Leader, know thyself: The first rule in effective management

"You cannot begin a journey from a place where you are not."

There is no one right way to lead, but a leader who knows THEIR way of being and interacting will do better in communicating with their team and with their customers, will have opportunities to gather colleagues with complementary skills to facilitate communication and optimize group function, and will provide that ever-more-important sense of congruency for their team members.

Why does this matter? Research (Stubbs, 2004 among others) has shown that the emotional self awareness of the team leader has a direct impact on team performance.

We all have self stories, stories we tell ourselves about who we are, how we are in the world, what our strengths are, how we interact, how we imagine we are perceived. And often, we operate from those assumptions for years, acting as if they are always and forever true. For example, imagine a leader who believes they are an excellent people person. This may be true, or perhaps it may have been, or this might have been a wish they had for themselves.

Sometimes leaders are more adept at managing projects then people. Or, conversely, they are better with people but need support in the successful management of the nuts and bolts of a project.

The issue with strong self assumptions is that we rarely challenge them, and have a difficult time taking in information or clues that could refute our more comfortable or long-held self stories.

Time changes who we are, sometimes radically, but, more commonly, the changes are subtle. Time and experience soften or harden edges, we become more introverted or extroverted, and, almost without exception, without ongoing self reflection, we get into unconscious habits of being. Some of these can be great. Others can be less constructive such as compulsive interrupting, or attending to the formulation of our own responses rather than truly listening to a whole question or concern (tone, body language, content, context)...

What if a leader took a few steps back, and spent even a short time and effort reevaluating the current reality of how they actually are in the world?

Questions a leader might reflect upon include questions about their interpersonal style and their management style.

Examples of questions for reflection on Interpersonal Style include:

Do I listen well?

Do I communicate what I need effectively?

Do I come across as patient or impatient?

Am I truly open to input and new ideas, or am I most in need/want of affirmation and implementation?

Do I enjoy being challenged, or would I rather have my decisions supported unquestioningly?

Am I open to folks who have a different style or way of thinking, or do I prefer a larger overlap and tend to gather folks close to me who have similar personalities?

Examples of questions for reflection on Management Style include:

Am I truly a micro-manager as I purport to be, or am I more hands-off?

Am I friendly or open with my team or do I hold myself apart?

Do I truly believe in empowerment of my team members to make independent choices toward a goal, or do I want to be more involved with, or at least informed about the "how" decisions along the way?

How effectively do I communicate what I need to my team?

Are there skills I am lacking or recognize are not primary for me that I can capitalize on in some of my close advisors or team members?

Am I congruent in how I behave and what I claim I would ideally want to have happen?

A leader who is not self aware can be very confusing to work with and for, particularly if they believe they are hands-off when in fact they are micromanagers or vice versa. Lack of congruency between the internal story and the actual truths of behavior and preference can be disruptive to productivity, to group mechanics, to successful interpersonal relationships between team members and the team leader and, ultimately or even primarily, to employee satisfaction.

Remember, there is no one right way to lead, but a leader who is aware of their own management style AND their interpersonal style has the opportunity to use that awareness to operate more coherently from their strengths, bolster areas of real or perceived weaknesses, and manage and lead more successfully with less conflict and confusion.