#411: Self-Awareness - The Skill It's Easy to Ignore

Speaker A: M. Foreign. Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast, where our goal is to help you increase your reputation as a leader, increase your ability to influence others, and increase your ability to fully engage your team to deliver remarkable results. Hi, I'm Perry. Holly a Maxwell leadership facilitator and coach.

Speaker B: And I'm Chris Cody, executive vice president with Maxwell Leadership. Welcome and thank you for joining. Super excited to dive into this lesson today because I think it's going to really help Perry and I maybe more than you. We're going to talk about, um, something that 95% I was reading. Ah. A quick little article on this 95% people think they are, but really only 10 to 15% are actually this.

Speaker A: I've never met anybody that would say, no, I'm not self aware.

Speaker B: And so that's what we're going to talk about is we're going to talk about today. The title is self awareness, the skill that's easy to ignore. I love this title because.

Speaker A: So thank you.

Speaker B: Not because of the self awareness part. I don't like that part, but I do like the skill.

Speaker A: It is a skill.

Speaker B: It is a skill. And that's what we're going to unpack and dig in a little bit today as we get started. I want to encourage you to go to maxwellleadership.comexecutive podcast and. And there you can fill out a form and maybe you go, hey, I need a little bit of self awareness. And you want to go through some leadership coaching. That is what we do day in and day out. And I know Perry would love to love to coach you on your self awareness, by the way. Let me just tell us. I don't know that I've ever told our. Our podcast crew this the reason Perry and I started working together years and years ago. Years ago. Yeah, I think Perry was.

Speaker A: How old are you now?

Speaker B: I'm not talking about that. Um, was. I was looking for a coach for executive presence. And. And that is a lot of self awareness in certain things. And so a good friend of ours connected the two of us and we used to meet at Chili's. We used to tell stories and eat and then maybe talk a little bit about my executive presence. And that was years ago. And I just say that because seriously, we are blessed with some incredible executive coaches.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: Um, but maybe it's executive presence. Maybe you just want to know self awareness that. Parents, here's your guy. And, uh, and if you will fill out that form, we'll follow back up with you and be able to help you.

Speaker A: That's a lot of fun. Let me ask you this if we can agree, and since it's just the two of us and Wade, uh, let's agree that that self awareness is a skill. Do you personally. The question really is, can this skill be overlooked the higher you go in the organization. That's my presupposition is that, that the higher you go, it's easier to overlook this as a skill. That you, you adopt some different things, personality traits. The, the more senior you become when you're lower, you need to uh. In the organization. I'm always worried about my self awareness, but if the higher I go, I don't think about it.

Speaker B: What do you think? Yes.

Speaker A: Why is that?

Speaker B: Okay, so here's um, I think the longer we have led, the longer we have done what we're doing, quote unquote, I think the more unaware you become of what it's like to be on the other side of your leadership. I think we get complacent, I think we get comfortable, I think we get in rhythms. And um, maybe the word is you think you're seasoned, right. And you've been around a long time. This is how I've always done it. This is going to work. This is. And I think that um, if you were to ask your team, hey, what does it look like to be on the other side of my leadership? I think it would be drastically different. And so um, I think that's one of the key drivers for me in people that have lack of self awareness. Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's funny, I just uh, A guy reached out. It's a new way. I'm getting, uh, podcast title ideas. A guy reached out on LinkedIn. He's become a friend. Uh, just telling me he likes what we do and he was complimenting both of us. He actually used your name.

Speaker B: Uh, what?

Speaker A: Yeah, it was nice.

Speaker B: And you know that other guy, that other guy with you, what's his name? Chris. Yeah, Chris is on the. That's right.

Speaker A: Uh, he said you should do a podcast on how to uh, how to work for a narcissistic leader. And I thought that is interesting to me. But it really is if you're narcissistic, meaning it's all about you. Everything's about you. That's really a lack of self awareness. I agree. And so I was thinking this is not my, this is not my podcast for narcissistic leaders. But if you have a lot of self awareness, you're going to develop others awareness and maybe situational awareness because you'll know it's not all about you. And you'll start to remember. M. We said state how I see self awareness is. Are you aware of your effect on other people? Are you aware of your effect when you walk in a room?

Speaker B: And let me, Let me just stop you for a minute. You need to write that down because I even take for granted that statement you just made, meaning self awareness. Do I really know about me?

Speaker A: No.

