Frontline Leadership Begins With Self-Awareness, So How Self-Aware Are You?
In my book, The Jerk-Free Workplace: How You Can Take the Lead to Create a Happier, More Inspiring Workplace, I talk about how anyone, regardless of where they sit on the organizational tree, can step up as a leader on their team and a leader in their company, because true leadership, as we know, has nothing to do with your job title or your position on the organizational tree.
leadership is about your character. It is about your personality. It’s about your ability to influence the people around you towards a positive direction. It’s about who you are, not what you are in your workplace. So everybody has the capacity to be a leader by simply making the choice to be a leader.
And one of the traits I talk about a lot in the jerky workplace is the importance of accepting personal responsibility and being self-aware.
How can you be an effective leader unless you’re self-aware? Unless you’re aware of what you need to work on as a leader in your workplace, unless you’re self-aware about how your words, your behaviors might be perceived by the people around you on your team.
Everything starts with self-awareness.
So in my workshops, I do a very simple exercise just to kind of remind people of this point where I have everybody write down on a scale of one to 10, using decimal points because hey, it’s way more fun, how they think their leadership ability is on their team. How would they rate themselves on a scale of one to 10 in terms of being a positive influence, in terms of their attitude, in terms of their overall team presence and contribution to their team?
So I have them write down that number. Then I have them write down a second number.
How would you rate the rest of your team, on average? And when people are honest with me, guess what they do?
No matter what career we’re talking about, about eight or nine out of every 10 people always rate themselves higher than the rest of their team! In other words, what everybody seems to be saying is, “Hey, it’s not me. It’s THEM! If I didn’t have to work with these jerks, I could get some serious stuff done!”
So people default towards thinking, “it’s not me. I’m not the jerk here.”
Well, what if you are sometimes the jerk? What if sometimes it IS you?
Remember, all we can ultimately do as leaders is control our own behaviors, our own attitudes, and our own responses to the attitudes and behaviors of our teammates around us.
Being a true frontline leader is about accepting that responsibility and stepping up and being accountable for your own behaviors.
So what do you think of this? Do you think that’s an important trait? And what do you think can be done to encourage people to be more self-aware as a leader, no matter where they sit in your organization?
Please leave a comment! as always, I would love to hear your thoughts!
Michael Kerr is a Canadian Hall of Fame speaker who is known as one of North America’s top thought leaders on workplace culture and workplace culture leadership. Michael has spoken to thousands of audiences worldwide on the topic of workplace culture, culture leadership, and humor in the workplace. Michael Kerr is also the author of 9 books, including “The Jerk-Free Workplace” “The Humor Advantage,” and “Small Moments, Big Outcomes: How Leaders Create Cultures That Fuel Extraordinary Results.” Known as “The Workplace Energizer!” keynote speaker Michael Kerr has spoken in more than 15 countries to over 1,500 audiences. “Michael was the hit of the conference and the highest-rated speaker!” Karen Bossin, Shopper Drug Mart
