The importance of self awareness means everything to leadership it makes everything more effective and more affective.
The way to lead is to understand the importance of self awareness and it begins with:
Principles: Leaders who lead from within combine their personality and principles to explore and engage their roles and their competencies with ongoing processes and practices to make a profound difference.
Purpose: Leaders who lead from within demonstrate high levels of tolerance towards disputes, disagreements, and dissension. They have a clear personal navigation system within their purpose, values, and vision that always leads the way.
Potential: Leaders who lead from within know that the interactions that really matter are the ones that come from the heart. Caring and connecting are the first keys to unleashing potential, possibilities, prospects, and the promise to be impactful.
When we know ourselves we do not need to pretend.
We can be real.
We can be the best of who we are.
Setting this example will draw out the best in ourselves and those around us.
Lead from Within: Heart based leadership begins with knowing yourself. It’s the most important way you can equip yourself to lead others.
N A T I O N A L B E S T S E L L E R
The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness
After decades of coaching powerful executives around the world, Lolly Daskal has observed that leaders rise to their positions relying on a specific set of values and traits. But in time, every executive reaches a point when their performance suffers and failure persists. Very few understand why or how to prevent it.
Additional Reading you might enjoy:
- 12 Successful Leadership Principles That Never Grow Old
- A Leadership Manifesto: A Guide To Greatness
- How to Succeed as A New Leader
- 12 of The Most Common Lies Leaders Tell Themselves
- 4 Proven Reasons Why Intuitive Leaders Make Great Leaders
- The One Quality Every Leader Needs To Succeed
- The Deception Trap of Leadership
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Of Lolly’s many awards and accolades, Lolly was designated a Top-50 Leadership and Management Expert by Inc. magazine. Huffington Post honored Lolly with the title of The Most Inspiring Woman in the World. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, and others. Her newest book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness has become a national bestseller.
Brandt
07. Aug, 2012
Great post. Qualities of great leaders also translate to all aspects of life. Thanks for the good insight!
Rachel Peterson
07. Aug, 2012
Lolly, beautiful. I have a client who is so afraid of facing his insecurities that it is killing his chances to be a GREAT leader… I wish for him the chance to step into a place where he can take words like yours to heart. Once he gets to that place where he realizes he is absolutely perfect just the way he is (warts and perceived weaknesses and all!) he will launch like a rocket and find a happiness he can’t even imagine currently…. <>
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
Find out who you are and live it with purpose- Lolly Daskal
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
Each person has only one genuine vocation – to find the way within – our only task is to discover our own destiny and to live it with passion and purpose.
lollydaskal
08. Aug, 2012
You need to remember that. If you’re to have purposeful lives, you have to know who you are and what lies ahead of you
Carl Waldenmaier
07. Aug, 2012
Lolly … you are absolutely correct on the importance of being aware of your inner self and leading from within. Knowing yourself, being aware of who and what is around you, and being other centered are common among great leaders, but rare to find.
Enjoy following you on twitter as well. God bless you.
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
― C.G. Jung
Sam
07. Aug, 2012
Every victory in life comes from mastering thyself first which can be hard but worth the effort .
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”
― Hermann Hesse
Natalie E Finstad
07. Aug, 2012
Lolly, this is a great reminder of how leadership can have the greatest impact. What barriers do you witness to this type of leadership? Also, what practices do you suggest leaders can take part in regularly to maintain connection with their purpose and passion?
ahti
07. Aug, 2012
Self awareness is truly very important to leaders, when you don’t who you are or what you are, how is it possible to know who you are dealing with or leading along? great insight, Lolly.
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”
― Lao Tzu
Edward Colozzi
07. Aug, 2012
Thanks Lolly for one of your most important posts…Self Awareness, the building block of ALL of the Life Journey and critical to successful leadership across each of the career-life roles most people play daily. Only with self awarenss can one discover meaning and purpose in their life journey. Only through self awareness can one discover the power of LOVE from God to onseself, to God from oneself, and from oneself to all others.
Thank YOU Lolly for all you do to be self aware and the choices you make to help us all grow in self awareness to be better leaders who truly are motivated from within through love. EdC
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
We have always been what we are. That’s not new. What we will have to get used to is knowing it.