Speaker B: M. What Perry's saying is, do I really know about the impact of me on other people? So say that again because I want people to write that down, make a note of it because that is massive. And I hadn't thought about it.

Speaker A: I had, uh, another organization I was with. I had a leader that had a relationship like you and I have. And I could say something that I said, listen, we're going to go into the room. I'm the senior. I'm going to come in, but I'm going to wait till you guys get in the room. But, uh, would you do me a favor? Would you just take notes? Would you watch people in the room? How are they reacting to me? Are they rolling their eyes? Are they with me? Are they not with me? Is there buy in. Is there no buy in? Are people, uh, ah, they're talking behind my. What's going on? And I could trust this leader to tell me the truth, that it was my inner circle. And I said, please just. I need to know. But that's my. I want. Want to know what is my effect on people. And when I walk in a room, what is the general overall feeling about that? Because I can't see it necessarily. And so that's what I'm going to talk about today is that are you. Especially the higher you go, you need it at every level. Yes, it is probably the number one skill of great leadership is high self awareness. But are we paying attention to it? And how do you learn it, how can you grow in it and how do you do that? Is really where I was trying to go.

Speaker B: You know, Daniel Goldman talks a lot about IQ is going to get you the job. EQ is going to keep the job. And 90% of your success, he says, is tied to your emotional intelligence. And this is one part of the emotional intelligence.

Speaker A: Can I show you this? Just another question though. But, um, and you and I were talking about it just a little earlier, before we went on the air was I'd had. Somebody gave me this way of. I was going to remember who said this. But your intent versus your impact is that are you paying attention to, uh, I Don't know a lot of leaders that come in a room with bad intention. They don't talk to their team individually or in a group with bad intention. They have great intent but their impact, the way they leave those people is not matching what they intended. Uh, what are your thoughts on this? Can you monitor your own impact versus your intent?

Speaker B: I think you can monitor. But let me back up. You know what I was thinking about? What's the old saying, a road to is paved with good intentions. Right. Meaning we, we have great intentions as leader but the outcome of what we intended to do did not hit home. And we talk about in some of our different um, trainings we do with organizations, we talk a little bit about this intent versus perception gap.

Speaker A: Mhm, right, right.

Speaker B: Which is in this line. But I like the intent versus impact because that impact is taking that perception a step further. And what is the action that they took from what your intent was on the beginning? Do you follow me on that? So uh, it's like I love that because then now it's taken at a different level. But it's the leader's responsibility to close. We call a lot. We love talking about leadership gaps and it's the, it's the leader's responsibility to, to close that gap. So whether we're talking about intent versus perception or yours of uh, intent versus impact, we have to figure out hey, what did, did the end result match up with my intent? Now there are sometimes as a leader I'm thinking about this that you're going to quickly know but you missed the mark on your intent before they, the team or your, your uh, peer has had the, the chance to even impact uh it and you missed that. So there are things that we can measure and we can get feedback from. Sometimes it's not till the end of a project, but it could also be right in the middle of a project if you have great feedback loops and uh, communication from your team.

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Speaker A: Well, I find it uh, hard to manage my own. I think I need help sometimes to see is am. I feel like I'm having the impact I want to have. But the question is, what is this costing me, uh, to, to have this gap if between my impact and my intent. I'm, I'm reminded of a leader I had uh, years and years ago. But he had no self awareness. I felt finally he figured it out. He was a good guy, a friendly guy. He wanted to be friends with this guy, but it was all about him. And he was manipulating and uh, orchestrating and trying to get things lined up for his own purposes. And there were three of us, uh, senior executives that worked for him. And uh, I'm the type that would come around and after every meeting he would come in. I actually wrote an article, I'm not sure he ever knew it was about him on my blog site, but it was called how much wake do you create? I was out. You uh, know you boat is that every time you come into, every time you come into to the uh, harbor into the marina, there's always a little bobbing sign out there that says no wake zone. But I noticed every time he came in you would think a uh, meeting with your team would be a no wake zone. But he would come in and start throwing things around and accusing people and making accusations and challenges. Everybody was, all the boats were banging up against each other, which is why we have a no wake zone. We don't want the valuable boats banging up against each other. But everybody was being rattled by this guy and that I would go around. You seem like this kind of person too. You would go around to the team afterwards and try to make it all better. And I thought, have you seen this kind of behavior? This is the cost. What do you think the cost of that is? When you have a leader that is unself aware, not self aware, and the team has to go around and mend the fences after the breakage to do that.

