Are you a self-aware leader? Rachel Cooke gave some fantastic advice this week in learning to understand and use your strengths and weaknesses for good. Listen to the full episode here, or read it here. But here's a sneak peak:

"Self-awareness is more than just knowing who you are. It’s having the insight to fully leverage your strengths and to flex your style in any moment to amplify your impact. Learn how to understand yourself and use that knowledge for good. Here the goal isn’t just to know your style, it’s to let your knowing inform your action.

If, say, you’re seen as a super collaborative leader or partner, that’s great. No doubt, you’re delivering products or outputs that capture the voices of many stakeholders which means your outcome is generally richer. 

But also. Are you potentially—perhaps in moments of stress or uncertainty—allowing yourself to stay too long in the idea-collection stage? And is there an opportunity for you to infuse more discipline into collecting a certain number of opinions before switching into action mode? 

Or maybe you find that you’re excellent at painting a clear and detailed vision for your team. You’re so clear and so detailed, though, that your team feels like there is no real room for them to contribute to or influence the shape of the outcome. Maybe your goal then is to lighten up a bit on the details. Use that collaborative spirit to invite others into the visioning process with you. The more others contribute to defining an outcome, the more ownership they’ll feel of it, and the more engaged they’ll be in bringing it to life.

Ultimately there is no singular good or bad way to lead. It’s about knowing how we tend to lead and finding spaces to make small tweaks and changes where they’d serve your team.

Not sure where to begin, what changes to make? Ask those working most closely with you. Listen well. Make changes. And be sure to circle back later and ask “How was it that time? Was it better?

Again, permission to edit or add. The goal is to ask a question that unlocks insight that you can put to use. Yours is the opportunity to turn that insight into action.

Remember self-awareness is knowing yourself. But knowing is just trivia. Take your awareness and make something new happen. Any change you can make that enhances the performance of those around you is a change worth making."

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