Self-awareness an Important Key to Developing Leaders

The point that the author makes is that, even when managers are sent on leadership training courses, they often make little long-term difference to their behaviour. She puts this lack of success down to a lack of self-awareness on the part of the trainees.

What I would like to add to this discussion is that any changes in behaviour will only come about as a result of practice. All human beings are largely creatures of habit, and we only develop habits by repeatedly doing a thing.

The weakness of most training programmes is that they allow far to little time for practice. When the trainee returns to work they simply revert to type.

The strength of coaching is that the trainee or coachee has time between coaching sessions to practice agreed new behaviours “on the job.”

We also set parameters by which success or failure in implementing new behaviours are judged. The judgement is not done by the coach or the coachee but by stakeholders who have a vested interest in the coachee’s improvement.

So, yes, I agree self-awareness is important because it is an essential part of the behaviour changing process. But changing any behaviour takes time and requires constant practice before it become and automatic habit. A good leadership coach will work with a client to constantly hone and improve performance by using targetted behaviour change techniques and constant feedback.

If you enjoyed this post and found it useful you can ensure that you don’t miss future articles by having our articles delivered to you directly by e-mail.