The New Manager's Guide to Self-Awareness
True self-awareness, which requires both internal reflection and external feedback, enables you to close the gap between intention and impact.
I’m experimenting with a new type of post this week: a deeper, more comprehensive look at a topic. It takes longer to write and edit, but if you find it helpful please let me know and I’ll do some more deep dives like this in the future.
In manufacturing and warehouse environments, the transition from individual contributor to leader is one of the most challenging career shifts you'll make. One day, you're focused on your own productivity metrics—the next, you're responsible for an entire team's performance, engagement, and development. This shift requires more than just learning new processes or systems; it demands a fundamental change in how you understand yourself and your impact on others.
Self-awareness—the ability to accurately recognize your emotions, strengths, limitations, and how your behavior affects those around you—is the cornerstone of effective leadership. Yet it's also one of the most underdeveloped skills among new managers. Studies consistently show that while 95% of people believe they're self-aware, only about 10-15% actually are.1
For operational leaders, this gap is particularly problematic. The fast-paced, results-oriented nature of manufacturing and warehouse environments can make it tempting to focus exclusively on production metrics while overlooking the human elements of leadership. But the most successful operational leaders understand that self-awareness isn't a soft skill—it's a critical performance factor that directly impacts team productivity, quality, safety, and retention.
This comprehensive guide will explore what self-awareness truly means for new managers, why it matters in operational settings, how to accurately assess your current level of self-awareness, and practical strategies to develop this essential leadership capability. By the end, you'll have a clear roadmap for understanding yourself more deeply and leveraging that understanding to become a more effective leader.
Understanding the Dimensions of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness has two primary dimensions, each essential for effective leadership:
Internal self-awareness involves understanding your own values, reactions, and impact on others. It's about recognizing your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as they happen, and understanding how they align with your deeper values and goals.
External self-awareness focuses on understanding how other people view you. This includes recognizing how your actions and communication style are perceived, and how well your self-perception aligns with others' experiences of you.
Research by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich found that these two dimensions are surprisingly independent—you can have one without the other.2 The most effective leaders develop both simultaneously, creating a complete picture of their leadership impact.
For leaders in manufacturing and warehouse settings, self-awareness has unique dimensions due to:
The visible nature of operational metrics creating transparency about performance
Safety-critical aspects where leadership decisions have immediate consequences
High-pressure environments that can amplify emotional reactions
Diverse teams with varying communication needs and work styles
Understanding how you operate under these specific conditions—how you communicate technical information, make decisions under pressure, and balance competing priorities—becomes especially important for operational leadership success.
Why We Struggle to See Ourselves Clearly
Despite its importance, accurate self-awareness is surprisingly difficult to achieve. Several factors create barriers:
The "better-than-average" effect causes most people to believe they're above average in most areas, creating a fundamental distortion in self-evaluation.3
Confirmation bias leads us to notice information that confirms our existing self-beliefs while filtering out contradictory evidence.
Attribution error causes us to attribute our successes to internal factors (skills, effort) and our failures to external factors (bad luck, difficult circumstances).
Environmental feedback limitations become more pronounced in management roles. As you move into leadership, people may become less willing to share honest feedback, creating an information vacuum about your real impact.
For new managers transitioning from technical roles, an additional challenge emerges. The skills that made you successful as an individual contributor—technical expertise, personal productivity, problem-solving ability—often differ significantly from the leadership capabilities your new role demands. Without conscious effort to develop self-awareness, many new managers continue relying on technical skills rather than developing the people leadership capabilities their position requires.
As I discussed a couple weeks ago, this transition requires recognizing your natural tendencies and adapting them to leadership contexts—a process that begins with honest self-assessment.
Signs You May Have Self-Awareness Blind Spots
Self-awareness blindspots are, by definition, difficult to identify on your own. However, certain patterns often indicate areas where your self-perception may not align with reality:
Recurring conflicts with the same people or types of people often signal that you're missing something in how you interact with them.
Being consistently surprised by feedback during performance reviews suggests a gap between your self-assessment and how others perceive your work.
Team members who appear hesitant to share ideas or concerns may be responding to behaviors from you that discourage openness, even if that's not your intention.
Feeling that you're constantly misunderstood may indicate that your communication style isn't landing as you intend.
Difficulty adapting your approach with different team members can signal limited awareness of different work styles and needs.
