Leadership Starts with Self Awareness

 Do your emotions get the better of you when you are just trying to navigate through your daily life? I know mine do, and even as an expert in this field, I have to constantly be aware of what's going on around me and inside me, what's happening emotionally, as we talked about last month, we're an emotional being.

It's not something that we can put on the shelf and leave it home. Our emotions are with us every single day. So what I want to do this month is I want to help you to have practical understanding of how you can be on top of your emotions without managing them and suppressing them and allow them to do what it is that they're supposed to do.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, leadership expert and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around emotional intelligence, by helping you develop self-awareness.

Have you ever wondered why it is that you do things? I know that's what happens with me and many of my clients, the same thing.

When you can answer that question, half the job is done. If you're thinking, why do I think that way? Why do I talk that way? Why do I behave that way? And you don't have the answers. That creates uncertainty and uncertainty is not a place to be if you want to move forward.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of what's going on for you emotionally, in the moment, and then to use that information to manage your responses.

But it starts with awareness.

There are four quadrants that we work through in emotional intelligence. 

The first one is self-awareness, second is self-management, and then we move into the social competencies of social awareness and relationship management.

So, let's focus on that first quadrant self-awareness.

It's not rocket science, it means awareness of self, however, it's a challenge. Why? Because in our business, in our trying to get as much done as we can in all the noise that's going on, not too many people, without an understanding that I'm about to give you, and without prompting, stop in the moment and ask themselves, what am I experiencing right now?

What is this sensation? What is it telling me? What am I making that mean? Therefore giving you the ability to be able to navigate that emotion in a healthy way. So step one is to be able to give yourself space in your day to stop and notice what it is that you're going through. What are you experiencing?

The second thing to do is then to give that emotion a name. Remember we said an emotion is the physiological sensation in the body, the cue, the clue to tell you something's going on in your world. Then we move into the psychological of what you make that mean. 

So, the first thing to do is stop, notice, then give it a name.

Name which particular emotion that you're experiencing. Why? So that you can then navigate it, employing a strategy for that particular emotion. As I said last time, it's been debunked years ago through the wonders of neuroscience and the update version of that and our understanding. That humans don't just have six imprinted emotions and we all experience them the same way.

No, and we don't all give the same facial expressions when we're going through particular emotions. This is a personal thing for the individual. So, being able to have an understanding of your personal, emotional experience is what self-awareness is all about.

You know, giving it a name is important, however, to understand this, what we need to know first is there are over 2000 words in the English language alone that describes or could describe the sensation, the emotion that you're experiencing in that moment. You know, we go into other beautiful languages like Sanskrit, and there's many, many possibilities.

So you've gotta be able to give it your name, whatever you feel it is. What do you want to give it as a name? So then as you build the strategies for navigating that, you can go, okay, I'm experiencing this, so therefore I need to think this way. Do this. So having that emotional self-awareness, stop notice name so that you can then navigate.

The second part of this self-awareness is accurate self-assessment. It's being able to know what your strengths and areas for development are. It's being real with yourself. It's being able to isolate those things that you're good at in terms of your emotional intelligence, but then be aware of the things that are holding you back.

You know, for me, the biggest area was the third part of the self-awareness quadrant, and that's personal power. The ability to know that everything is going to be okay, that I've got everything within me and around me to be able to get ahead in life. It's all about self-confidence and it's the antidote to that self-doubt and that negative self-talk that goes on.

So for me, reconciling that and being accurate in my assessment of that enabled me to do some work on that. And my experience is that personal power is the foundational competency that underpins everything else. Without confidence in yourself to be able to get ahead in life, to do the things that you need to do, you make different decisions.

And as we continue on our journey this year, I want to make sure that I give you every opportunity to develop your personal power, to build that up to where it could be, so that you've got a platform to work from. So, let's start this month by developing more awareness of self and how you experience emotions.

I'm so excited that these days, it's not a matter of me trying to convince people that emotional intelligence is important. Finally, people are realising it's the number one skill for all leaders to be able to navigate their emotions in a healthy way and then foster that within their environment as well for others.

So, please stick with me on this journey. If you've got questions, I'd love to hear them. If you want to get more information, join the conversation. Make sure that you get this information as I put it out every month. And if you personally want to experience having a high level of awareness, then reach out and we'll see how we can help you with that as well.

Self-awareness is step one, so I invite you and encourage you to take step one with me this month.

I'll see you then.