Shakespeare’s plays are full of quotes that have become part of our everyday language. One of his lines from Hamlet keeps coming to mind this week. It’s part of a long speech by Polonius giving advice to his son Laertes. The speech ends: “above all to thine own self be true”.
But what does that actually mean? For me, a core part of being true to oneself is to fully know oneself.
A key risk of being a leader is that our capacity for self-awareness can diminish. The higher up the ladder we get, the more people censor the feedback they give us.
Depending on how we show up as leaders, people will judge what and how they tell you about yourself based on what they think you will take.
What makes it harder is that we will get some feedback, and this can give us a false sense that we are getting a rounded picture. So, unless we are examining ourselves closely we can end up with a skewed view of the leader we are, out of kilter with how those around us experience our leadership.
At Full Colour, we do a lot of work with leaders, equipping them to modernize their approaches to leadership. Finding safe and supportive ways to help leaders increase their self-awareness is one of the key components of this work. The difference between leaders who “get” this and those who don’t are evident in the results they achieve. For those less self-aware this can mean:
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Poorly executed change programmes that damage rather than enhance organizations
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Decision paralysis, e.g. middle managers pushing decisions up the hierarchy that they could/should have made themselves
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Top-down approaches which hamper innovation or the pace of progress
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Cultures of low trust, which hamper effective challenge or leads to colleagues “people pleasing” leaders to the detriment of the organization
There are subtler examples too. Subpar results on goals you have the potential to crush. Higher than average employee turnover. Unbreakable silos and subtle or overt factionalism.
What’s all of this got to do with the crusty character of Polonius in Hamlet?
“To thine own self be true” is part of a much longer speech, which in essence is about knowing yourself as well as living true to your values. A lesser known line from Polonius’ speech is “Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgement”. In other words, listen to everyone’s feedback but be slow to pass judgement on others. Some leaders operate the other way round.
Two truths of leadership are:
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People make judgements about how much feedback they think a leader will take and then act accordingly. While many leaders believe they are open to feedback, how they comport themselves will give clues to those around them about the extent to which this is true.
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It’s really hard being a leader in that everyone thinks they can do your job better than you, largely because they cannot see the complexity with which you grapple. Therefore, without resilience and brain space, it is hard for leaders to know what feedback is valuable and what is not.
The remedy? There are three that I believe distinguish 21st leaders from 20th century ones:
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The ability to really, deeply know oneself, and lean into (rather than get defensive about) flaws while ramping up the things that make you a successful leader. (We all say we do this. Fewer of us actually do.)
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Knowing what your organization needs from you. Too many leaders think: “this is the way I do leadership” and then apply that to whatever leadership role they are in. But different organizations require different forms of leadership, so unless you deeply know what your organization needs from you, you will not deliver against its potential.
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Act intentionally to set culture. Most leaders inherit a culture and can see the flaws in it, but often they impose structural solutions, like reorganizations, to address those flaws. Culture is about habits and behaviours. Structural solutions rarely work.
No leader is perfect. Others expect us to be, but it is impossible, because we are human. However, greater self-awareness can go a long way to help you be the best leader you are capable of being.
Can we help?
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