Resistance to feedback or a defensive reaction when receiving criticism often masks insecurity about potential blind spots.
Self-awareness requires taking time to reflect on your actions and their effects on others. Without this reflection, even years of leadership experience won't make you more effective. You must understand how your behavior impacts others and be willing to adjust when needed.
I witnessed this firsthand with a department manager who reported to me about a year ago. He was technically skilled and genuinely wanted to succeed, but his coworkers often became visibly irritated during interactions with him. The problem was in how he spoke to people - he would dismiss ideas quickly, interrupt frequently, and sometimes use a condescending tone, especially when discussing technical matters.
What made this a clear case of low self-awareness was his response to the situation. He noticed people seemed annoyed with him but never connected their reactions to his specific behaviors. During our coaching conversations, he would acknowledge the tensions but attribute them entirely to others being "too sensitive" or "not understanding the technical requirements."
I tried multiple approaches to help him see the connection - providing specific examples, facilitating feedback sessions, and even arranging peer coaching. Despite these efforts, he never fully accepted that his communication style was the primary issue. He maintained that others needed to adapt to his approach rather than considering how he might adjust his own behavior.
The outcome was predictable. Despite his technical expertise, his leadership effectiveness hit a ceiling. Over time, he watched colleagues with less tenure but greater self-awareness advance to more senior positions while his own career stalled. His unwillingness to reflect honestly on his impact and make changes limited his potential.
This experience taught me that true self-awareness isn't just recognizing that problems exist—it's accurately connecting those problems to your specific behaviors and being willing to change. Without this connection, leadership growth remains limited, regardless of technical skills or good intentions.
The Self-Aware Leader's Advantage
While low self-awareness creates significant barriers to leadership effectiveness, high self-awareness confers numerous advantages that directly impact operational success:
Better decision-making: Self-aware leaders recognize their decision-making patterns, biases, and emotional reactions. This allows them to make more objective decisions, especially under pressure—a critical advantage in fast-paced operational environments where decisions often have immediate consequences.
Stronger team relationships: Understanding your own communication preferences and adapting to others' needs creates stronger connections with team members. These relationships build the trust necessary for honest feedback, productive conflict, and effective collaboration.
Improved conflict management: Self-aware leaders recognize their emotional triggers and can manage their reactions during disagreements. Rather than becoming defensive or aggressive, they can maintain perspective and focus on productive resolution.
Enhanced adaptability: When you understand your natural tendencies and comfort zones, you can more consciously step outside them when situations demand different approaches. This flexibility is essential in operational environments where conditions change rapidly.
Greater influence across the organization: Leaders who understand how they're perceived can more effectively tailor their communication and approach to different stakeholders. This builds the cross-functional relationships necessary for successful operational leadership.
Lower stress and burnout rates: Self-awareness helps you recognize when you're approaching your limits and need to adjust workloads, seek support, or change approaches. This sustainable leadership approach prevents the burnout that often plagues high-intensity operational roles.
These benefits aren't just theoretical. According to a Cornell University study, leaders with high self-awareness were rated as 32% more effective overall by their direct reports, peers, and supervisors compared to leaders with lower self-awareness.4 As I explored in my post on handling stressful situations, self-awareness serves as a crucial foundation for maintaining composure during high-pressure situations—a critical skill for operational leaders.
Know a colleague who could benefit from enhanced self-awareness? Share this guide with other operational leaders in your network who are looking to improve their effectiveness.
Leadership is a journey best taken together. Your share might be exactly what another leader needs today.
The Reflection Framework: A Structured Approach to Self-Awareness
At the heart of self-awareness is reflection—the deliberate practice of examining your experiences, decisions, and their outcomes to extract meaningful insights. However, many new managers in operational environments struggle to implement effective reflection practices amidst constant production demands and time pressures.
This is why a structured reflection framework is essential. It creates an efficient, consistent process that fits within the constraints of operational leadership roles.
Types of Reflection
Effective reflection involves two distinct but complementary approaches:
Reflection-in-action happens in real-time, as events unfold. It's the ability to notice your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors in the moment, creating the opportunity to adjust course immediately if needed.
For example, during a tense production meeting, you might notice yourself becoming frustrated with a team member's questions. Reflection-in-action allows you to recognize this emotion before reacting negatively, creating space to choose a more constructive response.
