If you look around, you will notice that influential and respected leaders have four things in common. They are self-aware; self-regulated; aware of others’ needs, wants and goals; and able to build trust-based relationships.

If you know who you are – your strengths, your limitations, your values, and how you best perform, you are much more likely to lead others with a sense of purpose, authenticity, openness and trust. Self-awareness equips you to manage your feelings, thoughts and behaviours and therefore, improve your interactions and relationships. Influential leaders have a highly developed sense of self, and are usually empathic and compassionate too. On the other hand, a lack of self-awareness is a primary cause of weak leadership, which is detrimental for organizational culture. Self-awareness is also crucial when building a team - knowing your own strengths and weaknesses will enhance your ability to recruit and allocate talent.

However, this awareness takes years to fully develop, requires commitment, and is supplemented by others’ feedback. A leader’s level of self-awareness is directly linked to their level of performance: the more self-aware he or she is, the more influential, and the better his or her teams perform. Leaders high in emotional self-awareness are attuned to their inner indications, recognizing how their feelings impact them and their job performance. Typically, these leaders stay in touch with their strengths and limitations, and will exhibit grace when learning of their areas of improvement.

At Dale Carnegie Training, we believe that one powerful way for leaders to increase their leadership potential is by reflecting on their values. Values are the lenses through which we view ourselves and our world. As values develop, they form a values system. In essence, they become our “personal truth” from which self-esteem, fulfilment, and resilience develop.

Let’s understand this with an example:

Renita Cardoz is a competent professional with 10 years of experience. In her current role as Vice President, she leads a team of 50 people at a large bank. In a recent performance review, she’s been praised for the results she has delivered yet again. At the same time she’s been told she needs to be more collaborative, supportive, empowering and flexible to move to the next level.

So, Renita engages with a coach to help her on her leadership development journey. In one of her coaching sessions it is identified that Renita’s core values are resilience and achievement-orientation. She also shared that she grew up under harsh circumstances, as she spent most of her childhood and teenage years either studying or helping her father make ends meet. These experiences made Renita a go-getter, extremely resilient and worldly-wise. However, unlike her peers, she did not have a normal childhood. This greatly inhibited her social skills. While resilience and achievement-orientation have helped Renita rise through the ranks in her organization, it is unlikely that what got her here will take her to the next level. Clarifying her values with the coach has allowed Renita to understand that she needs to balance her tendency towards being task-oriented with a relationship focus. In other words, in order to realize her full leadership potential, she will need to become relationally intelligent and invest in building trust, respect and a rapport with her team members and colleagues. Hence, clarifying values can help leaders become self-aware and re-strategize as to how to optimally express their values at work. Psychometric assessments, despite not being perfect measures, can act as a conduit for self-reflection, leading to significant personal breakthroughs. So, where can you begin? Take time to pause and think about your personal values.

• What are your core values?
• Where did you get these values from?
• In what way have these values helped you in your leadership journey?
• Have these values ever been a detriment to your growth and success?
• Based on your reflection, what can you do differently to lead others to success?

Self-reflection and asking oneself the right questions are the starting points to identifying and contextualizing your strengths and weaknesses. The next step is to apply the lessons learned to future opportunities.