Equitas Media - Blog by Nigel

That ‘Touchy-Feely’ Stuff Could Be Killing Your Business

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 11:36:00 +0000

Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness is one of the most crucial qualities of any leader. And yet, as observed by Theodore Kinni, self-awareness is "...a prerequisite of learning: if leaders can't reflect on what they expect and compare it with the outcomes they receive, there is no basis for improvement. Leaders need to know themselves before they can know anything else." As a leader you are paid to produce results and to improve things!! The above statements add up to a big and bold claim, but what are the facts? Consider the following findings of a nearly five-year research program by Tasha Eurich and her colleagues:

95% of people think they are self-aware, and yet...
Only 10 to 15% actually are!

There’s A Price To Pay! And (Eurich’s study found), the effects of the un-self-aware can be concerning and costly:

Frustration
Cutting a team's chances of success in half
Increased stress in colleagues as well as decreased motivation
Higher staff turnover.

SELF-AWARENESS

Fri, 22 Jul 2022 07:51:00 +0000

A Prerequisite For Effective Leadership?

For busy leaders preoccupied with the hard work of making their business a success, talk of self-awareness can seem touchy-feely. After all, these leaders' work is to make sense of what’s going on in their own lives, relationships, businesses, and their external environment.

Reflecting on why self-awareness can be so difficult for leaders has reminded me of the words of Daniel Kahneman(in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow), who says:

“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”

But how do leaders ignore their ignorance (intentional avoidance even) my of their own weaknesses, blind spots, and fatal flaws? Your thoughts?

Ira Chaleff

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 19:43:00 +0000

An Original Thinker On Leadership And Followership

So good to catch up with my friend Ira Chaleff in London yesterday. His books “The Courageous Follower” and “Intelligent Disobedience” have been helpful around the world.

Awareness

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 16:59:00 +0000

TOUCHY-FEELY OR MISSION CRITICAL FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Introduction

It can be truly challenging for business leaders to ensure you are paying adequate attention to the right things in such a rapidly changing business environment. Awareness can be something of a superpower which enables you to achieve more than you hoped or planned. In this article I want to introduce you to the wonderful work of Tasha Eurich.

ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS:

It is very difficult to take timely action in relation or in response to something about which you aren’t properly aware. For a business this partly refers to environmental awareness. International Businesses that are closing or suspending operations in Russia are a case in point. What about your business? How effectively are you able to ‘read the signs’ whether they be ominous or indicating opportunity?

SELF-AWARENESS

At the level of the individual leader, self-awareness is absolutely crucial. Indeed this can enhance opportunities (or set a leader’s upper limit) for success. But I am not thinking of self-awareness as hype in a motivational guru’s talk. As indicated in the slide below, there’s good robust research that has investigated the subject for a long time.

BENEFITS:

Tasha Eurich and her research team have identified two kinds of self awareness: internal self-awareness (how well you know yourself) and external self-awareness (how well you understand how others see you). Now to the benefits. The benefits the research team lists includes:

So what are the benefits of you as a leader investing time and effort to raise your self-awareness?

1. Greater confidence

2. More creativity

3. Sounder decisions

4. Building stronger relationships

5. Becoming a better worker

6. Running a more profitable business

What right thinking leader would not want these benefits for him/herself and for those around them?

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