Reflection-on-action happens after events are complete. It involves deliberately reviewing what happened, analyzing what went well or poorly, and identifying lessons for future application. This deeper analysis helps identify patterns and develop long-term improvement strategies.
In operational settings, reflection-on-action might involve reviewing the handling of a safety incident, the implementation of a new process, or a challenging conversation with a team member.
Creating a Sustainable Reflection Practice
For reflection to drive real development, it must become a regular practice rather than an occasional exercise. Here's how to make reflection sustainable in an operational leadership role:
Schedule it: Block 5-15 minutes at the end of each day for reflection. Protect this time as you would any other critical meeting.
Structure it: Use consistent questions to guide your reflection, such as:
What went well today and why?
What challenges did I face and how did I handle them?
How might I have approached things differently?
What did I learn that I can apply tomorrow?
Document it: Maintain a simple leadership journal to track insights and patterns over time. This creates accountability and allows you to recognize progress.
Apply it: Reflection without application has limited value. Identify specific actions or adjustments based on your reflections, and commit to implementing them.
Review it: Periodically review your reflection notes to identify recurring themes or patterns that may require more focused development.
This approach aligns with the 5-Minute leadership reflection habit I’ve written about before. Even brief, structured reflection can significantly enhance leadership effectiveness without requiring extensive time commitments.
Tools and Techniques for Developing Self-Awareness
While reflection forms the foundation of self-awareness, several specific tools and techniques can accelerate your development:
Feedback Solicitation Methods
Feedback from others provides essential external perspective. Effective approaches include:
360-Degree Feedback: Formal assessments gathering input from supervisors, peers, direct reports, and sometimes customers or suppliers. While comprehensive, these should be used sparingly (once every 1-2 years) to prevent survey fatigue.
Start-Stop-Continue: A simple framework asking stakeholders what behaviors you should start doing, stop doing, and continue doing. This focused approach yields actionable insights without requiring extensive time investment.
Specific Question Technique: Rather than asking "Do you have any feedback for me?" (which often yields little useful information), ask targeted questions like:
"What's one thing I could do differently in our meetings to make them more effective?"
"How could I have handled that situation with the production delay better?"
"What's something I'm not seeing about how the team is responding to the new process?"
Observation Partners: Establish reciprocal relationships with trusted colleagues who agree to observe specific aspects of your leadership and provide honest feedback. This can be particularly valuable for operational leaders who need feedback on how they handle floor situations, shift transitions, or team meetings.
These feedback methods can be used to create feedback systems that drive continuous improvement.
Self-Assessment Instruments
Various tools provide structured frameworks for understanding your preferences, tendencies, and potential blind spots:
Personality Assessments: Instruments like MBTI, DiSC, or Big Five help identify your natural tendencies and preferences.
Emotional Intelligence Assessments: Tools like the EQ-i 2.0 or ESCI provide insights into emotional awareness and management.
Leadership Style Inventories: Assessments that identify your default leadership approaches and situations where they're most (or least) effective.
Values Clarification Exercises: Structured processes to identify your core values and evaluate how well your behaviors align with them.
Self-Awareness Reference Guide: I created this short resource to help you remember what you’ve learned and give some pointers on how to make self-awareness activities part of your daily routine.
While these instruments provide valuable frameworks, their real value comes from application—using the insights to adapt your leadership approach to different situations and individuals.
Journaling Practices for Operational Leaders
Keeping a leadership journal creates a record of experiences, decisions, and lessons learned. Effective approaches for operational settings include:
Decision Journals: Record significant decisions, your rationale, expected outcomes, and uncertainties. Later, review actual outcomes to identify decision-making patterns.
Interaction Reviews: After important meetings or conversations, record what went well, what could have been improved, and specific adjustments for next time.
Success and Challenge Logs: Document both achievements and difficulties, analyzing factors that contributed to each.
Trigger Tracking: Note situations that provoke strong emotional reactions, identifying patterns that reveal your triggers and how they affect your leadership.
For busy operational leaders, these journaling practices should be brief and focused—even bullet points capturing key insights can prove valuable over time. I strongly believe that documenting and reflecting on challenges provides some of the most valuable development opportunities for leaders.
