Self-awareness is the ability to see yourself objectively, including your strengths, weaknesses, and preferred leadership style. Self-awareness is developed through a careful and deliberate examination of yourself and how you relate to others.

Self-awareness is the core of the Clore Social Leadership Development Model and the foundation of personal growth. Understanding yourself is key to understanding others, and therefore to generous leadership behaviours. Fundamentally, this means knowing where your strengths and weaknesses lie. In the workplace, this often translates into accepting feedback graciously; understanding and empathising with your team; and being confident in your abilities.

Take Hugo and Kate as examples. Hugo is Head of Programmes at his organisation and often attends Trustee Meetings to provide an update on programme activities. For a recent meeting, he asked his direct report Kate to write a monitoring and evaluation report. However, Kate became busy with other projects and failed to provide the report in time for the meeting. How might self-awareness, or a lack of, affect Hugo and Kate’s working relationship in this situation?

Interestingly, researchers have shown that a lack of self-awareness actually leads to an inflated sense of one’s abilities. Many un-self-aware people won’t accept critical feedback; cannot understand others’ perspective; and will take credit for successes whilst blaming others for failures. 

In the example above, Kate lacked the self-awareness to realise that she did not have the time to take on an additional assignment or would need to manage her time in order to make the deadline. If she had, she might have let Hugo know early on that she would need to deprioritise another task in order to complete it.

If Hugo also suffers from a deficit of self-awareness, he might not be able to relate to the pressure Kate was under, and blame her for neglecting to manage her time. He might even throw her under the bus to the Trustees and let them know why they do not have the report.

Research suggests that both internal and external self-awareness is one of the most critical elements of effective leadership. Acknowledging your skills and limitations as a leader enables you to be proactive about self-development and focus on improving your leadership skills.

In addition, having greater self-awareness can lead to stronger relationships with peers, as it increases your listening and communication skills. Self-awareness is also linked to the ability to project thoughts, feelings, desires and other mental states onto others--in other words, being aware of your own mental processes better enables you to empathise with and relate to others.

Let’s return to Hugo and Kate. Upon missing her deadline, Kate could show self-awareness by acknowledging that she made a mistake, why it happened, and how she could avoid making the same mistake in the future. She could also take concrete steps to improve her time management skills, as she has now identified this as a potential area of development.

Hugo, for his part, could try to understand why Kate did not come to him earlier, and what pressure she might be under to finish her tasks on time. He could self-evaluate to see where he could help as a manager, and work with her to improve her communication and time management skills. 

Increased self-awareness is one of the key outcomes of our Emerging Leader programme. Commencing October 2022, the six-month programme is designed to help emerging leaders build their leadership potential, strengthen their networks, and drive social change. If you, or a relevant colleague, are looking to develop your leadership potential then we invite you to find out more about the upcoming programme.

Have you played the word game Bananagrams? Seek it out if not – it’s excellent. If you have, you might know that the best way to form good words yourself is to have a quick look at other players’ jumbled-up letters. There’s something about observing someone else’s game for a bit that ‘re-sets’ your perspective and clarifies your own moves.

I’m finishing the Clore6 programme feeling that spending time in other people’s shoes should be mandatory in the professional world – especially in the social sector.

Clore Social Leadership has been piloting a six-month programme – Clore6 – specifically for emerging leaders from organisations that work with young people. It couples the leadership development of Clore Social’s Fellowship Programme with an ambition to foster greater collaboration and collective solutions for the youth sector. The ‘job swap’ is the final component of Clore6.

Brathay Trust is renown for both its residential and community-based work with young people and families, and its innovative and insightful internal research team. In arranging a job swap at Brathay, I wanted to experience good youth work, good research and impact measurement. Brathay also places openness and learning at the heart of its organisational culture which, particularly pertinent for my work, facilitates a cyclical scenario in which youth work and impact measurement improve one another in turn.

Individuals from all levels of Brathay were prepared to engage openly and honestly with me. The openness and trust within the organisation was evident, and I felt like a member of the team for the short period I was there.

Reflections from the week that have stuck with me include:

• The centrality of relationships to everything: The most obvious being the relationships between young people and those working with them, but also between colleagues within organisations and across the sector. Facilitating open and trusting connections struck me as one of the most important aspects of leadership, and I’m returning with a clear focus to strengthen the relationships that drive our work at the Centre for Youth Impact.
• The impact of impact measurement: Many organisations still feel under huge pressure to use data to prove their value to others. Efforts to gather this have the potential undermine, rather than enhance their work with young people.
• ‘Measurement’ remains critically important: But this is so only when it is used to learn, and it must be meaningful for organisations and practitioners. Complex but critical work is done with young people in a whole range of settings, and impact measurement, done well, helps understand, improve and communicate this work.

These themes are familiar from frequent conversations with practitioners in our networks, but an immersive experience allowed me to feel, experience and therefore (hopefully!) address them with greater vigour, and greater empathy. The job swap wasn’t about learning new things, but it inculcated clarity and a sense of purpose, humility in some areas, and reassurance and validation in others.

So – take a minute to think about an environment that might shift your perspective, challenge and inspire you. I found it helpful to zero in on my potential blind spots, as well as what might energise me. I was surprised – and pleased – by the willingness of others to accommodate the placement. My hosts seemed to see the value of an external perspective on their work, which was reassuring in what could have felt like a slightly indulgent personal development exercise!

All this has reminded me of the importance of stepping out of my own reality, as far and as often as possible. A few days away has allowed many pieces to fall into place.

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