Your Mind Shapes Your Reality
Your mind shapes your reality. Yet you don’t control your mind.
This is the paradox for all leaders. We think we operate with awareness, when in reality more than 45% of our behaviors are happening below our level of consciousness. We are creatures of habit, with highly plastic brains that for the majority of our personal and professional life, operate on autopilot.
What does autopilot look like for you as a leader
When you think you are rational, most of the times you are operating with basic instincts, based on fear and need for protection.
When you think you are fair and just, you are operating with deeply ingrained unconscious biases.
When you think you are finding new solutions, you are reverting to your habitual problem-solving patterns and dwelling 2x more on the negative than the positive. And so on...
That's why it's no wonder self-awareness is regarded as one of the most important leadership traits for the future of work. Just to make things clear, there's two kinds of self-awareness: internal (what I understand about my thoughts, emotions, values, passions, behaviors and their effect) and external (my understanding of how I am perceived by others).
Not surprisingly perhaps, while most leaders will say they are self-aware, in reality according to research only 10-15% fit the criteria! But as I was diving into the research, what is very surprising is that experience is inversely correlated to self-awareness.
In other words, the more experience and power a leader has, the less likely they are to be aware of how their actions affect their colleagues and team. And this is a very big problem.
The higher a leader rises up the ranks, the less likely they are to receive honest feedback. This is due to two facts:
There are literally fewer people above them to given them a candid opinion
The people below them might be reluctant to express their honest feedback because of fear - no matter the level of psychological safety in the team.