Mindfulness Techniques Adapted for Fast-Paced Environments
Mindfulness—the practice of bringing non-judgmental awareness to present-moment experiences—significantly enhances self-awareness. Techniques adapted for operational settings include:
Micro-Mindfulness: Brief (30-60 second) check-ins throughout the day to notice your mental state, bodily sensations, and emotional climate.
Transitional Mindfulness: Using transitions between activities (walking to meetings, moving between areas of the facility) as opportunities to reset and center yourself.
Environmental Cues: Establishing specific triggers (like safety announcements or shift changes) as reminders to check in with yourself.
These practices don't require meditation cushions or extended quiet time—they're designed to integrate into the flow of operational leadership while still developing greater presence and awareness.
Working with Different Personality Types
One of the most valuable applications of self-awareness is understanding how your natural style interacts with different personality types. As an operational leader, you'll work with diverse individuals with varying preferences, communication styles, and needs.
Understanding Your Own Style First
Before you can effectively adapt to others, you need to understand your own default preferences. Consider these key dimensions:
Communication Style: Are you naturally direct or diplomatic? Detail-oriented or big-picture focused? Do you process information by talking through it or by thinking silently?
Decision-Making Approach: Do you make decisions quickly based on available information, or do you prefer extensive analysis? Are you comfortable with ambiguity or do you need certainty?
Work Pacing: Do you work in steady, consistent patterns or in bursts of activity? Do you prefer focusing on one task until completion or juggling multiple priorities?
Collaboration Preferences: Do you energize by working with others or prefer independent work? Do you gravitate toward cooperative or competitive environments?
Several frameworks can help you understand these preferences systematically:
DISC focuses on behavioral styles (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness) and is particularly useful for understanding work and communication preferences. Its simplicity makes it highly applicable in operational environments.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) provides insights into how you process information, make decisions, and interact with the world. While more complex, it offers deeper understanding of cognitive preferences.
Big Five measures five key dimensions (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism) and has strong research validation. It's especially useful for understanding emotional tendencies and work patterns.
For operational leaders, DISC often proves most immediately applicable due to its focus on observable behaviors and communication patterns. However, any of these frameworks can provide valuable self-insights when applied thoughtfully.
Recognizing Different Styles in Your Team
With self-understanding as your foundation, you can then learn to recognize different styles in your team members. Look for patterns in:
Communication preferences: Do they prefer direct or nuanced communication? Detailed explanations or executive summaries? Written instructions or verbal guidance?
Decision approaches: How much information do they need before making decisions? How do they weigh risks versus rewards? How comfortable are they with ambiguity?
Work pacing: Do they work steadily or in intense bursts? How do they prioritize multiple demands? How do they respond to interruptions?
Stress responses: What signs indicate they're under pressure? Do they withdraw, become aggressive, or over-analyze when stressed?
Adapting Your Approach
With this awareness, you can adapt your leadership approach to better meet each team member's needs:
Provide detailed instructions for those who need specificity
Cut to the chase for those who prefer directness
Allow processing time for reflective team members
Create collaborative opportunities for social learners
Explain the "why" behind decisions for those who need context
This adaptive approach isn't about changing who you are fundamentally—it's about flexing your style to create the conditions where each team member can perform at their best. This style adaptability is essential for effective leadership across diverse teams and situations.
Emotional Intelligence: The Foundation of Self-Awareness
Emotional intelligence—the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in yourself and others—forms the foundation of leadership self-awareness. In operational environments where pressure, safety concerns, and production demands create emotional intensity, this capability becomes even more critical.
Emotional intelligence consists of four core components:
Self-awareness: Recognizing your emotions as they arise and understanding their impact on your thoughts and behaviors.
Self-management: Controlling impulsive feelings and behaviors, managing emotions in healthy ways, and adapting to changing circumstances.
Social awareness: Understanding others' emotions, needs, and concerns, especially through empathic listening.
Relationship management: Developing and maintaining good relationships, communicating clearly, and influencing others effectively.
Recognizing Emotional Triggers in Operational Settings
For operational leaders, developing emotional intelligence begins with recognizing your emotional triggers—situations, interactions, or circumstances that predictably evoke strong reactions. Common triggers in manufacturing and warehouse environments include:
Safety violations: Seeing team members take shortcuts that compromise safety protocols often triggers immediate, intense emotional responses in safety-conscious leaders.
Production disruptions: Unexpected equipment failures or supply chain issues can trigger frustration, anxiety, or anger, especially when they threaten critical targets.
