Why Self Awareness is Important in Intergenerational Leadership

Self-awareness is critical for effective multigenerational teams and leadership. Without self-awareness, we may fail to understand how members of other generations are perceiving or relating to our words and actions.

Researcher Dr. Tasha Eurich discusses two types of self-awareness. The first is internal self-awareness. This relates to how we see our “own values, passions, aspirations, fit with our environment, reactions (including thoughts, feelings, behaviors, strengths, and weaknesses), and impact on others.” Dr. Eurich and her team discovered that internal self-awareness is “associated with higher job and relationship satisfaction, personal and social control, and happiness; it is negatively related to anxiety, stress, and depression.”

The second type of self-awareness identified by Dr. Eurich and her team is external self-awareness. This relates to understanding how other people view us, in terms of our values, passions, reactions and environment. Their research shows that people who know how others see them are more skilled at showing empathy and taking others’ perspectives.

Bradberry and Greaves, in their book Emotional Intelligence 2.0, define self-awareness as the “ability to accurately perceive your own emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.” 

There are several ways to increase our self-awareness. The first is to reflect more. Take time to think about your words, actions, and decisions. Consider how others respond, or where you could have be more effective. While reflection is likely to reveal some areas where we need to change and grow, self-awareness is also about understanding how we are wired, what motivates and affects us. When we know these things, we can make decisions and choose opportunities that minimize our potential to respond poorly and maximize the positive impact of our strengths, gifts, and interests.

A second step to increasing self-awareness is to take the time to understand ourselves better. Assessments, coaching, or journaling are a few tools that can help us with this.
 
A third strategy to increasing self-awareness is actively requesting feedback and receiving it with gratitude and not defensiveness. There are many formal and informal ways to solicit feedback. One of my favorite growth strategies is to have reverse mentors who are older and younger than me. By requesting and graciously receiving their honest feedback on my behaviors, attitudes, and interactions, I can gain a deeper understanding of myself and how others perceive me.
 
Bradberry and Greaves tell us that “self-awareness is a foundation skill; when you have it, self-awareness makes the other EQ skills much easier to use. As self-awareness increases, people’s satisfaction with life…skyrockets. Self-awareness is so important for job performance that 83 percent of people high in self-awareness are top performers.”
 
Consider your own level of internal and external self-awareness. Where do you have the need to grow in your understanding of yourself and others? How can you engage someone older or younger than you as you seek to grow in your self-awareness? ​

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