5 Things You Need Awareness of to Be A Better Leader

We often think about leadership in relation to our position with others. We are tempted to think of it as a title or role in our life. But what if leadership were more than that? What if it was truly about the way we show up and make an impact in our own lives, the lives of the people closest to us, and to our community as a whole? In order to become the best leaders we can be, we have to start with self-awareness.  Here are five things you need to be aware of in order to be a better leader.

1. How you receive appreciation

Do you love when someone brings you a surprise coffee?

Writes you a private note in a card?

Sends an email of gratitude to the whole team regarding you?

How you receive appreciation is also how you are likely to offer appreciation. You may find yourself feeling frustrated if someone does not sense how much you appreciate them. Ever had that experience? You went out of your way to make sure your team knew you appreciated the group project they worked on, but you find out later that they didn't feel your gratitude. You're not sure how you could have made it any clearer. It could be due to mismatched appreciation styles. Knowing how you receive appreciation can help you be more in tune with how other's do as well, and it can help you recognize when someone may be trying to share their appreciation of you, even if it isn't in your preferred style.

2. Your communication preferences

Speaking of mismatched styles, we hear about this one a lot in leadership development circles. That's because so much hinges on communication working well. The fact is that communication requires a sender, a medium, a style and a receiver. If you are delivering a message with a style, or a medium, that your receiver isn’t picking up, that communication was as good as never delivered.

When stress is high, you are most likely to communicate in the style and medium that is most natural to you. 

Are you the late night long-form email type? Or maybe the direct ask as you pass in the hallway type?

Being aware of your communication preferences helps you adjust to ensure your message is received, but it also helps you share how you best receive information from others. You may have received training on how to alter your communication style to meet the needs of your team, which is a great lesson for all leaders. One we often fail to get clear on is sharing with others in our world how we prefer to communicate certain types of information, and how we prefer to receive information to make sure we are able to best serve our team. Knowing your own style can help you communicate your needs, and model that for the people in your life.

3. What you’re naturally good at

We all have a unique gift to offer this world. Strengths that we may not even recognize because they have always been a part of who we are.  Leaning into our natural gifts can provide us renewed energy, and it's likely that your community needs more of exactly what it is that you uniquely have to offer. A great way to begin uncovering your natural gifts is to think back to your early youth - what were you drawn to? What did you enjoy spending your time doing? Did you have unique experiences that shaped who you are today? This work is best done with a partner who can help you bring clarity to this.  Insights Sessions are a great place to get started with being more aware of your natural strengths.

4. What you’re not interested in being good at

There is a school of thought that tells you to seek your weaknesses, then work to improve them. There is some wisdom in that. And, there are some things that you are not interested in being good at, for better or worse.

For example, I have no interest in being skilled at engineering, or pop trivia, or loading the dishwasher correctly (much to my husband's dismay).

Often, we place ourselves in positions or roles that we believe we CAN be good at. We volunteer for work projects involving endless spreadsheet migration, or to bake the brownies for the school bake sale, when in reality our spreadsheets skills are a bit rusty, and we haven't baked since we were in grade school. If what you are doing doesn’t bring you energy and fuel your unique purpose, you’ll never be as great as you think you should be. Stop telling yourself you should be good at something you’re not interested and invested in being.

5. Your own values

This is where the gold is. Often when we hear about values, we hear about them in terms of our company's values, or maybe our family values, but what do you personally value?

A good test of what you value is to ask yourself two questions:

What do I regularly make sacrifices for?

What will I not make compromises for?

You may find that some things you value aren’t exactly things you’d like to hang on a sign on your office wall. And that’s ok. More likely, you will find values in your list that you don't feel aligned to in your day to day life. It's easy for the noise of our lives to push our values to the corner of our minds. When we don't give our values the attention they deserve, we are prone to feeling more stress, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, and a general lack of satisfaction with our lives. And that is bound to show up in our leadership. When, on the other side of the coin, we are fully living lives aligned with our values, we're more likely to be inspired, courageous, energized, and connected.

Getting clear with what drives your decisions, and who you aspire to be, will move you closer to aligning your life and your leadership, with the person that you authentically are.

You are meant to be. To fully BE you. You are one in a trillion, and that is no accident.  You were built to thrive.  Your unique strengths, experiences, preferences and values are a formula for thriving, when you lean into them.