In this lesson we focus on two key goals, creating leader self-awareness and helping managers meet the needs of others, in particular their direct reports. However, you may also find that certain tools, guides and resources can be used working with others who are not direct reports.

SELF-AWARENESS defined:
There are two components to self-awareness.
1) Awareness of one's own drives, needs and behaviors.
2) Awareness of how my styles impact others.

Everyone on the team, including team leaders, must have self-awareness of their own behavioral preferences and abilities as well as an understanding of the behavioral preferences and abilities of the other team members. These insights should be used as early and as often as possible to better manage interactions on the team.

Employees can’t maximize their effectiveness if they don’t know their own preferred working style, strengths, and blind spots. Team members also need to know each other’s working styles, strengths, and blind spots and how these interact when different people are paired to do work.

Sadly, self-awareness is not common among the general population. Take a moment to think about self-awareness. Alongside this lesson, consider watching Tasha Eurich's (HBR) TED TALK called “Increase your self-awareness with one simple fix.” In it she describes the studies she has done about self-awareness and the results of that research. An interesting statistic she describes is that there are two different types of people: people who THINK they are self-aware, and people who actually ARE. Her study found: 95% of people thought they were self-aware but in fact 15% were.

It’s important to ask yourself:
How do I interact with each individual team member?
Who do I work well with?
Where is my work not as great?
How can I adapt to each team member’s behavioral needs and expectations so we can perform and be happy in our work?