When I asked my children one by one, all of them said that the highlight was taking a bath at the hotel at the end of the day. Apparently we didn’t need to spend 1000’s of dollars on a hotel, park passes, and food: all we would have liked was a pool!
In my experience, many leaders have no idea how their team members experience their decisions and actions. Many years ago, I worked with a Fortune 500 company known for its innovation. When I asked 40 vice presidents and vice presidents to predict their direct reports’ most vital points over the past 12 months – a proxy for how employees view their leadership selections – and then tested their assumptions, just about all of them got here back surprised.
One vice chairman felt bad about sending an worker overseas to live away from family for a few months, but found that the opportunity for exploration and autonomy made it the worker’s favorite project. They were concerned that the worker might perceive them as a harsh boss, but he was grateful to be trusted and challenged.
Why external self-awareness is so necessary
Leadership is relational. Whether you are negotiating with an outside vendor or having a one-on-one conversation with an worker, great leaders respond to other people’s guidance. An outwardly self-aware leader may allow his direct, informal communication style to come through when talking to someone just one or two levels lower in the hierarchy, but may adopt a different tone with an entry-level worker. In any case, knowing how the other person will react to you allows you to select the right tool at the right time.
External self-awareness also provides us with helpful information. My Disney vacation taught me that my kids don’t see me more positively when I take them to fancier places. They want to spend time together in a nice atmosphere. This discovery has made us make sure there is at all times a pool nearby when we go on vacation and worry less about expensive activities think they’ll like.
Similarly, when the vice chairman learned that his worker loved difficult and dangerous tasks that had the leader’s trust and confidence, he began to delegate more of these kind of tasks. Previously, he had held back due to the incorrect assumption that his decision would blame his direct report.
How to build external self-awareness
The best way to build external self-awareness as an entrepreneur is to talk to your team members and check your assumptions about what they think about you and your leadership.
I like to start with the positives. Ask an worker to reflect on the highlight of their time with the organization – the day they walked out and say, “I love this place” – and let you know a story about their experience. Before they respond, anticipate what you think they’ll say. Then explore the challenges and blind spots they face, which might also reveal their perspective on the decisions you make.
This exercise has three necessary components.
The first is prediction. My tests A 360-degree assessment shows that by judging yourself and then asking others to judge you, you are creating a narrative about why they are incorrect. Anticipating other people’s responses in advance undermines defensiveness and increases curiosity: How does their perspective of me compare to mine?
The second is storytelling. When you ask people what tasks they enjoy, they will jump to rehearsed answers. Asking them to tell a story allows you to work together to unravel what motivated or frustrated them in the situation. These insights, in turn, can aid you understand the selections you make as a leader and how they impact the worker experience. You can then align your actions with what motivates them.
The third is continuity. This practice ought to be continued without excess. It’s not about knowing exactly what your employees are pondering at every moment, but about looking at things from outside your personal perspective. Always leave room for humility and the belief that you possibly can learn more.
Conclusion
Great leaders know their strengths and weaknesses and keep an eye on how their peers, investors and customers perceive them. Building external self-awareness goes hand in hand with building the relationships needed to succeed in business. Your employees will appreciate that you took the time to ask questions. Your profits may even profit because the information collected will aid you unlock your potential, the potential of your employees and the potential of your organization.