Week 6 Leadership and Interpersonal Skills

Master: What are the key theories, models and frameworks in Self-Awareness and Leadership?

Self-awareness; self-concept; self-analysis; organisational fit; social awareness; 360-degree feedback; emotional intelligence; Salovey and Mayer’s EI definition; Goleman’s EQ idea; EI skills, traits and competencies; MBTI personality preferences; critical reflection; critical thinking; Schön’s reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action; self-reflective practice; Feedback Intervention Theory; action planning; reflexivity; Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle.

What is self-awareness in leadership?

Self-awareness is the ability to understand your motivations, preferences, personality, emotions, values, strengths and limitations. In leadership, it matters because these internal factors shape judgement, decisions, behaviour, communication and interactions with others.

Why is self-awareness important before leading others?

Before leaders can manage, influence or develop others, they must understand themselves. Leaders need to ask deeper questions such as: why do I want to lead, what motivates me, and what values guide my decisions?

How does self-awareness create consistent and authentic leadership?

When leaders understand their own values and motivations, their decisions become more coherent and predictable. This supports authentic leadership because behaviour aligns with internal values, making the leader appear more credible and trustworthy.

What are the benefits of self-awareness for leaders?

Self-awareness helps leaders set clearer personal and career goals, build stronger relationships, manage others effectively, value diversity, improve productivity and understand how they fit into the organisation and wider community.

How does self-awareness support diversity and inclusion?

Self-awareness helps leaders recognise their own assumptions, biases and perspectives. This makes it easier to value different viewpoints and avoid treating their own experience as universal.

Why do some leaders resist leadership development?

Leaders who lack self-awareness may not believe they need to improve. Resistance can be open, where they reject training, or passive, where they appear cooperative but only engage superficially.

What is passive resistance in leadership development?

Passive resistance happens when leaders attend training or coaching but internally reject the process. They may complete tasks minimally, criticise the programme, or use participation to prove that development was unnecessary.

What is organisational fit in self-awareness?

Organisational fit is the degree to which a leader’s values, identity and behaviour align with the organisation’s culture, purpose and practices. Leaders must ask whether they genuinely understand and connect with the organisation they lead.

Why does organisational fit matter for senior leaders?

Senior leaders may have strong qualifications but still be disconnected from the organisation’s product, culture or purpose. This can make leadership appear inauthentic, especially if they do not truly believe in or understand the organisation.

What are the three levels of self-awareness?

Self-awareness operates at personal, organisational and societal levels. Leaders must understand their internal motives, their fit within the organisation, and how their words and actions are interpreted by wider society.

How does cancel culture link to self-awareness?

Cancel culture shows that leadership behaviour is judged within changing social expectations. Leaders in visible roles must be aware that their language, actions and public positions can affect both personal reputation and organisational trust.

How can leaders develop self-awareness in the workplace?

Leaders can develop self-awareness through performance reviews, 360-degree feedback, colleague feedback, training courses, secondments, coaching and mentoring. These methods reveal blind spots and support reflection.

Why is 360-degree feedback useful for leadership development?

360-degree feedback compares how leaders see themselves with how others experience them. This reveals self-other gaps in behaviour, communication and leadership style, which can become targets for development.

What is self-concept and self-analysis?

Self-concept is a person’s overall understanding of themselves, including behaviour, personality, attitudes, motivations, interests and expectations. Self-analysis goes further by asking what these patterns mean and what needs to change.

What does research suggest about leader self-awareness?

Research links higher self-awareness with stronger organisational outcomes, better relationships and improved communication. However, self-awareness is difficult to measure, and self-perception does not always match actual performance.

What are common flaws in self-awareness?

Self-awareness can be distorted by bias, illusion, optimism bias and overconfidence. Leaders may overestimate their ability, underestimate risks, misjudge how others see them or assume tasks will take less time than they really will.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor and understand one’s own emotions and others’ emotions, distinguish between them, and use this information to guide thinking and behaviour.

Why is emotional intelligence important for leadership?

Leadership is relational, so leaders need to manage their own reactions and understand others’ emotional cues. Emotional intelligence helps leaders build trust, communicate better and maintain stronger interpersonal relationships.

What are the four processes of emotional intelligence?

The four processes are perceiving emotions, using emotions, understanding emotions and managing emotions. Managing emotions is the most complex because it involves regulating oneself and influencing emotional responses in others.

What are the three approaches to emotional intelligence?

EI can be understood as skills, traits or competencies. Skills are learnable, traits reflect natural tendencies, and competencies are observable behaviours linked to performance in organisational roles.

What are key emotional intelligence competencies?

Key EI competencies include social awareness, self-awareness, emotion management, self-motivation and relationship management. These help leaders regulate mood, persist under pressure, empathise and prevent distress from overwhelming judgement.

How can leaders develop emotional intelligence?

Leaders can reflect on emotional reactions by asking what they were thinking, feeling, how their body reacted and how they behaved. They can also build an “A Team” of trusted people who offer support, honest feedback and perspective.

What is MBTI and how does it support self-awareness?

MBTI is a personality preference framework that helps leaders reflect on how they gain energy, process information, make decisions and respond to the world. It should be used as a reflective tool, not a fixed label.

What are the four MBTI personality dimensions?

The four dimensions are Extraversion vs Introversion, Sensing vs Intuition, Thinking vs Feeling, and Judging vs Perceiving. Each shows a preference, helping leaders recognise their default tendencies and adapt when needed.

What is critical reflection, critical thinking and a critical mindset?

Critical reflection means questioning assumptions, beliefs and practices to learn from experience. Critical thinking means analysing information rather than accepting it at face value. A critical mindset involves being open-minded, evidence-seeking and willing to challenge taken-for-granted ideas.

What is Schön’s reflection model?

Schön distinguishes reflection-on-action, which means analysing an event after it happens, and reflection-in-action, which means adjusting behaviour during the event. Reflection-in-action is harder but helps leaders adapt in real time.

What are self-reflective practice, FIT, action planning, reflexivity and Kolb’s learning cycle?

Self-reflective practice means continuously analysing behaviour to improve performance. Feedback Intervention Theory compares current behaviour with goals. Action planning turns reflection into change. Reflexivity questions practice collectively. Kolb’s cycle moves from experience, to reflection, to conceptual learning, to testing new actions.