Speaker B: It was fully destructive not only in um, time of cleaning up, but the missed opportunity of what the team could have been doing. Oh yeah, right. If the wake. And I love that, I love that visual image of the wake, you know, coming into a no wake zone as a leader and, and doing that. So got me thinking about oftentimes we'll ask, hey, how'd the meeting go with other people? Hey, what'd you think about that meeting? Whatever or As a leader, maybe sometimes you prepared for a meeting and you want feedback on, um, I do this sometimes with you as, as a coach of mine. I'll say, hey, we're going to have to have a meeting with the uh, so. And so whatever. You're going to be in part of it. I, uh, want you to give me some coaching and so we'll get back together. I'll say, what'd you think? How'd the meeting go? And so there are questions like that. I think, ah, one of the encouragements for you as we're talking about this with wakes is maybe you start asking, um, what did you have to clean up on my behalf as a leader because we did this or what, what did I cause disruptions or wakes in other part of the. Your business that I unintentionally did it, but I did it. And that's part of, I mean, that's on me, right? That's my self awareness.

Speaker A: But you could be. If you have to intentionally disrupt, that's one thing. But this is, uh, you, you said this unintentionally disrupting. You don't even know you're doing.

Speaker B: Yeah. You don't even know.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: You don't even know.

Speaker A: Yeah. Let's, uh, let's talk about can. How to build self awareness. And um, I've heard somebody on the. I've had it more than once. Somebody said, I said, you really seem to be struggling with your connection with the team. And it is. Let's talk about self awareness. And it's always been men. But they say, uh, he says, that's just the way I am. Okay, it's not the way you am. This is you. You can change.

Speaker B: Do you know that I said that one time? One time to my wife Sarah. One time I said that. I just want to. I feel like I needed to confess right there because Perry said it's usually men. It is. And I actually have done this in the past.

Speaker A: Yeah, you, you can grow. You, you, you can learn. So let's talk about these skills. What do you think?

Speaker B: So, um, one of the things that I have learned throughout this process as a skill to do this is to, to pause before I respond. I'm thinking, I'm really thinking about the point I just made about, you know, in my family, um, when I don't necessarily agree with something or we get into a discussion and, and I just react in the moment. It's obviously we best thing to do. Um, but I've learned to say. Let me just slow down just a minute. And let me pause before I react. And then that way I can make sure that I can maybe self regulate a little bit, but then also be somewhat aware of how I'm about to respond in the moment.

Speaker A: Yeah, somebody taught me years ago, I actually, I got this from marriage. Was, uh, having tough conversations and really almost everything's fight or something said e +r =o. And that's. That's ancient and it's been around a long time. But event plus response or react, uh, equals an outcome. And so I notice I'm getting bad outcomes at work or at home. I, um, can't control the E, the events, what somebody says, what somebody does, what happens next, what somebody lashed out, somebody triggered. I can't control the E, but the R is all yours. You're either going to react, which is quick, going to be bad usually, or as you were saying, take a pause, take a breath and do it. R would be response. So whatever event happened, I choose, uh, after a pause, my response. I get a much better outcome on that. Going to the impact versus intent. I started. Can you question for that? Asking about the impact, not just the intent. And I'm guilty of asking. You did this so well, because you asked me to, um, kind of sit quietly and watch, uh, your impact in the meeting. And you say after, and you always come back and say, okay, what did you notice? How could I have done it better? How was it received? Did I sound like I was dictating? Did I sound like I was, uh, abdicating? Did I. How did it come across? So instead of asking how was the meeting? Or how did it sound, which you always get, uh, affirming from people that will tell you the truth.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: Start to say, how did that land with you? Tell me some specific. Is what you do with me? You say what. Don't give me a lot of platitudes. Tell me what it actually felt like to you. So I. Getting that feedback, I think helps a lot.

Speaker B: By the way, that's the only time Perry ever wants to attend one of our team meetings.

Speaker A: I can open up a can this room.