Quality issues: Recurring quality problems or customer complaints can provoke strong emotional reactions, particularly for perfectionistic leaders.
Perceived disrespect: Being challenged in front of the team or feeling that your expertise is being questioned can trigger defensive reactions.
Staffing challenges: Last-minute call-outs or high absenteeism can trigger stress and frustration, especially during high-volume periods.
Emotional Awareness in Action
Consider how emotional intelligence translates to specific operational scenarios:
Example 1: Production Line Stoppage A production line unexpectedly shuts down during a critical shipping day. A leader without emotional awareness might immediately look for someone to blame, creating fear and defensiveness that slows problem-solving. A leader with emotional awareness would recognize their initial frustration, deliberately reset their emotional state, and focus the team on collaborative problem-solving rather than blame assignment.
Example 2: Safety Violation A supervisor observes a team member bypassing a lockout/tagout procedure. A leader without emotional awareness might immediately react with anger and public criticism, potentially creating resistance to future safety protocols. A leader with emotional awareness would recognize their alarm, address the immediate safety concern professionally, and later have a calm, educational conversation about the importance of the procedure.
Example 3: Cross-Department Conflict Maintenance and Production departments disagree about scheduled downtime for preventive maintenance. A leader without emotional awareness might become defensive of their department's needs and escalate the conflict. A leader with emotional awareness would recognize their territorial reaction, focus on understanding the other department's constraints, and work toward a solution that balances both departments' needs.
Developing Emotional Management Strategies
Once you've identified your triggers, develop strategies to manage your reactions:
Pause before responding: Even a brief moment to collect yourself can prevent impulsive reactions. Simple techniques include taking a deep breath, counting to five, or physically stepping back slightly.
Use specific techniques: Deep breathing, mental reframing, or brief timeout strategies can help regulate emotional responses. For example, ask yourself, "How important will this seem in a week?" or "What would my best mentor do in this situation?"
Develop awareness phrases: Simple internal reminders like "This isn't personal" or "Focus on the issue, not the emotion" can help maintain perspective. Create phrases that address your specific triggers and keep them mentally accessible.
Create recovery practices: Identify methods to reset after emotionally charged situations, preventing emotional carryover into subsequent interactions. This might include a brief walk, a moment of deep breathing, or a quick check-in with a trusted colleague.
These emotional intelligence practices connect closely with what I discussed in my article You set the Weather, where I explored how leaders can maintain composure under pressure and model emotional regulation for their teams.
Overcoming Barriers to Self-Awareness
Despite its benefits, developing self-awareness involves navigating several common barriers:
Defensive reactions to feedback often stem from feeling threatened or fearing incompetence. To overcome this:
Reframe feedback as valuable data rather than personal criticism
Begin with lower-stakes feedback about specific behaviors before tackling core elements of your leadership identity
Establish a "24-hour rule" where you commit to listening without responding immediately to feedback
Focus first on understanding the feedback fully before deciding how to respond
Confirmation bias and selective perception lead us to notice information that confirms existing self-beliefs while filtering out contradictory evidence. Combat this by:
Deliberately seeking disconfirming information
Giving more weight to unexpected feedback that doesn't match your self-perception
Asking trusted colleagues to point out when they observe you filtering information
Documenting feedback verbatim rather than paraphrasing it through your own interpretive lens
Environmental factors in operational settings can create additional challenges. Address these by:
Explicitly valuing self-awareness development in team discussions
Protecting reflection time despite production pressures
Creating psychological safety for feedback conversations
Recognizing and rewarding team members who demonstrate self-awareness
Time constraints and competing priorities often push self-awareness activities to the bottom of the list. Overcome this by:
Integrating brief reflection practices into existing routines (e.g., during shift transitions)
Starting with small time commitments (5 minutes daily) to build the habit
Recognizing that time invested in self-awareness ultimately improves effectiveness and decision quality
Using prioritization strategies to ensure development activities receive appropriate attention
Fear of vulnerability can make self-awareness feel threatening, especially in operational environments that often emphasize strength and certainty. Address this by:
Separating self-awareness from self-doubt—understanding yourself better doesn't make you weak; it makes you more intentional and effective
Starting with private reflection before engaging others
Finding a trusted mentor who models self-awareness
Sharing small examples of your own development to normalize growth
For each barrier you identify, develop a specific strategy to address it. Remember that overcoming these barriers is itself a developmental process that strengthens your leadership capabilities.
