How can you improve your leadership self-awareness?
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions, thoughts, strengths, weaknesses, and motivations. It is a key skill for effective leadership, as it helps you to communicate better, make better decisions, manage stress, and inspire others. However, self-awareness is not something that you are born with or that you can achieve overnight. It requires constant practice and reflection. Here are some ways you can improve your leadership self-awareness and reduce your stress levels.
One of the best ways to learn more about yourself is to ask for feedback from others. Feedback can help you to identify your blind spots, strengths, and areas for improvement. It can also help you to understand how others perceive you and your impact on them. However, asking for feedback can be challenging, as it may trigger defensiveness, insecurity, or anxiety. To overcome this, you need to be open-minded, respectful, and grateful for the feedback you receive. You also need to act on the feedback and show that you are willing to change and grow.
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Once you understand an individual's motivational drivers it's very easy to have the conversation about how to best harness them in the workplace to create a win-win. There are nine key work motivators and understanding which ones are prevalent for each employee will enable you to harness these motivations, and improve productivity because the individual wants to not has to. Let's just take two examples. An employee motivated by security needs to feel safe, and doesn't like change so the actions you agree will need to be linked to long-term security. Now let's take someone who's motivated by innovation, creativity and change. These individuals crave variety, projects and innovation is you won't need to reassure them of King term security.
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Most my life I've spent helping people design interiors which gave me and clients true feeling of creating beautiful, functional spaces where to live our lives. THEN, in my late fifties I found a new lifestyle regarding my diet and taking time to really focus inward. I am so motivated to become the healthiest I've ever been by staying active, productive, no chemical medications and focus on practicing gratefulness and being happy...smiling more! To earn a stress-free life, eat healthy, take lots of time to listen to sounds of nature and most important eliminate (or at least lessen) the attention-grabbing demand of cell phones, twitter, threads, etc.
Another way to improve your self-awareness is to keep a journal. Journaling can help you to process your emotions, thoughts, and experiences. It can also help you to track your progress, goals, and challenges. By writing down your reflections, you can gain more clarity and insight into yourself and your leadership style. You can also identify patterns, triggers, and coping strategies that affect your stress levels. To make journaling effective, you need to be honest, consistent, and curious. You also need to review your journal regularly and look for themes and lessons.
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment with curiosity and acceptance. It can help you to improve your self-awareness by enhancing your focus, concentration, and emotional regulation. It can also help you to reduce your stress by lowering your blood pressure, heart rate, and cortisol levels. To practice mindfulness, you can use various techniques, such as meditation, breathing exercises, yoga, or walking. You can also incorporate mindfulness into your daily activities, such as eating, listening, or working. The key is to be aware of your sensations, thoughts, and feelings without judging or reacting to them.
Coaching or mentoring can help you to improve your self-awareness by providing you with guidance, support, and accountability. A coach or a mentor can help you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, goals, and values. They can also help you to develop new skills, strategies, and perspectives that can enhance your leadership performance and well-being. To benefit from coaching or mentoring, you need to find someone who is trustworthy, experienced, and compatible with you. You also need to be proactive, receptive, and committed to your learning process.
Assessments are tools that can help you to measure and evaluate your personality, preferences, skills, and behaviors. They can help you to improve your self-awareness by giving you objective and reliable feedback on your leadership potential and style. They can also help you to understand your stress triggers, coping mechanisms, and resilience levels. Some examples of assessments that you can take are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test, the StrengthsFinder, or the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI). To use assessments effectively, you need to be honest, open-minded, and willing to learn from the results.
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