One of the smartest insights I've seen a leader share came from the former CEO of Utah-based Weave, Brandon Rodman, who wrote, "Contrary to what the phrase self-awareness implies, it means to be aware how others perceive you. It’s NOT how you perceive yourself. If doesn’t matter if you think you are aggressive, it matters if others do."
So when you catch yourself saying that you are self-aware, you probably aren't.
Self-awareness is a practice, not a skill. It requires that you develop tactics to gather honest and accurate feedback from others. For example, you could check in with two other attendees of a meeting and ask, "Did I convey the impression that I was open to the ideas of others, or did I sell my own positions too hard?"
Author Tasha Eurich, my colleague in Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches program, wrote in Harvard Business Review that "even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria."
Tasha makes the case that "self-awareness isn’t one truth. It’s a delicate balance of two distinct, even competing, viewpoints."
The first viewpoint is internal self-awareness: how you see your emotions, reactions, beliefs, and so on. It's what most people think of as self-awareness.
The second variation is external self-awareness. It is understanding how others perceive you, and Tasha discovered a surprising relationship between these two types: there is virtually no relationship between them. You can be highly aware of your own reactions and emotions ("that SVP always triggers me, and I need to manage my own state carefully to avoid overreacting") and still have immense blind spots when it comes to grasping the ways that others perceive you.
The more unbiased external feedback you get—and the more openly you consider it—the more likely you are to have accurate external self-awareness. For example, if you want to spend more time listening and less time talking, you could record and get a transcript of every meeting in which you participate, then have an intern analyze the percentage of time you spoke in each meeting.
There's another simple technique you might try as suggested by Level 2 Legal CEO, Joey Seeber. He suggests asking at the end of every interaction, "Has this been of value to you?" and then deeply listening to the response.
Of course, if you surround yourself with people who tell you only what you want to hear, no amount of questioning will produce accurate feedback. Above all else, you must demonstrate with your actions and reactions that you cherish frank feedback, even when it is critical.
Are You Really, Truly Self-Aware?
Recently on LinkedIn, I conducted two polls. One asked about internal self-awareness, which is how we see our own values, thoughts and emotions. The other asked about external self-awareness, which is our ability to understand how we come across to others. Here are the results:
The results from the first poll did not surprise me, but they may surprise you. 78% of respondents said they were adept at internal self-awareness. To the contrary, author Dr. Tasha Eurich says that "even though most people believe they are self-aware, self-awareness is a truly rare quality: We estimate that only 10%–15% of the people we studied actually fit the criteria."
In other words, most of the people who responded to my internal self-awareness poll overstated their capabilities.
The results from my other poll did surprise me. 65% admitted they do not accurately grasp how others perceive them. This is significantly closer to the 10 to 15% levels Dr. Eurich observes.
Taken together, my poll results suggest that when it comes to self-awareness, most people have more work to do than they realize. But, as Rachel Waldron wrote in response to one of my polls, "If you're not self-aware, how would you know it?"
The odds are roughly 9 in 10 that you're not self-aware. So it's prudent to act as though that's the case.
Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Dr. Eurich offers a surprisingly quick step we can all take to improve our self-awareness. She suggests we replace "why" self-awareness questions with "what" questions.
"Why are people so critical of me?" and other similar questions aren't effective because the correct answers can be quite complicated, and we have so many biases. Eurich points out that highly self-aware people are much more likely to ask "what" questions.
For example, it could be productive to ask, "What are steps could I take to be more effective?" You might also ask, "Based on past results, what are warning signs I am starting to get anxious and burned out?"
Most importantly, to the greatest extent possible, surround yourself with supportive but frank people who are willing to give you accurate and constructive feedback. Then—this is the important past—listen to them. Even when it hurts.
Whatever You Believe about Yourself Is Probably Wrong
I once took an intensive aptitude test that measured, among other things, whether I work best alone or with other people. Before sharing the results, the administrator asked me whether I wanted to guess the test result. It was easy: I work best alone
Wrong. The actual test revealed that I work best with other people. In fact, my results were off the charts in that other direction.
Think about it. On such a basic aspect of my personality and aptitudes, I was utterly wrong.
Before you start thinking that I am dumb and clueless, the odds are pretty high that you wouldn't do much better in proving the accuracy of your own self-awareness.
Human beings are extremely complicated.
You want to eat; you want to lose weight.
You want to take more chances; you are afraid of taking chances.
Your parents were unpredictable so you always tried to be predictable; now you are bored to tears with how predictable your life has become.
We are doing our best. We are only human, and we make mistakes. We see the world through our own biases and preconceptions; that is not going to change.
What can change is whether we accept the fact that accurate self-awareness is like immaculate conception; it is nearly impossible to achieve.
For this reason, I am more willing than ever to step outside the boundaries I used to set for myself. Do I want to go see that French film "Les rencontres d'après minuit" about two poets who continually have a philosophical debate about love and desire? No! I mean... yes.
Do I want to go to the opera? No! I mean... yes.
Travel outside your country. Read books that argue a different perspective than your own. Volunteer on a farm or in an inner city. Attend lectures. Go to art shows and exhibitions that make you a bit uncomfortable.
Most of all, stop pretending that you know what's best for you. The truth is, we don't.
To learn more...
"Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" by Justin Kruger and David Dunning (1999). The authors found that people who performed poorly on a cognitive task tended to overestimate their own performance and abilities. They called this phenomenon the "Dunning-Kruger effect," and suggested that it arises from a lack of metacognitive ability, or the ability to reflect on one's own thinking and performance.
"Are You Aware of Your Self-Interest?" by George Loewenstein, Emily Haisley, and Rachel Moran (2010). The authors found that people often fail to recognize how their self-interest biases their own decision-making. They suggested that this failure arises from a lack of self-awareness about one's own motives and biases.
"The Blind Spot: An Essay on the Relation between Theory and Data in Cognitive Science" by T. Metzinger (2010). In this essay, the author argues that the human brain has a "phenomenal self-model" that allows us to be self-aware, but that this model is often incomplete and inaccurate. He suggests that our self-awareness is limited by our inability to access certain aspects of our own minds and brains, and that this limitation can lead to illusions of self-knowledge and self-understanding.
"The Paradox of Self-Awareness: Why Few Behave in Ways They Prefer" by David Dunning, Joyce Ehrlinger, and Justin Kruger (2008). People who claimed to value certain traits and behaviors often failed to exhibit those traits and behaviors in their actual choices and actions. The authors suggested that this paradox arises from a lack of self-awareness about one's own values and preferences.
"Introspection and Self-Insight: The Necessity of Dichotomizing and Combining Measures" by Emily Pronin, Daniel Lin, and Lee Ross (2002). In this study, the authors found that people's self-ratings of their own emotional states often did not match up with their actual physiological responses to emotional stimuli. They suggested that this discrepancy arises from a lack of self-awareness about one's own emotional states.
