Knowing yourself is critical to being an effective leader. Building self-awareness and understanding your tendencies and motivational drivers can enable you to unlock the potential in yourself and your team.
“Self-awareness is about developing your capacity to sense how you’re coming across—to have undistorted visibility into your own strengths and weaknesses—and to be able to gauge the emotions you’re personally experiencing,” says Harvard Business School Professor Joshua Margolis in the online course Leadership Principles. “If you’re going to mobilize others to get things done, you can’t let your own emotions get in the way.”
This especially reigns true for professionals with experience in leadership roles. Leaders must be level-headed and capable of making critical decisions for the good of their organizations. Successful leaders must also be in tune with their leadership capabilities before acting on them. There’s reason to suggest that self-aware leaders directly correlate to happier employees and healthier companies.
Free E-Book: How to Become a More Effective Leader
Access your free e-book today.
According to an analysis by Korn/Ferry International, companies with higher rates of financial return tend to employ professionals with high degrees of self-awareness. Relatedly, research by the Association for Talent Development shows that self-aware leaders report having:
Reaping these rewards can be achieved through honest self-assessment. By examining patterns in how you view yourself and how others experience you, you can identify ways to learn and develop as a leader.
If you want to maximize your career trajectory and improve how you guide and manage teams, here are four ways you can assess your leadership effectiveness.
Questionnaires can be useful for identifying your motivations and strengths. In the online course Leadership Principles, participants complete two self-assessments: the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (ESCI) and the Personal Values Questionnaire (PVQ).
By taking these assessments, leaders can recognize behavioral patterns and gain insight into how they manage themselves and their colleagues.
This self-awareness is critical to effective leadership because it develops emotional intelligence—an ability that’s possessed by 90 percent of top performers in the workplace. Through looking inward and answering questions with honesty and candor, you learn how to better command your emotions—as well as others’—and build a foundation for your leadership approach.
In addition to self-assessments, observing a video recording of yourself can be a valuable way to learn more about your current leadership tendencies. Taking part in this kind of exercise can enable you to gauge how you present yourself and exhibit attributes of different leadership styles, such as authenticity, humility, and faith. Maintaining these attributes can not only foster concern for your company’s success but employees' wellbeing—also known as “caring leadership.”
Engaging in critical self-observation can also help you overcome the vulnerability of putting yourself in front of others as a leader, providing the confidence needed to inspire and influence your team.
Beyond self-reflection, turn to those you interact and collaborate with for feedback on your effectiveness. Unlike management, leadership is less about administering and organizing and more about aligning and empowering employees to pursue organizational goals.
By turning to colleagues for thoughts on how they experience your leadership style, you can identify discrepancies in how you perceive yourself and chart a plan for more effective leadership. Soliciting and heeding feedback also helps develop clear lines of communication , which, according to the Center for Creative Leadership, is essential for building trust and driving performance.
For Juliana Casale, a marketing professional who took the online course Leadership Principles, completing self-assessments and receiving peer feedback led to a greater sense of awareness in her role and improved communication with her team.
“I'm now more mindful of how my colleagues are experiencing me and less averse to having difficult conversations,” Casale says.
Leadership is a skill that must be honed. As you progress throughout your career, it’s vital to cultivate a robust network you can rely on for coaching, support, and guidance.
“Your internal and external networks are important leadership assets,” says HBS Professor Anthony Mayo in the online course Leadership Principles. “They're how you gain access to resources like information, know-how, and funding that are crucial in enabling you to help those you’re leading. Networks also foster your learning by connecting you to people in organizations with different skills, perspectives, and contexts than your own.”
Through networking, you can build a powerful resource that exposes you to new opportunities and drives personal growth and success.
You can be an effective leader at any stage of your career. Whether you’re a mid-level manager or new to the workforce, honing your leadership skills can pay dividends for your professional development.
By building self-awareness, soliciting feedback, and networking, you can gain a better understanding of your personal leadership style and unleash the potential in yourself and others.
Do you want to enhance your leadership skills? Explore Leadership Principles—one of our online leadership and management courses—to discover how you can become a more effective leader and unleash the potential in yourself and others.
This article was updated on July 19, 2022. It was originally published on November 21, 2019.
Matt Gavin is a member of the marketing team at Harvard Business School Online. Prior to returning to his home state of Massachusetts and joining HBS Online, he lived in North Carolina, where he held roles in news and content marketing. He has a background in video production and previously worked on several documentary films for Boston’s PBS station, WGBH. In his spare time, he enjoys running, exploring New England, and spending time with his family.
We offer self-paced programs (with weekly deadlines) on the HBS Online course platform.
Our platform features short, highly produced videos of HBS faculty and guest business experts, interactive graphs and exercises, cold calls to keep you engaged, and opportunities to contribute to a vibrant online community.
We expect to offer our courses in additional languages in the future but, at this time, HBS Online can only be provided in English.
All course content is delivered in written English. Closed captioning in English is available for all videos. There are no live interactions during the course that requires the learner to speak English. Coursework must be completed in English.
No, all of our programs are 100 percent online, and available to participants regardless of their location.
Certificate Programs
HBS Online welcomes committed learners wherever they are—in the world and their careers—irrespective of their professional experience or academic background. To extend the reach of HBS Online, we no longer require an application for our certificate programs. (Applications are still required for our credential programs: CORe and CLIMB.) You can now immediately enroll and start taking the next step in your career.
All programs require the completion of a brief online enrollment form before payment. If you are new to HBS Online, you will be required to set up an account before enrolling in the program of your choice.
Our easy online enrollment form is free, and no special documentation is required. All participants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.
Updates to your enrollment status will be shown on your account page. HBS Online does not use race, gender, ethnicity, or any protected class as criteria for enrollment for any HBS Online program.
Credential Programs
HBS Online's CORe and CLIMB programs require the completion of a brief application. The applications vary slightly, but all ask for some personal background information. You can apply for and enroll in programs here. If you are new to HBS Online, you will be required to set up an account before starting an application for the program of your choice.
Our easy online application is free, and no special documentation is required. All participants must be at least 18 years of age, proficient in English, and committed to learning and engaging with fellow participants throughout the program.
Updates to your application and enrollment status will be shown on your account page. We confirm enrollment eligibility within one week of your application for CORe and three weeks for CLIMB. HBS Online does not use race, gender, ethnicity, or any protected class as criteria for admissions for any HBS Online program.
