Purpose Requires Self-Awareness: The Leadership Gap We Don’t Always See
Most of us probably think we’re pretty self-aware.
We know our strengths. We know our weaknesses. We know what motivates us. And if we’re leaders, we probably have a fairly clear picture of the kind of leader we believe ourselves to be.
But what if the people around us experience us differently?
That’s the uncomfortable question at the center of a Harvard Business Review article by organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich on working with people who aren’t self-aware.
Her research uncovered a striking gap: while 95% of people believe they’re self-aware, only about 10 to 15% actually are.
That isn’t just an interesting psychological finding.
It’s a leadership problem.
Because leadership is shaped not only by how we see ourselves, but by how our behavior affects the people around us.
Self-awareness is more than knowing yourself
We often think of self-awareness as introspection.
What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? What do I value? Why do I react the way I do?
Those are important questions.
But Eurich’s research distinguishes between internal self-awareness, how clearly we understand ourselves, and external self-awareness, how clearly we understand the way other people see us.
Leadership requires both.
You can know exactly what you intended in a meeting and still not recognize that others felt dismissed.
You can see yourself as decisive while others experience you as unwilling to listen.
You can believe you’re empowering your team while they experience you as controlling.
You can think you’re encouraging healthy debate while people around you have learned that disagreement comes with consequences.
The challenge isn’t necessarily that one perspective is right and the other is wrong.
The challenge is recognizing that the gap exists.
Purpose can make self-awareness even more important
Purpose-driven leaders may face a particular vulnerability.
When we deeply believe in what we’re trying to accomplish, it can become easier to justify how we’re going about accomplishing it.
We’re fighting for something important.
We’re moving quickly because the work matters.
We’re pushing because the mission demands it.
Purpose can explain our urgency.
But it shouldn’t exempt us from examining our impact.
In fact, the more strongly we believe in the purpose, the more important self-awareness becomes.
Because why we lead doesn’t automatically validate how we lead.
Power can distort the mirror
Self-awareness also becomes more complicated as leaders gain authority.
The people around them may become less likely to provide an accurate mirror.
Employees soften feedback.
Colleagues choose their battles.
People read the room before sharing an opposing opinion.
Eventually, leaders can find themselves surrounded by agreement without realizing that some of it may actually be silence.
That is why asking for feedback isn’t enough.
A leader can say, “My door is always open,” and still create an environment where people don’t feel comfortable walking through it.
The better question may be:
What happens when someone actually tells me something I don’t want to hear?
Do I get curious?
Do I explain myself?
Do I become defensive?
Do I subtly punish the disagreement?
Do I genuinely consider that they might see something about me that I cannot see myself?
Our response to uncomfortable feedback may reveal more about our self-awareness than our willingness to ask for it.
Self-awareness lives in the gap between intention and impact
This is where leadership and communication have something important in common.
Communicators learn quickly that intention doesn’t determine whether communication was effective.
Reception matters.
Leadership works the same way.
“That’s not what I meant” can be true.
And so can:
“That’s how I experienced it.”
Self-awareness allows both realities to exist at once.
It doesn’t require accepting every criticism as fact. Other people’s perceptions can be incomplete. Feedback can be unfair. Leaders still need judgment.
But self-aware leaders remain curious when information conflicts with the story they tell themselves about who they are.
Instead of immediately asking:
Why did they take it that way?
They can also ask:
What did I do that contributed to them experiencing it that way?
That’s a very different posture.
Self-awareness is a practice
Perhaps that’s the most important point.
Self-awareness isn’t something we achieve.
It’s something we practice.
It requires continually testing our perception of ourselves against our impact on other people.
It means noticing patterns.
Listening for feedback we don’t particularly want.
Paying attention when multiple people experience us similarly.
And being willing to revise the story we tell ourselves about our own leadership.
Because purpose-driven leadership isn’t simply knowing what you stand for.
It’s having enough self-awareness to recognize whether the way you’re showing up is helping or hindering the purpose you’re trying to serve.
The Purposeful PR Compass Check
Purpose: Is my commitment to the mission making me more curious about my impact, or less?
Perspective: How might others experience me differently than I experience myself?
Practice: What feedback am I most tempted to explain away?
Self-awareness begins when we’re willing to consider that our view of ourselves may not be the whole view.
Purpose tells us where we want to go.
Self-awareness helps us see how we’re actually showing up along the way.
And sometimes the most important leadership question isn’t:
“What kind of leader do I think I am?”
It’s:
“What is it like to be led by me?”
Original Source
Tasha Eurich, Working with People Who Aren’t Self-Aware, Harvard Business Review, October 19, 2018.
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