Redge
07. Aug, 2012
Perhaps serendipity does exist. I just finished reading “The Shibumi Strategy” By Matthew E. May where we are introduced to several techniques and methods for self development and awareness.
Of all the times we hear, “It’s not about you”, this occasion is not one of them. The desire for leadership begins within and flourishes outward.
Thanks for sharing!
lollydaskal
07. Aug, 2012
“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
― C.G. Jung
michael Daramola
07. Aug, 2012
Lolly is a commanding communicator!!
michael Daramola
07. Aug, 2012
Lolly is a commanding communicator!!
By “commanding. Communicator”, i mean she not only speaks & communicates professionally, she injects words,principles & inspiration that makes impactin the Lives & situation of others. Many of us(i inclusive) in the talking/speaking Job/business like Lolly must note that we are not just expected to speak to people(because you can Speak & say nothing),we are expected to be commanding communicators! Many speakers are just puppets merely echoing what someone else Had said without any benefit of “Personal Conviction” on the subject. If we must speak & make impact in people’s’lives we must as a matter of Necessity be convicted on the subject before sharing it with others: until this is achieved by Us, we will never attain the MARK OF A COMMANDING COMMUNICATOR! Well done LOLLY, I LOVE U,MORE GREASE TO YOUR ELBOW!
Kate Elfatah
08. Aug, 2012
I love this. Yesterday was a not so great day and maybe didn’t show many of these qualities as I should have. Needed this kick today.
lollydaskal
08. Aug, 2012
In yourself right now is all the things you need.
s alam
08. Aug, 2012
undoubtedly iimportan. self-knowing is very difficult. more and practises ar. required, I tried it from very young age-I don’t know my acheivement. only I know i become unaware sometimes-new things emerges.
Sean
08. Aug, 2012
So true. At a time when we are experiencing huge challenges as a family business based in South Africa, coming to terms with myself as a person has been critical. With guidance from a very special person I have acknowledge the need to find oneself and in turn re channelling and reinventing ones self – and in turn able to enthuse my staff.
Best regards
Sean
lollydaskal
08. Aug, 2012
Do not try to tell me what I am because I know what I am not
Jan Deelstra
08. Aug, 2012
Lolly, It is my bias that self-awareness is the starting point to wholeness. I am a gestalt (WHOLE) practitioner providing gestalt tools to anyone who is interested in being whole. What Humpty Dumpty couldn’t do, we can. We are all whole and perfect in our humanness. It seems you too are on the kindred path to enlightening the masses. Self-awareness is the key to increased self-esteem. And self-esteem is at the root of all actions and successes. Bless you Lolly, for spreading the light. Much love, light, and gratitude.
Gord
08. Nov, 2012
Some “Leaders” though are effective regardless of a lack of self knowledge. Sure, I think I have grown with looking deeper at myself and admitting the bad parts and being okay with it. I know some leaders who have no self knowledge. It’s possible though that they’re not leading, but are dictating.
Guy Farmer
10. Feb, 2013
Great post Lolly. Self-awareness can improve the performance of even highly successful leaders. The more leaders understand how their thoughts, emotions and behaviors affect them and the people around them, the quicker they can move from working out their personal stuff on others to inspiring them.
Kartic
27. Sep, 2014
Lolly, this article is absolutely amazing and not just this almost all of your articles are really thought provoking. Thanks for sharing
Iosif
07. Dec, 2017
Hello, I would like to share something with you.
In order to change my life I followed an apparently simple rule:
“Awareness + Compassion = Choice”.
I can only change something in my life after I understand where it came from and how it influences my life.
From the people in my life to the places I visit or the activities I do, all of them influence my mood, my life.
In order to be more aware I use a very simple to use tool called Gimini Moodtracker.
With a very simple swipe, the app can show me statistics regarding the top people, top places, top activities, top cities, top days of the week and so on in my life.
Using this tool I now can decide with more precision and awareness if it is good for me to talk to some people or not, to attend some events or better not and I can also compare the way I am feeling in some place with how the others are feeling in the same places.
If you want, you can find and download the basic app from App Store or Google Play for free.
Have a beautiful day.
Ameeth Singh
07. Feb, 2018
Nice Article and helpful. For happiness and success how self awareness will be useful for us?