Who am I?

As we start this new year, it is important to take a step back and ask ourselves a very critical question - "Who am I?". Self Awareness is extremely critical for Leaders to be successful and more often than not, this is an area that is ignored. We train Leaders on various skill sets like Coaching, Performance management, Strategic thinking, etc but self awareness is not on any Talent Development's team curriculum. In this fast paced world where more needs to be delivered with less resources, time (which is a critical component for Self Awareness) is constrained and hence, Leaders do not get an opportunity to think and reflect upon.

I hereby list 5 key reasons why all Leaders should make time and focus upon Self Awareness.

Reason #1: Success As Leaders move up the corporate ladder, one of the critical components that they are evaluated on is EQ - Emotional Quotient. With the challenges that are faced by the CXOs, EQ becomes extremely critical for their ability to address these challenges and make tough decisions. Self Awareness is very important for Leaders to develop higher EQ.

Reason #2: Relationships In today's Digital/Knowledge/Service economy, it is all about people. Leaders have to constantly interact and build relationships with people - customers, employees, partners, stakeholders. In order to build sustainable and long term relationships, it is important to go beyond transactional relationship to transformational relationship. to build transformational relationship, it is important for Leader to be self aware of his/her strengths, weaknesses and more importantly of his/her emotions.

Reason #3: Decision making One of the critical functions of a Leader is to make decisions. In the course of the day, he/she is asked to make multiple decisions that have far reaching consequences on the Organization. State of mind of the Leader plays a very critical role in his/her decision making and it is very important for Leader to be aware of his/her state of mind while making decisions. If an extremely critical decision is made when the state of mind of the Leader is in auto-pilot mode, it may not be the most effective decision for the Organization.

Reason #4: Adaptability Leaders are faced with constant change around them. In today's world, where business cycles and operating model change in span of an year, product innovation is phasing out products even before they scale in production, Leaders have to constantly be aware of the change around them and adapt themselves and their Organizations to deal with the change in the environment. Leaders ability to change and adapt themselves cannot be achieved without them being aware of their own emotions, mental blocks and state of mind. This awareness will enable the Leader to effectively deal with their Transitions.

Reason #5: Manage Stress Life of a Leader is laden with stress. Burden of responsibility for the success of the Organization (and thus the success of stakeholders and thousands of employees) is not easy to handle. Being self aware will ensure that this stress is not further added by insecurities of the Leader and their ego coming into play while fulfilling their responsibilities. Being self aware will ensure that the Leader plays to his/her strengths while fully leveraging strengths of his/her team for the overall success of the Organization.

Hence, it is important the we focus on knowing more about ourselves. Unless we know ourself better, we cannot understand others and hence our ability to build long lasting relationships will not be successful. I'd ask each one of you to ask this question - "Who am I?" and note down your responses. We all can learn more about ourselves by opening our mind and willing to receive... Listen more (verbal/non verbal), Observe (self, others) and Reflect. We will discuss this more in future blogs.

Now, do you know Who am I??