The importance of self-awareness in educational leadership

David Carne, school business professional and executive coach, explores how to improve self-awareness 

In 1977 a researcher at the University of California, Berkley, asked around 600 college professors to rate the quality of their teaching. One would assume that college professors, being well-educated and, presumably, well-aware of the components of good teaching, would be well-qualified to assess where they sat within the performance hierarchy; however, the results told a different story. A staggering 94% of them believed their teaching was better than that of their colleagues, and almost 70% believed their skills and abilities were in the top quartile. College professors are bright people, but they were astonishingly poor at objectively assessing their own abilities. Indeed, research shows that, when asked, on average, people tend to over-estimate their intelligence, leadership skills, fairness and even funniness compared to others. 

Conversely, in my experience of coaching executives and leaders, I am struck by how many leaders and managers doubt their abilities and question their leadership skills. We call this ‘imposter syndrome’ and 70% of us will experience it at some point in our lives. 

Neither the delusional arrogance of the college professors or the crippling grip of imposter syndrome are desirable traits in leaders. Believing we know better than everyone else leads to us making disastrous leadership decisions; equally disastrous is the hesitancy of the leader suffering from imposter syndrome who fails to act when the situation demands. Being willing to admit areas in which we could do better, and to let go of unjustified self-doubt, are hallmarks of self-aware and emotionally intelligent leaders. So, how do we improve our self-awareness as leaders? I propose five activities that may support this. 

1

As school business professionals we are extremely lucky to have frameworks such as the ISBL professional standards against which we, and others, can measure ourselves. We may be not as bad – or as good – as we think we are, and professional standards provide objective benchmarks which help us determine our current position and set goals for professional self-improvement.

2

We can gain insights into how our attitudes, behaviours and styles of communication are affecting our work by getting feedback from others, both formally and informally. Often others do not perceive us in the ways we think they do. Two questions which are invaluable when asked of one or two trusted colleagues are, ‘What do you value most about working with me?’ and ‘What is one thing I could change for my own benefit?’ 

3

As a leader of a local school business professionals network group, I am acutely aware how useful people find it to meet with other professionals in similar roles to observe how they operate and what skills and knowledge they are cultivating in order to direct their own professional development. Professional networking helps us identify both our areas of expertise and the gaps in our professional capacities. 

4

There are significant advantages to running a decision past another leadership colleague for a fresh perspective, or asking your own team for their ideas. While there is a temptation to assume, as a leader, that we have to have all the answers, the best decisions usually come from collaboration. Involving others reduces the chances of making a poor decision based on our own biases; it does not serve us well to be too arrogant or too insecure to ask someone else. 

5

Finally, we can actively engage in reflection. Taking time to evaluate how a meeting or conversation went, what we could have done differently, asking ourselves why one colleague really pushes our buttons, or allowing ourselves to really hear that praise we were given can help us to become more self-aware – especially when this becomes a pattern of behaviour over time. Some people find keeping a journal helps, but the key is making reflection a habit.

However we cultivate it, objective self-awareness is a crucial leadership trait which requires continual practice. One of the casualties of the global pandemic has undoubtedly been time to reflect. However, when we are self-aware, and act on the insights we have, we do things better both individually and collaboratively. 

While, clearly, unlike the college professors, we can’t all be above average, we can all be continually improving, growing and learning if we are prepared to become a little more self-aware.