Leadership skills are what carry the most successful businesses, projects, and groups to their highest capacity. Being a good leader requires a certain level of self-awareness. Leaders can easily get swept up with the assessments they make of others and often times overlook areas where they could use some improvements. There are many factors such as pride, arrogance, ignorance, or selfishness that prevent people from becoming more self-aware in their leadership roles. This can be counteracted by following some of the ways to become a more self-aware leader.
The Bigger Picture
Leaders have to make some tough calls and decisions when it comes to any major projects or business plans. Furthermore, a self-aware leader looks beyond one decision itself. They acknowledge all options and plausible results. Also, these leaders understand how a decision will impact the team whether negatively or positively. Looking at all the aspects of an option as well as consulting with the team before finalizing a decision will surely give the team further notice to make potential adjustments.
No to Yes Men
Phenomenal leadership is not about having a bunch of people around that always agree. When there is no opposition, there isn’t much push for growth. Having others question one’s leadership capabilities, personality traits, lasting impressions, and overall conduct will allow for further leadership development. It is crucial to encourage this kind of atmosphere within the team so that everyone can provide their honest feedback. Other people may have the ability to pinpoint the weaknesses they see in their leader so that they can make necessary changes.
Enforce Consistency
The status quo may not always work for the team and certain things may call for modification. It is fine to want to add a sense of newness to the project at hand and to find an approach that works better. However, in the pursuit of instituting improvements, it’s very easy for team members to not be on the same page. It’s important for the team to stay consistent once a plan of action is found. Incorporating new changes will only increase the confusion amongst team members and make completing a goal much more stressful. Also, this creates tension amongst members as well as resentment towards the leader. Everyone involved should be kept in the loop when it comes to making any new changes.