Self-awareness is the most sought after quality in individuals who wish to improve their leadership skills, particularly decision making and employee-motivation skills (Tjan, 2012). In fact, self-awareness helps leaders to understand their strengths and weaknesses. In the first place, self-awareness is crucial in team-building. A person with self-awareness will turn out to be an effective leader since he can observe the strengths and weaknesses of his team members and deploy them accordingly to achieve common organizational goals.
Unlike several other qualities like vision-orientation, charisma and strategic thinking, self-awareness is a silent quality inherent in certain leaders (Lipman, 2013). This silent habit helps leaders to build several skills. For instance, Nelson Mandela developed the art of politics when he spent 27 years silently in the jail (Sampson, 2000). Mandela demonstrated self-awareness when sent to jail by accepting the final decision of the court. As a leader fighting a just cause, like many ordinary leaders, he could have used his popularity to fight back. Mandela knew that he was not a criminal, instead went to the jail to sharpen his leadership acumen while simultaneously influencing millions across the world with his passion and perseverance.
Self-awareness helps individuals leading groups, particularly in the healthcare setting, with impeccable degree of patient-satisfaction and nurse retention (Clancy, 2014). Nurse Managers with self-awareness have a broad mind to accept responsibility and accountability for the well being of the patients under their care. They always have a genuine interest in the welfare and career development of fellow team members that motivates them to assign responsibilities according to their strengths and weaknesses. Their passion for the profession guides them to create future generation of nurses by closely monitoring and mentoring their young team members.
In brief, self-awareness helps leaders to channelize their leadership wisdom creatively to bring a difference apart from influencing millions.
References
Clancy, C. (2014). The importance of emotional intelligence. Nursing Management. Retrieved from http://journals.rcni.com/doi/full/10.7748/nm.21.8.15.s21
Lipman, V. (2013). All Successful Leaders Need This Quality: Self-Awareness. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/11/18/all-successful-leaders-need-this-quality-self-awareness/#7f95c24357b4
Sampson, A. (2000). Mandela: the authorized biography. London: Vintage.
Tjan, A.K. (2012). How leaders become self-aware. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2012/07/how-leaders-become-self-aware/
