Leadership awareness is a leader's ability to understand her own leadership role and the extent to which she practices leadership effectively.
A person with high leadership awareness is a person who sees management as their primary domain, and actively tries to uncover answers to the question "Am I a good leader?".
Some managers feel that the leadership role is something that has been thrown at them, and not something they have asked for or wanted. These managers often do not identify with their leadership role or management as a subject, and therefore have no particular ambitions to become a better leader.
A leader will typically go through 4 stages with different obstacles in order to function well as a leader:
Level 0: Identity Maturity
At level 0, the leader is most comfortable delivering. The leader perceives management as foreign, does not regard management as a skillset, and describes management as uninteresting or unnecessary.
Level 1: Competence maturity
At level 1, the manager does not feel that they understand or master the management domain well enough, which makes them insecure in their leadership role, and results in them often leading with authority rather than confidence.
Level 2: Prioritization Maturity
At level 2, leaders struggle to find time to prioritize management alongside more operational responsibilities. This leader argues that there are no others with sufficient capacity or expertise to delegate the operational responsibilities to, or that the operational responsibilities are more important than the leadership responsibilities that are not being prioritized.
Level 3: Operationalization Maturity
At level 3, the leader has the competence and ability to set aside time, but is unsure what to do once the time has been set aside. Which indicators should be looked at, which processes should be prioritized and where should efforts be made to better facilitate functioning in teams and the organization.
A leader with an external focus is concerned with the market. They are keen to deliver and measures themselves on customer experience.
A leader with an internal focus is concerned with the organization. They are concerned with the well-functioning of the organization and measure themselves on employee experience.
It is common for different roles in an organization to primarily have either an internal or external focus.
For example, the CEO and CCO are often externally focused, while the COO and CHRO are internally focused.
As a manager, there are an infinite number of things you can prioritize. Being conscious of which parts of the organization it is most important to work on right now means having a good overview of the organization's health, and reflecting on what kind of efforts would have the most impact on the most problematic areas.
To develop a deeper understanding of the different aspects of the organization that could be prioritized, see the concept of perspectives.
According to a survey conducted by UKG, managers impact employees’ mental health (69%) more than doctors (51%) or therapists (41%) — and even the same as a spouse or partner (69%).
There are many opportunities to lead, both at work and in our personal lives. Being conscious about practicing leadership is about knowing when you are in situations that could benefit from better leadership. and how to proceed, be considerate and adapt to such situations.
Being aware of the level of detail in management is about understanding the difference between self-management, project management, team management and organizational management, and being aware when you practice management at which level of detail.
- Why are you a manager?
- Why should follow you?
- What are you looking to accomplish with your leadership?
A management philosophy summarizes what you as a manager think is most important for people to do their best work.
For example, you might belive that what people need to do the best work is
- Support
- Clear expectations
- Freedom
An example of an approach to leadership is Deliberately Developmental Leadership.
Examples of leadership styles are Servant leadership and Proactive leadership.
An example of a method of everyday management is the Organizational pillars
"As a manager, you are not hired to create to-do lists and PowerPoint presentations. You are hired to go up in a helicopter and see things in perspective." - Martin Lindstrom
For organizational check-in perspectives, check out organizational perspectives.
For individual check-in perspectives, check out individual check-ins.