Leadership / Awareness / Development
Self-Awareness in Leaders
How do you know about yourself?
Something I struggled with as a young leader was a complete lack of self-awareness. Part of that goes hand in hand with self-confidence but they aren’t mutually exclusive. Part of that also goes with youthful inexperience. You don’t know what you don’t know but think you know a whole lot more than you actually do!
As a young lieutenant, I was extraordinarily confident in my decisions and abilities. West Point kind of bakes that into cadets. Something I firmly believe and have heard many times as well is all these high school studs go to the Military Academy, each a big fish in their small pond. The Academy then breaks them down during Cadet Basic Training aka Beast Barracks. It takes that massive high school ego and crushes it to make room for the West Point ego to come, much like an old building is demolished to make room for the shiny new skyscraper.
That doesn’t make it right. Self-confidence is incredibly important for a leader at any level. Like a vaccination, it prevents a whole host of negative things while serving as armor to enable the leader to get things done. Just as too much medicine becomes poison, it is with self-confidence.
