You can't be a really effective executive if you're not fully
Thus I read with interest a new book, Leading With Intention: Every Moment Is a Choice, by Mindy Hall (Copper Bay Press) that directly and perceptively addresses the issue of self-awareness in leadership. Hall, a PhD, is president of Peak Development Consulting and has worked with and observed business leaders for years.
I've long been of the opinion that self-awareness is an important but neglected aspect of leadership and have written about it in this publication. In Leading With Intention, Hall's emphasis is on practical guidance for executives. For example, sections are titled "Recognizing Your Impact," "Leading with Intention Takes Practice," "Being Intentional in Your Communication" and "Impacting Your Organization," etc.
The view in the mirror - To give a flavor for Hall's approach and style, following is a section from a chapter titled "Noticing Yourself."
"In every interaction, you are the pivotal element. You have the ability to tailor your approach, your message, your actions - and even your appearance - to shape the outcome. You must, therefore, begin to see yourself as the primary tool for achieving high-level results, as opposed to elements outside of you - such as business models, organizational structure, other people, or circumstances.
"Over the course of my twenty-five-plus years coaching leaders and shaping organizations, I would say nearly 80 percent of those I have worked with did not lead intentionally. They were bright capable leaders that operated out of intuition, pattern and reaction. Mind you, some did so with very strong results, but those who made the decision to be more self-aware and intentional achieved higher-level results in terms of both the positions they've held and the impact they've had than those who continued to operate primarily from intuition.
"Developing this aptitude is possible and begins the moment you look in the mirror and reflect on the process of understanding how you show up, how you affect a room, and what environment you create. Operating with this level of awareness is counterintuitive to how we live our lives, which is why it is so easy to lose sight of its importance. However, with this awareness in place, success becomes a matter of intention: recognizing who you are being and choosing consciously and deliberately who you want to be. Put more plainly: notice yourself. Be in the moment and watch yourself in the moment. How would you experience your actions if you were on the receiving end?"
The last sentence is perhaps the most important: "How would you experience your actions if you were on the receiving end?" It's a critical question for anyone in a management role to ask himself or herself.
Studies have suggested that self-awareness is actually the quality that is the best predictor of executive success - even though it's a quality that traditionally receives relatively little attention in executive searches.
If you ever feel that your business interactions are a little like throwing darts at an emotional dartboard - sometimes you hit the mark and sometimes you don't, sometimes you get the results you want and sometimes you don't, these are issues worth paying attention to. For those executives who have persistent challenges in their interpersonal relationships, who are frequently frustrated that their actions don't have the impact they expect, or who don't always understand why people respond the way the way they do to them... Leading With Intention will be worthwhile reading.
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Victor is author of The Type B Manager: Leading Successfully in a Type A World (Prentice Hall Press).
