Accurate self-awareness is a hard one to come by. We often either think more highly of ourselves than others do, or completely underrate our value, both of which can be inaccurate. And as leaders, it's way too easy to surround ourselves with teams who tell us what we want to hear, because that makes us feel good, and we surely don't want to be around people who don't make us feel good. And who's brave enough to take a 360 degree assessment, to really find out what those around us think of our leadership style and skills? Wouldn't it be simpler just to think what we want to think about ourselves and not worry about what others think? But how does that impact those we lead?
"Theoretically, both overrating yourself and underrating yourself are a kind of blindness. But as the data above shows, they bring extremely different results."
This quote is from yesterday's article by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, "We Like Leaders Who Underrate Themselves", published in the Harvard Business Review. In a study of the 360 degree assessments 69,000 managers that included 750,000 respondents, they discovered two surprising facts:
- Leaders who underrate themselves have more engaged employees
- The fewer skills leaders overrate themselves on the more effective their leadership is
Wait a minute. I was told as a leader you establish your presence when you walk into a room so people know who is in charge. Fake it 'til you make it. Never let your team see your weaknesses. Own it. Strut your stuff. Have the answers. But are the results showing otherwise?
If there is a direct correlation between accurate self-awareness and our ability to lead well, it may be worth it to take some steps toward seeing ourselves with a little more clarity. And this is hard to do on our own. Working with a coach who can help us with our emotional intelligence and opening ourselves up to a 360 degree assessment can provide the valuable insight needed to become the leader we aspire to be.
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