“Organizational effectiveness and vitality begins with a state of self-awareness” ~ Marie Miyashiro
Introduction
The link between organisational effectiveness and employee self-awareness has been established and reinforced many times over the past two decades. While organisations were initially reluctant to embrace this so-called soft skill, early adopters are now realising the benefits and reaping the rewards on the hard measures of net profit and ROI.
Current Context
Training and development professionals have known of this link for a period of time, but their efforts to leverage this have been muted as executives call for skills development with clearer links to the bottom line. This drive has in part contributed to the plethora of ego driven employees that dictate and get in the way of a great workplace. The tendency to follow hard measures in relation to employee development still needs to be teased out, but time is running out for those who use it as the only focal point.
Studies conducted in the early 2000’s determined the positive influence of organisational self-awareness on net profit and return on investment. More recently the Korn Ferry Institute assessed more than 6977 leaders in 486 organisations. Their results corroborated earlier studies, clearly establishing the relationship between leadership self-awareness and business results; indicating that “leaders who are self-aware are more likely to be high-performing, to meet their business goals, and save on turnover costs.”
How does Leadership Self-Awareness Contribute to Organisation Success?
Carl Jung said: “There is no cure and no improving of the world that does not begin with the individual himself.” In the organisational world, developing self-awareness is much harder than it seems. Company corridors abound with internal chatter about leaders who, unaware of their impact stifle organisational processes and employee potential. It is clear, that organisations are suffering from too many leaders who are focused on their designated rank and the power that accompanies it and, far too many still function from the premise of results at all costs.
Self-awareness refers to knowledge of the self and the impact of how this self is expressed on others. Without self-awareness, we have no insight of our natural inclinations or their impact and, where we could enhance or implement personal measures to counterbalance. Developing an awareness of personal strengths, weaknesses and our innate predispositions, develops humility that not only promotes an investment in people but consequently increases leadership credibility building trusting relationships both internally and externally.
We all know that quality of relationships is a critical success factor. Relationships impact productivity, contribute to customer centricity practices, ensure better teamwork and collaboration, staff engagement and communication. The practices of self-aware leaders facilitate a central role in building and nurturing these relationships and serve to unlock employee and organisational potential. Furthermore, employees begin to feel safe leading to a sharing of ideas and greater innovation – potentially resulting in; as Amy Edmonson asserts in a 2019 Leader to Leader article, a 27% reduction in turnover, 40% reduction in safety incidents and a 12% increase in productivity.
Close
There is a strategic benefit that can result from building self-awareness. As leaders expand their self-awareness and related to this, their sense of identity to include a wider group of organisational stakeholders, the quality of interactions improves. This leads to teams, managers and projects having meaningful conversations that are aligned to the business purpose. The resultant impact is the quick identification of competency gaps that facilitates the needed skills development initiatives required to fill these.