Consider George’s three points: inner work involves having real-world experience, process that experience through some type of reflection, and seek honest feedback from others. What kinds of real-world experiences have been most instructional for you? How and where do you take time to reflect? From whom can you receive honest feedback? How have these practices (or lack of them) affected your leadership abilities?
George (2012b) suggests that self-awareness is necessary in order for an individual to be authentic as a person and as a leader. In developing this capability, he focuses on three phases which are based on real-world experience, reflection, and honest feedback from others. In terms of self-awareness, the real-world experiences allows an individual to encounter a new event. The reflection is the interpretation and meaning the individual has in reacting to the event. Lastly, honest feedback from others is being able to assess our own self-awareness of an event with an external figure.
The most instructional real-world experience that I have been able to encounter has been my experience moving away from home and embarking on my career in the U.S. Air Force. While growing up and going to college in Salt Lake City, Utah has been wonderful in having support in terms of friends and family, being in my comfort zone did not allow me to really test my abilities as a person or what values I truly embodied and cherished. Moving out to a different state by myself allowed me to reflect on my own aptitudes in a dynamic and new environment. Part of me was thrilled to become independent and part of me was anxious to know if I would be able to transition to my new life away from the people who had known me for years.
What I was able to really understand was my authentic self away from my immediate friends and family through my own beliefs, values, and principles. This alone time allowed me to reflect on my life back in Utah and what I had learned while growing up there. I had new responsibilities as a young adult entering the workforce and a blank slate to grow and develop as a person with no one else to lean on (at least in an immediate physical sense). This allowed myself to reach a new depth into my self-awareness by trying out my skills as a leader in a real workplace and interpersonal skills with people I had no connection to beforehand.
This particular idea of developing self-awareness can be explained through self-testing, exploration, and try-outs (Furnham, 2015). Trying out new things or experiences help to develop self-acceptance which in turn grows our own understanding of our self-awareness. I was able to try to connect to other co-workers on a professional level by applying what I had learned in college and found out that there is a lot more to learn than I realized. I started out my job as a Program Manager of a Modeling & Simulation Branch and realized that the type of programming that I learned back in college was a bit outdated and not used widely in industry. However, it was my understanding of how programming worked in general that was important in allowing me to be useful. This type of self-awareness allowed me to become more resilient in a sense by bringing a sense of reality to what I thought was important. The resiliency that I was able to developed allowed me to become more realistic in my aptitude. This was important because it allowed me to stay grounded and more true-to-self in my own abilities.
According to Northouse (2016, p. 196), there are three distinct ways of looking at authentic leadership. They are the intrapersonal perspective (a person's own self-knowledge, self-regulation, and self-concept), interpersonal processes (how leaders and followers interact), and developmental perspective (ability of authenticity to be nurtured in a leader, rather than fixed trait). The one that I really got to experience was the interpersonal process of how I was able to react with my fellow co-workers as the Program Manager of the team. In essence, self-awareness in leadership is similar to how transformative leadership is defined. Transformative leadership involves a leader's values, ethics, standards, and long term goals for follower's as full human beings (Northouse, 2016, p. 161). I was able to put my leadership to the test by figuring out the balance between being assertive and humble enough to know what I did not know. I used my values and principles as a guide on ensuring that there was a line between professionalism and personal relations in the workplace environment in the way I treated each team member. There is a tendency for a team to test the limits of the 'new guy' in the group so it was pertinent for me to ensure that I was not taken advantage of. It was important for me to stay grounded in order to keep my authenticity and when I faced new challenges I was able to move forward in tackling new issues with humility.
An authentic leadership should include self-awareness because it allows leaders to practice a more mindful kind of leadership. Leaders who place self-interest ahead of the mission of the organization ended up violating trust leading to disappointment. In the words of George (2012a), "You know you're in trouble when you start to judge your self-worth by your net worth." This emphasis on values is important in authentic leadership because it builds trust in a team because they would have a sense of what a leader would do based on their principles. Authentic leadership is different from the behavioral approach of leadership because it focuses on the moral dimension of leadership in their actions (Northouse, 2016, p. 220). This type of mindset allows a leader to become more aware of how their presences may affect others. Furthermore, authentic leadership has more depth than the Path-Goal Theory where leaders help followers by defining goals, clarifying path, removing obstacles, and providing support (Northouse, 2016, p. 115). By having self-awareness in leadership allows the leader to have the ability to observe and participate in each moment with the follower based on their capabilities and values.
Whenever I start to doubt myself, the people who I turn to are my friends and family back in Utah. Whether it is venting from a rough day at work or getting advice or suggestions on how to handle a situation, they are the people I turn to because they helped to develop me as a person while growing up. Furnham (2015) compartmentalizes self-awareness into four types: open self, hidden self, blind self, and unknown self. The 'open self' includes the common knowledge (e.g. interests, ambitions, abilities). The hidden self are the parts of our selfs that include odd beliefs or socially unacceptable attitudes/behaviors. The blind self is what others see in you, but do not mention keeping you oblivious to some truths. Lastly, the unknown self are the parts that neither you nor others know that may be repressed or forgotten thoughts. In the breakdown of self-awareness such as this, the blind self is comparable to what George (2012b) refers to in honest feedback. Whenever I am uncertain and need some guidance, I go back to my roots to help me determine what direction to take.
By applying introspective practices in self-awareness helps to achieve clarity about what is important and provides a deeper meaning of the world around us. The mindfulness of this approach in leadership will help clear away trivial items in the workplace and and will allow leaders to focus on nurturing the people instead. By developing a higher sense of self-awareness, leaders can act more compassionately and authentically to those who look up to us.
References
George, B. (2012a, October 26). Mindfulness helps you become a better leader. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from http://www.billgeorge.org/articles/mindfulness-helps-you-become-a-better-leader/
George, B. [Key Step Media]. (2012b, November 1). Harvard's bill george: Inner work for authentic leadership [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmPu2LQ84ts
Furnham, A. (2015). Self awareness: How self aware are you? Do you know how you come across?. Psychology Today. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sideways-view/201511/self-awareness
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing.
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