How can I develop self-awareness as a manager?

As a manager, I know my intrinsic leadership skills are just the beginning. To truly excel, I need to tap into the wisdom of those who’d walked this path before. So, armed with a love for the printed word and a thirst for knowledge, I ventured into a local bookstore.

My haul was a mix of self-help classics and contemporary business insights from Dale Carnegie, Timothy Ferriss, Mark Manson, and others. The cashier - along with my pocket - clearly surprised by my bookish enthusiasm, probably wondered if I was starting a library.

I’m a bookworm. Words elegantly printed on pages, smelling of ink and evoking childhood memories of curiosity and storytelling, are my kryptonite. I prefer the tactile experience of a physical book, especially when compared to digital formats. Having the ability to flip through pages, underline passages, and scribble notes in the margins is a joy that digital formats can’t exactly replicate.

Plus, having a physical copy means I can always refer back to a specific passage, even when listening to an audiobook. I’ve been a fiction-kind-of-gal but recently I’ve been swayed by the allure of non-fiction. The idea of learning from the experiences of others, especially in the realm of management and leadership, is too tempting to resist and too vital to ignore anymore.

Excitedly, I left the store and climbed into the first book, a compact DK Essential Managers guide titled “Managing People.” This little green gem promises insights into motivating staff, resolving conflicts, delegating effectively, etc.

The opening chapter, titled "Developing Self-Awareness," is a perfect starting point for understanding myself as a leader and manager. It is my goal to write about my journey through all these books as a way to reflect on my learning and growth. Hopefully you can draw some insights and apply them to your own journey.

TL;DR

Self-awareness is crucial for effective management. To cultivate it, regularly reflect on your actions, decisions, and interactions with honesty and transparency. Seek feedback from trusted individuals, track your progress through journaling, and set meaningful goals for personal and professional growth. By analyzing your experiences, identifying patterns, and embracing transparency, you’ll develop the self-awareness necessary to grow as a leader.

Checklist

• Find Feedback: Identify at least one person who will give you honest, constructive feedback.

• Daily Reflection: Set aside time each day to reflect on your thoughts, actions, and interactions.

• Track Your Journey: Use a journal to document:

  • Thoughts and feelings from the day.
  • Successes and setbacks.
  • Workplace challenges and conflicts.
  • Your self-perception vs. feedback from others.
  • Personal and professional goals.
  • Gratitude and personal growth.
  • Creative ideas and insights.

• Honesty and Transparency: Be open and honest with yourself during reflection to identify areas for growth.

• Analyze Outcomes: Review your decisions and their outcomes, consider alternatives, and pinpoint recurring themes.

• Set Goals: Regularly set personal and professional goals based on your reflections and feedback.

By following these steps, you'll cultivate the self-awareness needed to continuously improve as a manager.

What is self-awareness?

Simply put, self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence. It is the ability to understand your own emotions, thoughts, and behaviors.

It is a continuous process that requires reflection, feedback, and a willingness to learn and grow. It involves recognizing your strengths, weaknesses, values, and how they influence your interactions with others.

This is crucial for effective leadership and management because it helps you understand how your actions and decisions impact others, and how you can improve your communication and relationships.

Management is not just about telling people what to do. It’s about understanding yourself and others, building relationships, and creating a positive work environment.

“Quite simply, if you can’t manage yourself, you will not be able to manage anyone else.”

Techniques to develop self-awareness

Take time to track, analyze, and reflect on your day. Allocate around 20 minutes a day of uninterrupted alone-time to do so. Schedule this time in your calendar and treat it like gold. It is. (However, I find 20 minutes to be too short.)

Find feedback

It’s crucial to identify at least one person in your life who can provide honest, unfiltered feedback. This individual should be someone you trust and who isn’t afraid to offer candid insights, even when the truth might be uncomfortable to hear. Their perspective can help you see things you might overlook, giving you a more balanced view of your actions and decisions.

Constructive feedback, especially from someone with a fresh viewpoint, offers an opportunity to learn from your experiences, recognize blind spots, and make adjustments that can foster personal and professional growth. The goal is to have someone who can reflect your strengths and weaknesses back to you, helping you sharpen your skills and leadership qualities over time.

Track your journey

Consistently write things down to record your journey.

Grab a journal or app or both and make notes. The book refers to the term “think on paper”. I’ll be using a combination of a physical notebook, Obsidian - digital note-taking app - and my blog to record my reflections and insights.

Journals, unlike diaries, are not just about recording events. They offer a space for deeper reflection and learning, addressing key aspects of your journey as a manager. Here are some ideas to incorporate into your journal to make it a valuable tool for growth and self-awareness:

• Silliness: Capture funny moments or workplace humor to keep things lighthearted.
• Daily reflections: Reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences from each day.
• Successes and setbacks: Document both wins and challenges to learn and grow from them.
• Workplace issues: Record any problems or conflicts to identify recurring patterns and take proactive steps.
• Comparison of self-perception and feedback: Compare how you see yourself with how others perceive you, gaining a balanced view of your strengths and areas for improvement.
• Reaction replay: Analyze your responses to situations, both positive and negative, to improve future actions.
• Feedback: Note down feedback from others to understand how you’re perceived and where you can improve.
• Goals and aspirations: Track your personal and professional goals to measure your progress and stay motivated.
• Gratitude: Acknowledge the positive moments of each day to foster a growth-oriented and appreciative mindset.
• Personal growth: Document your journey of self-improvement, learning from both successes and mistakes.
• Quotes and inspiration: Collect quotes, articles, and insights that fuel your inspiration and drive.
• Ideas and insights: Capture any creative ideas or innovative thoughts that come up during your day.

By consistently using your journal as a tool for reflection, learning, and growth, you can deepen your self-awareness and track your progress as a manager, celebrating the small wins and learning from every experience.

