Self-awareness and authenticity in effective leadership

This I Believe
Introduction
Being a leader is about being comfortable in your skin. If you cannot get comfortable, none of your followers will be comfortable either. If you as a leader do not know how to be yourself, how can you expect your followers to learn to tap into their own potential and become the best version of themselves that they can be? The first place that leadership starts is with the example. The leader sets the example of how followers should be. A servant leader demonstrates and shows what it means to serve others, to put others first and to be there for those who need help. A transformational leader inspires by showing the kind of zeal and energy and embodying the vision that the followers are meant to embrace. The innovative leader embraces innovation and thus gives the example of how to be creative to followers. The leader is the place where followers look. And that is why the leader has to be comfortable with who he is. He has to know who he is and he has to like who he is. His confidence is what gives others the ability to be confident.
My Vision
My vision of leadership starts with an awareness of the strengths and weaknesses that one has. I know I just said that a leader should be comfortable in his own skin, but this does not mean he should be oblivious about what his faults are. As Reivich, Seligman and McBride (2011) point out, a leader has to know what is going on within himself before he can really be of help to others. A sense of self-awareness is thus critical to a leader’s ability to lead. In my vision, a leader should be as self-aware as he is aware and mindful of others—this is what allows a foundation for social and emotional intelligence to be put in place; it is also what allows the leader to tap into strengths and use the to guide and assist others; finally, it is what allows the leader to recognize deficiencies and work on improving them. This three-pronged approach to leadership starts with a sense of self—and that sense can only be obtained through study and reflection.
Once one knows who one is, one can better utilize the strengths, skills, knowledge and special tools one possesses to assist followers. However, if a leader is deceived or deluded about his own personal strengths and assets, he can cause a great deal more harm than good. Followers might view him as hypocritical and ultimately reject him, which leaves him with little influence or ability to motivate or inspire; or they may be completely turned off by his lack of awareness about his own self and that may turn them to think that if he is not even going to live up to the standards that he preaches and communicates then why should they? Thus it is absolutely essential that a leader be self-aware, know his strengths and work on his weaknesses so as to improve them and get to a point where they are minimal at most.
How I am Making it Manifest
One way I am making my vision manifest is through self-reflection and thoughtful introspection. What helps in this process is actually reading of the humanities. In prior years, the humanities—i.e., the classics—were considering foundational in education. Students read Homer and Plato, Shakespeare and Augustine, Dostoevsky and Chekhov, Melville and Hawthorne. These authors showed what life was like, what people were like; they identified the universal issues that people face no matter what walk of life they come from. They held the mirror up to nature and reflected human beings—how they are, how they can be, how they can live, fall, make mistakes, grow and act heroically. They were considered part of the canon of the classics because they were so rich in the material that is good for being a source of food for thought. I have found a great deal of food for thought in reading the classics and it has helped me to ponder who I am and what type of person I can be. By examining myself in the light of other characters actions, I can put myself in their shoes and empathize and sympathize, and I can also see what I might have done, based on the feelings that arise from within me. I can then interpret these feelings and see what would have happened had I acted on them—I can guess how others in the situation might have reacted. It is a great way to exercise one’s mind and one’s sense of self as well as to get insights into how people are likely to react in any given situation. To be able to empathize and to sympathize is really necessary for gaining emotional and social intelligence.
Another way I can make this vision of mine manifest is to communicate regularly and openly with others. One way we learn about ourselves is through interaction with others. Their expressions, what their eyes say, and how they respond are all helpful signs that can lead to greater understanding of self. When one tells lies or acts dishonestly, one blinds oneself because it is impossible to get good feedback from others who are being given untrue information. Feedback is so important when it comes to self-examination because it allows one to consider oneself in the light of others’ eyes, others’ perspectives and others’ thoughts. One is able to get out of one’s own head and one’s own narrow way of looking at oneself (which is usually done with a great deal of self-acceptance) and be more critical. Just like a good comedian bounces new jokes off an audience whenever he is working on new material, a leader must bounce ideas, styles of communication, and other skills off people when talking to them and then go and reflect on the feedback that he is given and examine what this means. This is basically what Frederickson, Cohn, Coffey, Pek and Finkel (2008) describe when they talk about building lives through self-examination, meditation and the development of personal resources.
How I am Becoming Myself
I am becoming myself through the development of my personal resources. I believe everyone is born with certain talents that can be developed to help a person to do whatever it is he or she is called to do in life. One should really take time to figure out what those talents are. Sometimes it can take a while to really understand this—and that is okay because that is part of the process of becoming who one is. I am becoming myself by simply taking time each day to read and reflect, talk to others and consider the feedback that I get, how I responded to that feedback in the moment, how the other responded to my response, and what I might have done differently to elicit a different response.
These types of reflections are very important in the process of becoming as they assist in the development of one’s abilities to communicate, critically analyze, forecast, contemplate, predict, and conduct one’s own behavior so as to have the best impact and influence on others. I know that I am becoming myself because I practice it every day: I practice communicating; I practice critical analysis of myself, my interactions with others, and how they respond to my behavior; I practice making forecasts and predicting human behavior and I reflect on the accuracy of my predictions; I practice behaving in a way that can influence others and allow me to become the best version of myself that I can be. I practice all of these points in the same way a professional basketball player practices his jump shot, free throws, lay ups, setting up screens, the pick and roll, passing, and communicating on the floor. Practice is truly what makes perfect and as any sports player can tell you, if you want to be a pro you have to practice day in and day out. Practice is what allows us to become ourselves. If we think we are going to be playing in the big time, we have to become a person who is mentally playing and physically ready for the big time.