Implementing a Self-Awareness Development Plan
Transforming these insights into sustained development requires a structured plan. Here's a framework for operational leaders:
1. Establish Your Baseline
Complete at least one formal self-assessment instrument
Gather feedback from 5-7 diverse stakeholders using specific questions
Identify 3-5 specific behaviors to monitor or modify
2. Create Structured Reflection Routines
Implement daily reflection (5-15 minutes)
Schedule deeper weekly review (30 minutes)
Plan monthly development check-ins with a trusted advisor
3. Develop Specific Awareness Practices
Choose 1-2 mindfulness techniques to implement daily
Establish a journaling approach that fits your schedule
Create environmental reminders for in-the-moment awareness
4. Build Accountability Mechanisms
Share your development focus with a trusted colleague or mentor
Schedule periodic feedback check-ins to assess progress
Create measurable indicators to track improvement
5. Connect Awareness to Action
For each insight, identify a specific behavioral adjustment
Practice new approaches in low-risk situations before high-stakes application
Review and refine based on outcomes
This development plan should be documented and reviewed regularly, with adjustments made based on progress and new insights. Having guidance from someone who's navigated similar challenges can significantly accelerate your development journey.
Case Study: Self-Awareness Transformation in Action
To illustrate these principles in practice, consider the experience of Marcus, a production supervisor at a manufacturing plant. After three years as a high-performing line operator, Marcus was promoted to supervise a team of 12 operators across two production lines.
Initially, Marcus relied heavily on his technical expertise, jumping in to fix problems himself rather than developing his team's capabilities. During his first six months, he received concerning feedback: team members felt micromanaged, engagement scores were declining, and several high-performers were considering transfers to other departments.
This feedback was initially difficult for Marcus to accept. His intention was to ensure quality and efficiency, not to alienate his team. However, with support from his manager, Marcus committed to developing greater self-awareness about his leadership approach.
His development plan included:
Baseline assessment: Marcus completed a leadership style inventory that revealed his strong preference for directive rather than coaching approaches. He also gathered feedback from team members using the Start-Stop-Continue framework.
Reflection routine: He began spending 10 minutes at the end of each shift documenting key decisions, team interactions, and alternative approaches he could have taken.
Awareness practices: Marcus established a practice of pausing before intervening in problems, asking himself: "Is this a teaching opportunity rather than a fixing opportunity?"
Accountability: He partnered with another supervisor who shared similar challenges, meeting weekly to discuss progress and insights.
Action steps: Based on his reflections, Marcus implemented specific changes:
He established a "solve first, then check" protocol where operators attempted solutions before calling him
He shifted from telling to asking during problem situations
He created deliberate teaching moments during less time-sensitive periods
He recognized problem-solving efforts regardless of outcome
Over six months, Marcus's transformed approach yielded significant results. Team members began taking more initiative, quality metrics improved through broader ownership, and engagement scores rose substantially. Perhaps most notably, Marcus found greater satisfaction in his role as he shifted from being the "technical expert" to a developer of people and capabilities.
This transformation is an example of how effective delegation not only develops team capabilities but also enhances the leader's own effectiveness and satisfaction.
To begin applying these principles in your leadership role, take these concrete steps:
1. Conduct a personal blind spot assessment: Identify 3-5 trusted individuals (peers, team members, your manager) and ask them these specific questions:
"What's one thing I do that I might not be aware of that impacts others?"
"When do you see me at my best as a leader? When do I seem to struggle?"
"Is there anything you've wanted to tell me but haven't had the opportunity to share?" Document their responses without defensiveness and look for patterns.
2. Establish a daily reflection practice: Schedule 10 minutes at the end of each workday to answer these questions:
"What leadership moments stood out today (positive or challenging)?"
"How did my actions align with my intentions?"
"What impact did my approach have on others?"
"What would I do differently next time?" Use a dedicated notebook or digital document to track your reflections.
3. Create a feedback collection system: Develop a simple, regular process for gathering input from your team. This might include:
Brief, focused questions at the end of one-on-one meetings
Anonymous suggestion box for sensitive feedback
Quarterly mini-surveys using the Start-Stop-Continue framework
"Temperature checks" during team meetings Demonstrate that you value feedback by acknowledging it and taking visible action.