Speaker B: So, yeah, otherwise, so that's really. I just gave my secret out. I just want them in the meetings with me. The other thing we want to encourage you as you're thinking about this is, um, review patterns. Not just moments. We're all going to have moments of, um, things that are outliers of how you either lead, um, what does that look like, how. Where your awareness shows up, um, or you could even think about this. You could think about maybe it's in a communication and you're not listening properly. You continually interrupt. You continually one up. You can tell and yeah versus you know, listening. That is a lack of self awareness when it comes to the communication pathways between you and your peers and other people. And so when you look at that you, you're asking sometimes uh, for patterns or uh, you're trying to reflect and look for patterns in yourself to, to make sure that okay, that's an area that I really need to work on and it just wasn't an anomaly. It just wasn't one off.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I don't want this conversation to end with that. I was talking about something we teach a lot right now is about feedback. And do you have a feedback relationship? Not just a uh, feedback event where you like. The example you asked me to be in there was that's a feedback relationship. And I always title this if I'm speaking on from a stage, I said do you have an inner circle? Do you have one to two people that will tell you the absolute truth for uh, your benef. They're not trying to you know, um, overwhelm you with positive. They're going to tell you the truth. And if you have that relationship, you know, our wives for unite are. It's the center of the. For us. They don't for some reason don't have any, they don't have that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, but do I have a, I have a couple of guys in my life that will just tell me hey, what are you, why are you doing that? What was that about? You sounded like. And, and they'll tell me the truth though. That to me is a huge. Let's get that. Yeah, I got great intent but where's my impact? Are they telling me the truth?

Speaker B: Love that. What I love about these four, um, is that these are, these are skill sets, these are operational habits. And that's why we started off by saying we gave you the data on how many people think they're self aware, how many probably actually are. But it's a skill set in your title. We talk about we're going to be able to do that. These things, these are operational. These are things where you know, you can pause, you can ask a sharper question, you can look for patterns, you can standing uh, you know, relationships with people that'll give you honesty. Like Perry and I shared about him giving, giving me feedback. And so this is something that we absolutely want you to practice, we want you to think about as a, as you're leading people, um, team or Even family and build them in. Here's what also when we start talking about development and really that's what our podcast is all about, is helping leaders develop. These are not additional things we're asking you to do. I love how you talk about when it comes to developing other people. You go, well, let's work it, uh, into the calendar that you already have.

Speaker A: Don't add it.

Speaker B: It's the same thing with self awareness and the things that we've talked about. How do we work them into the things that we're doing on a daily basis? And I think when you can do that, it just becomes part of who you are as a leader.

Speaker A: Before you close, um, as you go higher in the organization, as your title gets bigger, as you become more important, these things get harder. And because it doesn't seem, uh, that I should be asking for help, I should be asking for feedback, I'm going to tell you that's called vulnerability. To submit yourself humbly, to ask somebody, can you tell me how I'm doing? Like Chris would invite me into a meeting to say, watch me and watch others and tell me how I'm doing. That's vulnerability. And vulnerability is the number one builder of trust in organizations. So I want to encourage you, the higher you go, you not get exempt from this skill. You need to actually probably double down on it because there's nothing more attractive than a very highly self aware senior leader. People are, they want to, they buy into you for that.

Speaker B: Totally agree. So as we wrap up today, a a quick thought for you and then a very simple exercise. We talked about the wake zone. There's no doubt that if you're leading something, you are creating some type of wake for some people. And so we want to make sure that you ask that question. Maybe identify somebody on a team or volunteer group or in your family where you maybe just have a little bit of intuition that you've created some wake. And the conversation is not what does it look like to be on the other side of my leadership? Not um, how am I doing? But hey, what have I caused? Um, to maybe be an uproar or something that became a, ah, boulder in what you're doing on a day to day basis? I basically have caused more trouble or they've had to smooth things out. For decisions that you've made as a leader. Ask them that question. They're probably not going to know how to answer you right away, but then let them come back to you. And then the final thought is what you brought to us about the intention versus impact. M. Right. Like, we all have great intentions. Like you said, we don't show up trying to do things, help people run a meeting without the right intent. But, man, what is the impact that we're actually having? Um, and what is that gap we talk about? How do we close the gap and so reflect on a couple of the things. Your intent was this and now we've kind of measured it, and here was the impact. Oh, man, Like, I missed it and I got to close that gap, man.

Speaker A: You just. I just had a bad thought run through how much time has my wife gone behind me to repair, uh, with, uh, the kids, because I was. Yeah, she's the one fixing. So if you got people on your team that are fixing your messes, get, um, the feedback and then stop causing messes. Uh, self awareness will help with that. Great conversation. As a reminder, you can get the learner guide for this issue. You can also, uh, learn about our offerings, and you can leave a comment or a question. You can learn about our other podcasts. Do all that@maxwellleadership.com executivepodcast. We love hearing from you. We're very grateful you spend this time with us today. That's all from the Maxwell Leadership Executive Podcast.

Speaker B: Sam.