Leadership in Action: Profitability and the Common Good

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. ...