Reflect on the day (or moment)

Taking a few moments to reflect on your day as a manager provides valuable insights into your actions, decisions, and growth opportunities, helping you continuously improve your leadership approach.

• Process daily events as they unfold: Take time at the end of each day to reflect on the key events. Consider how these events impacted you, your team, and the broader goals. This helps you gain perspective and digest the day’s experiences before moving forward.

• Focus on thoughts, feelings, actions, and interactions: Reflect on your emotional and cognitive responses to situations, including how you felt and why, what you thought, how you acted, and how you interacted with others. Understanding these dynamics provides insight into your leadership style and how you engage with your team.

• Analyze responses to situations: Review how you responded to challenges, conflicts, or opportunities. Were your responses effective? Could they have been handled differently? Consider the context and how you could improve your reactions in similar future situations.

• Evaluate actual outcomes, alternatives, and desired results: Assess the real-world outcomes of your decisions. Did they align with your goals? Reflect on possible alternatives—what could you have done differently to achieve a better result? Additionally, consider your desired outcomes and whether you were working toward them effectively.

• Pinpoint areas for improvement: Identify specific aspects of your leadership that need refinement. This could include decision-making, communication, or conflict resolution. Use your reflections to highlight where adjustments are necessary.

• Set personal and professional growth goals: Based on your reflection, set clear and actionable goals for improvement. These goals should target both your personal development (e.g., emotional intelligence, stress management) and your professional growth (e.g., strategic thinking, team leadership).

• Look for recurring themes and opportunities for development: Track patterns in your reflections over time. Are there recurring situations or challenges that highlight a need for change? Recognizing these themes will help you focus on areas that need sustained attention and development.

• Commit to honest self-assessment: Be transparent with yourself when evaluating your actions and decisions. True growth comes from an honest look at both your strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to make meaningful changes to your leadership style.

Analyze

To analyze your reflections as a manager effectively, you can use a structured approach that dives deeper into your reactions, decisions, and interactions.

• Emotional and Physical Check-in: Begin each reflection by assessing your emotional and physical state. Are you stressed, energized, calm, or frustrated? Recognizing your emotional baseline helps you understand how it influences your behavior, decision-making, and interactions with others. Pay attention to how your body feels—tension or fatigue may affect your ability to lead effectively.

• Potential Causes of Your State: Once you’ve identified your emotional and physical state, dig into the root causes. Ask yourself what specific events, interactions, or external factors may have contributed to how you’re feeling. This awareness helps you identify triggers, both positive and negative, that influence your mood and management style.

• Emerging Themes: Over time, patterns will likely emerge in your reflections. Are there certain situations or challenges that consistently affect your mood or performance? Recognizing recurring themes will help you understand areas of strength and weakness. These patterns are clues to underlying issues or growth opportunities that you may need to address in your management style.

• Actions to Take or Adjustments to Make: Based on your reflections, identify specific actions or changes to implement. Is there something you could have done differently in a particular situation? By recognizing these moments, you can develop strategies to adapt and refine your approach. This step turns reflection into a powerful tool for continuous improvement, ensuring that each day builds on the lessons of the last.

• Identifying Behaviors You Dislike: It’s important to reflect on the habits or actions you aren’t proud of. Are there patterns of behavior that consistently leave you unsatisfied or that you regret later? Pinpointing these helps you take control of aspects of your management style that you want to change, providing a roadmap for personal growth.

• Impactful Lessons Learned: Lastly, consider the key takeaways from each reflection. What did you learn about yourself, your team, or your leadership skills? These lessons are the core of self-awareness—they will shape the way you approach future challenges and decisions. Write down the insights you’ve gained so that you can revisit and apply them moving forward.

By following this structured approach to analyzing your reflections, you not only gain self-awareness but also create a continuous feedback loop that helps you grow as a manager. This method will guide you in identifying areas for improvement, setting goals, and tracking your development over time.

Be honest

When going through the process of tracking, reflecting, and analyzing your experiences, it’s essential to be open, honest, and transparent with yourself. This means acknowledging not only your successes but also your mistakes, shortcomings, and the areas where you feel vulnerable. By embracing honesty in your reflections, you allow yourself to confront uncomfortable truths that may be holding you back. If you’re not fully transparent with yourself, you risk missing out on valuable opportunities to learn and grow from the very experiences that could propel you forward.

Transparency in self-reflection ensures that you’re not just glossing over the surface of your actions but digging deeper to understand the root causes of your behaviors, decisions, and outcomes. It’s about taking full responsibility for your growth journey. By being fully open with yourself, you create a space for genuine improvement, allowing you to build on your strengths while addressing areas that need development. This honesty is where true self-awareness begins, setting the stage for continuous growth as a leader and individual.

Conclusion

In conclusion, developing self-awareness as a manager is an ongoing journey that requires intentional reflection, honest self-assessment, a commitment to personal growth, and a lot of reading (and note-taking 😄). By taking the time to track your experiences, reflect deeply on your actions, and seek feedback from others, you create a solid foundation for continuous improvement. Embracing transparency and openness in your process will help you uncover valuable insights and foster meaningful development.

Ultimately, self-awareness is the key to becoming a more effective, empathetic, and adaptable leader, equipped to navigate challenges and inspire those around you.

Resources

I’ve relied heavily on the text generative technology of ChatGPT to help construct this article. The hero image and its corresponding thumbnail were generated by DALL-E, an AI model developed by OpenAI via ChatGPT itself.

I’ve also used the DK Essential Managers guide titled “Managing People” as a reference. Check it out.

Thanks

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I'd love to hear your thoughts—what practices do you follow as a manager, or what qualities do you wish your manager had? Please share your insights in the comments below.