Leslie Rohonczy, IMC™, PCC, Executive Coach, Leadership Expert, Speaker, Author
You’re in a meeting, and a senior leader – let’s call him Mark – is running the show. Mark is confident. Mark is decisive. Mark is also completely oblivious to the fact that his team is disengaged, his jokes are falling flat, and his ‘inspirational’ speech is about as energizing as a Monday morning budget meeting.
Poor Mark has no idea. Not a hot clue. He believes he’s leading with impact when, in reality, his team is mentally drafting their resignation emails and counting down the hours until they can get the hell out of there.
This, my friends, is the silent dealbreaker of leadership: lack of self-awareness. And unlike poor strategy or bad financial decisions, this one doesn’t come with warning lights or colourful metrics in quarterly reports. It sneaks up quietly, erodes trust, and before you know it, you’re ‘that guy’; the leader people respect on paper but avoid in the lunchroom.
YOU CAN’T FIX WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE
I talk a lot about emotional intelligence with leaders. And we talk a lot about strategic vision, too. But if a leader’s self-awareness isn’t at the foundation of their leadership, it’s like building a house on quicksand; it looks great – for a while – until everything collapses.
Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist and researcher who found that 95% of people believe they are self-aware, but only 10-15% actually are. That means there’s a whopping number of well-intentioned leaders walking around blissfully unaware of how they’re actually showing up.
And just to dial up the discomfort even more, here’s an ironic twist: the higher up the ladder you go, the harder it becomes to get an honest mirror. Not because senior leaders suddenly lose their self-awareness, but because fewer people are willing to offer unfiltered truth. Power dynamics, fear of retaliation, or the assumption that “they must know what they’re doing” create an echo chamber of polished updates and sugar-coated feedback. Over time, this curated input distorts a leader’s sense of how they’re truly showing up. Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t see what others see. And when you can’t see yourself clearly, you make decisions based on a version of reality that doesn’t actually exist.
SO, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN LEADERS LACK SELF-AWARENESS?
When leaders don’t see their own blind spots, a few things start to happen:
1. THEY MISREAD THE ROOM
Ever sat in a meeting where a leader delivers a long-winded monologue about “open communication” while everyone nervously avoids eye contact? It’s excruciating. A lack of self-awareness means you might believe your words inspire collaboration when, in reality, your presence stifles it. The best leaders understand how their tone, body language, and energy affect others – because leadership isn’t just about what you say. It’s about how you make people feel.
2. THEY REPEAT PATTERNS THAT DON’T WORK
If multiple teams have questioned your “collaborative” style, dial up your curiosity about whether your version of collaboration feels like command-and-control to others. The signal might not be rejection – it might be resistance to a misalignment between intention and impact. Many leaders operate on autopilot, defaulting to behaviors they’ve picked up over the years without questioning whether they actually work. If you keep encountering the same challenges – team disengagement, turnover, low morale – it’s worth asking: What’s my role in this?
3. THEY ERODE TRUST WITHOUT REALIZING IT
Trust is the currency of leadership. Without it, you’re just a person with a fancy title. And the fastest way to lose trust? Being out of sync with how you impact others. Imagine a leader who preaches work-life balance but sends emails at midnight. Or one who claims to value innovation but shuts down every new idea. These disconnects create cognitive dissonance, and over time, people stop believing in you – not because you’re malicious, but because your actions don’t align with your words.
SELF-AWARENESS AS A LEADERSHIP SUPERPOWER
If you've read this far and are thinking, “Well, this definitely isn’t about me,” I’ve got news for you: based simply on the stats, it probably is. So, how do you become more self-aware?
Here are three ways to start sharpening your self-awareness muscle:
1. ASK FOR FEEDBACK (AND ACTUALLY LISTEN)
Most leaders claim they want feedback. But when they receive it, often their defensive mode kicks in faster than you can say “constructive criticism.”
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, explains that the best leaders actively seek out and embrace uncomfortable truths. Instead of asking, “How am I doing?” try, “What’s one thing I could do better?” It invites honesty without putting people on the spot. (And here's a cool neuroscience nugget: challenging the brain to find 'one' thing will actually yield better results than saying 'is there anything I could do better?")
And when you receive feedback? Don’t justify. Don’t explain. Just say, “Thank you.” Let it sink in. Reflect on your reaction to it. Find the insights to help you build your self-awareness and then act on it. As Maya Angelou famously said, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."
2. PAY ATTENTION TO PATTERNS
Do people often say you interrupt? Do your teams seem hesitant to answer your questions? Does your direct report “have another meeting” when you ask for a quick chat?
Those are clues. Self-aware leaders look for patterns in their interactions – not just individual incidents. If the same feedback (or silence) keeps showing up, there’s something to explore.
Here's a useful exercise: keep a leadership journal. Each week, jot down observations about your interactions. Over time, patterns will emerge – ones you can either correct or capitalize on.
3. BUILD A REFLECTION PRACTICE
Harvard Business School research found that leaders who take time to reflect on their experiences perform significantly better than those who don’t. Even taking five minutes a day to jot down, “What went well today? What didn’t? What’s one thing I’d do differently tomorrow?” – can shift how you lead.
Reflection doesn’t mean dwelling on mistakes – it means learning from them. Reflection doesn’t require a retreat or a journal filled with profound musings. Even a few quiet minutes can offer surprising clarity that can open the door to greater self-awareness (the kind of growth that most leaders say they want but rarely make time for).
YOUR IMPACT MATTERS MORE THAN YOUR INTENTION
You might intend to be a compassionate, visionary leader. But if your impact doesn’t align with your intention, you’re missing the mark. Great leaders – truly great ones – aren’t the ones who are always right. They’re the ones who are always learning. So, here’s the tough question: are you actively cultivating self-awareness, or just hoping it happens by osmosis? Don’t wait to find out the hard way that you’ve been Mark all along.
The silent dealbreaker isn’t a lack of skill, ambition, or intelligence. It’s the inability to see yourself clearly. And high-performing leaders make sure they never stop looking.
