2 surprising ways to increase your self-awareness ⎸ For nonprofit leaders

If you've moved from peer to manager, You know there are some things you need to consider:

• Relationships change
• Roles change
• Responsibilities change

With those changes comes the need for new ways of interacting with those you work with. Whatsmore these people may have been your colleagues and who were perhaps even your friends.

Resources to make the transition from peer to manager
In this blog, I gave some strategies to help you deal with friendships when you transition.
In this week's podcast, my guests Nicole and Karen give additional tips for being a successful manager.

Between the two of those resources, you'll find many suggestions, ideas and strategies to help you navigate managing peers.
But, of course, the tricky part is implementing those strategies!

Applying the tips in those resources isn't always easy!
While it's great to say increase your emotional intelligence, get an understanding of your team's strengths or set good boundaries, doing any of those things isn't always as easy as it sounds!


This is where you might have trouble
I wanted to remind you that implementing strategies is sometimes challenging. It's because you may lack conscious awareness of what you're thinking, which leads you to feel a certain way and behave a certain way. 

For example:
Unconscious thought: Sophia knows I'm not fond of Charlotte. She's heard my sarcasm after management meetings. 
Unconscious feeling: Anxiety about sharing a decision Charlotte made that impacts our team.
Unconscious behaviour: When you share the decision, you make sure not to make eye contact with Sophia.
❓ Outcome: How do you think avoiding eye contact could impact this leader's relationship with Sophia?


Another example
Unconscious thought: I know Ava is insecure about her writing skills
Unconscious feeling: Hesitancy about her ability to write good reports for the funder.
Unconscious behaviour: Double-check her work
❓ Outcome: What do you think could happen with this leader's relationship with Ava?

Are you getting a sense of how much your unconscious thoughts
impact your behaviour and how they can cause problems fast?


The "solution" takes time
The thing is, it takes time and skill to dissect what's going on inside of you to recognize why you have the subtle or intense emotions you have and why you are reacting in the way you are. It also takes time and a developed insight to understand what's happening or potentially why someone behaves in a certain way on your team.


The process is to become more self-aware
The best way that I know and many other experts suggest is to increase your self-awareness to make sure that you are on top of everything going on, both around you and perhaps more importantly, inside of you.

Because ....your perspective on 

• how capable you are
• how people view you 
• your role and responsibilities

All impact your experience.


Without self-awareness, things can go side-ways
Many managers struggle as they move up the ranks because they lack good self-awareness.

• If you aren't aware of the narrative going on in your head about how incapable you are, it can grow into full-blown imposter syndrome.
• If you fail to tune into the hesitancy you feel about your employee, you may struggle to develop your employee effectively.
• If you overlook your ongoing lack of decisiveness about day-to-day decisions, others may make assumptions, blurring roles and responsibilities. 

The answer is to work at increasing your self-awareness
Therefore, it's essential to navigate your leadership experience with awareness. Your job then is to increase your self-awareness to successfully transition to supervising your peers or adjust to where you are now. That way, you can keep your thoughts in check, change them if need be, or ramp up thoughts that will move you and your team forward.


2 surprising ways to increase your self-awareness

1) Do self-assessments

Self-assessments help you to get a sense of how you see yourself, who you are and your personality.

My top picks

• VIA Strengths Finder
• Gallup Strengths Survey
• The Leadership Circle Profile

2) Get feedback from your team

1) Ask them in regular supervision: What do you need me to start doing, stop doing or continue to do.

2) Ask them for Feedforward: Be vulnerable about what you are working on and get them to observe and report what they see.
**This is a webinar for those of you inside of The Training Library

3) Complete The Leadership Circle Profile 360 - I can help you with this. It's a great tool to gather feedback from many evaluators both within your organization and key stakeholders you work with.


How are you increasing your self-awareness?
If you are like most, you think of meditating, journaling and going for walks as ways of becoming more self-aware. I encourage those wholeheartedly! They are my go-to places too!

Your self-awareness increases any time you can pause and tune in, allowing you to notice emotions and feelings, identify values, become aware of judgements and opinions and acknowledge your behaviour.

All of this will help to increase your emotional and social intelligence. Both are critical to leading a team well and doing the fulfilling work you are meant to do! 

Do tell me how you are increasing your self-awareness! Perhaps you have some strategies I've not suggested or others self-assessments to share!