4. Develop an emotional awareness inventory: For one week, track:
Situations that trigger strong emotions
Physical sensations that accompany those emotions
Your typical responses
The impact of those responses Use this inventory to create a personalized strategy for managing emotional triggers.
5. Implement a communication style adjustment experiment: Identify one team member whose communication style differs significantly from yours. For two weeks:
Observe their preferences (detail level, pace, format)
Deliberately adapt your approach when communicating with them
Note their response to your adjusted style
Reflect on what was challenging and what was effective Use these insights to develop greater flexibility across your team.
6. Schedule regular perspective-seeking conversations: Set up monthly coffee chats with leaders from different departments or areas to gain fresh perspectives on your leadership challenges. Come prepared with specific questions about how they handle similar situations, and listen for approaches that differ from your default style.
7. Create a self-awareness accountability partnership: Find a peer who is also committed to leadership development and establish a structured check-in process:
Meet bi-weekly for 30 minutes
Share one self-awareness insight from the previous two weeks
Discuss one leadership challenge where you're unsure of your approach
Commit to one specific development action before the next meeting This partnership creates both support and accountability for continued growth.
8. Track impact of increased self-awareness on leadership outcomes: Establish baseline measurements for key indicators like team engagement, productivity, conflict frequency, and your own job satisfaction. Review these indicators quarterly to assess how your development efforts are influencing tangible outcomes.
The journey to greater self-awareness is ongoing, but these concrete steps will establish the foundation for continual growth. By committing to this process, you'll develop the insight and adaptability that distinguish truly exceptional operational leaders.
Remember that the goal isn't perfection—it's progress. Each incremental improvement in your self-awareness creates ripple effects that enhance your effectiveness, strengthen your team's performance, and accelerate your leadership journey.
Ready to continue your leadership development journey? Join other operational leaders who receive Leadership Lessons each week, featuring actionable insights like these.
"Studies consistently show that while 95% of people believe they're self-aware, only about 10-15% actually are."
This statistic comes from Dr. Tasha Eurich's research, published in her book Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others See Us, How We See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Matter More Than We Think. Dr. Eurich and her research team conducted a multi-year examination of self-awareness, studying thousands of individuals across various demographics and professions.
Her research team surveyed thousands of people and compared self-ratings with external ratings from coworkers, discovering this significant gap between perceived and actual self-awareness. This finding was also summarized in her Harvard Business Review article What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It) (January 2018).
"Tasha Eurich found that these two dimensions are surprisingly independent—you can have one without the other."
This finding also comes from Dr. Eurich's research published in the same book, Insight. Through her studies, she identified these two distinct types of self-awareness:
Internal self-awareness: understanding your own values, aspirations, reactions, and impact
External self-awareness: understanding how others view you
Her research demonstrated that these dimensions don't necessarily correlate—people can be high in one dimension while low in the other. This finding challenged previous assumptions that self-awareness was a singular construct and was further elaborated in her Harvard Business Review article mentioned above.
"The 'better-than-average' effect causes most people to believe they're above average in most areas."
This cognitive bias was first formally documented by researchers Mark D. Alicke and Olesya Govorun in their chapter "The Better-Than-Average Effect" in the book The Self in Social Judgment. This effect has been consistently replicated across numerous studies.
Additional supporting research includes:
Brown, J. D. (1986). "Evaluations of self and others: Self-enhancement biases in social judgments." Social Cognition, 4(4), 353-376.
Svenson, O. (1981). "Are we all less risky and more skillful than our fellow drivers?" Acta Psychologica, 47(2), 143-148. This classic study found that 88% of American drivers believed they were safer than the median driver.
"According to a Cornell University study, leaders with high self-awareness were rated as 32% more effective overall by their direct reports, peers, and supervisors compared to leaders with lower self-awareness."
This finding comes from research conducted by the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations in collaboration with Green Peak Partners. The study, titled What Predicts Executive Success?, examined 72 executives at public and private companies with revenues from $50 million to $5 billion.
The researchers assessed the executives through comprehensive psychological assessments and performance evaluations from their colleagues. The study found that high self-awareness was the strongest predictor of overall success. Specifically, leaders who had a more accurate understanding of their strengths and weaknesses (as verified by others' ratings) were rated as significantly more effective (32% higher ratings) than those with lower self-awareness.