Importance of Self-Awareness and Continuous Self-Development in Leadership and Management
Leadership is the process of serving, motivating, and influencing others. For most people, however, leadership is referenced in relationship to being in charge. A probable explanation of why most people associate leading with the authoritarian rule is that most leadership theories mainly focus on this aspect; very little attention is paid on self-leadership. Self-leadership comprises being aware of oneself, actively accepting corrections, and focusing on self-improvement and development. Self-awareness is one’s ability to identify and understand their characters and behavior.
On the other hand, self-development is the process through which people further their consciousness, revitalize their personality, address their weaknesses, and achieve their objectives. Undeniably, these two traits are crucial to the success of any leader. Consequently, contemporary managers must strive to be more self-aware and endeavor to better themselves. This essay will discuss how self-leadership will help me in fulfilling my role as a successful leader and manager.
The Role of Self-Awareness in Successful Leadership
According to Showry and Mansa (2014), self-consciousness enhances a leader’s emotional intelligence. This is an individual’s ability to recognize and manage their emotions. Further, it entails influencing the feelings of others. By being emotionally intelligent, I will, perceptively, be in tune with my feelings. Additionally, I will have sound situational awareness. With this, I will practice more self-control and better handle tough situations at work. Better communication and the ability to diffuse conflicts at workplaces will further be products of this virtue. I will also empathize with my colleagues, improving their overall morale. Irrefutably, better communication, empathy, and non-biased decisions will, altogether, suffice in enhancing the productivity at the workplace.
At the heart of effective leadership lies management competencies. This is the ability to effectively oversee the relationship of self, colleagues, and the organization. Worthwhile interpersonal relationships majorly contribute to a leader’s success- or lack thereof. The interpretation of the outside world primarily relies on one’s context of reality. This perception may, nevertheless, contradict those of others(Gallo, 2019). Browning (2014), observes that these contradictions might cause organizational rifts. As a self-aware leader who has realized who I am, and not who I wish to be, I will blanch my conscious self-definition and embrace the variance of human behaviors. This will enable me to view situations from an objective viewpoint, and consequently, make non-biased decisions.
Leadership involves reflecting one’s strengths and weaknesses and translating them to learning opportunities. For learning to happen successfully, an individual should, voluntarily and honestly, admit their imperfections (Browning, 2014). Admission of flaws is only achievable after one has mastered who they are. Thus, as a self-conscious leader, I will regularly reflect on the success and failures of my previous actions and use them as stepping stones towards making better decisions. Further, self-awareness will enable me to get feedback from my juniors without getting annoyed. Feedback seeking will suffice in the development of techniques to strengthen job performance.
Through self-awareness, I will develop intellectual humility. Undeniably, it will help me in appreciating that I do not have the monopoly of knowledge about myself, about others, and lastly, about the world. Intellectual intelligence will, furthermore, assist in the creation of a working environment where everyone feels at ease acknowledging their shortcomings and asking for help (Gallo, 2019). With this, I will create working teams comprising of people with a diverse mix of abilities. Each group, having varying personality types to assume different roles, will typify the Belbin model of team roles.
Faltas (2018) observes that managers should possess the bias-free capability to recognize and understand their environment without being judgmental. Thanks to self-consciousness, I will ensure that everyone under my stewardship has the right to a due process of fair and impartial treatment. Self-analysis will also influence my stress tolerance and optimism, which, in turn, will determine my decisions and actions towards ensuring a bias-free working environment.
At its core level, self-consciousness has enabled me to identify my personality of intuitive thinking. This will always push me towards becoming a transformational leader. According to Price (2018), transformational leaders promote justice within their organizations, champion for equal developmental opportunities, and respect for everyone working within an organization, their job title notwithstanding. Toward that end, I will use my passion to ratify improvements on a large scale. This will be achieved by encouraging subordinates to modify their working plans and, where necessary, use their motivation to attain personal, professional goals.
Continuous Self Development and Leadership
Incessant self-development will enable me to follow my passion. This is because, during the incorporation of leadership models into work, leaders who followed their passion have a rather seamless integration. Conversely, failure to blend passion into leadership makes being in charge feel like drudgery, making one’s leadership less effective (Edinger, 2013). Irrefutably, successfully meshing passion into the daily work of a leader makes the overall texture and effectiveness of leadership improve.
By continually striving to improve myself, I will, as a leader, become a better listener. Better listeners almost always have candid and honest discussions with their juniors about hindrances to the latter’s performances. Moreover, open discussions will lead to the identification of factors that improve employees’ achievements. With this, I will identify the most impactful activities, the passion of my colleagues, and where these two intersect. Indeed, this will help in illuminating the path forward, leading to improved results and the overall image of the organization.
Power (2018) reckons that self-improvement enables managers to focus on improving their leadership strengths. Further, the author observes that concentrate on personal strengths enhances not only the engagement of employees but also their own happiness. Therefore, by further honing my strengths, I will improve my leadership performance and the overall organizational outcome. Besides, the more hours I spend focusing on my strengths, the less anger, pain, and stress I will encounter. This personal happiness will lead to a series of wiser, non-impulsive decisions that will lead to the tremendous success of my leadership.
Conclusion
Leaders will be better placed to serve others when they learn and practice self-leadership. Even further, they should endeavor to improve on their strengths and address their weaknesses persistently. Self-consciousness enables leaders to build a more robust work relationship by instilling organizational discipline. Further, self-development will lead to the determination of the intersection between effective corporate strategies and workers’ passion, leading to the formulation of efficient working frameworks. It is, consequently, critical that I hone my self-awareness abilities and endeavor to improve myself to achieve excellent leadership.