The Self-Awareness Spectrum

Self-awareness enables your intentional leadership.
Here’s how to strengthen it:

The biggest driver of your emotional intelligence is self-awareness.

Self-awareness is accurately recognizing & understanding your own emotions, thoughts, perceptions, strengths, identities, & more.

Self-awareness exists on a spectrum & we are all on the journey to maximum depth.

It starts with our surface or external self-awareness & ventures down to internal advanced self-awareness. 🤿

Our surface or external self-awareness is how others recognize & understand (or perceive) us.

Knowing how others perceive you makes social awareness & relationship management (2 of the 4 components of EQ) possible.

If you don’t know how others see you, it’s difficult to understand how you fit into the dynamics of a group & how your actions, words, etc. might affect others.

🚨This is one of the main causes of leaders having inappropriate behavior & communication.


Next, we have our inner substance & roots/origins that comprise our self-awareness scale (beginner to advanced).

Ideal state? Your self-awareness matches how you’re perceived by others.

This is how you build & maintain your authenticity & credibility.

Use this quick guide to explore all 3 levels of self-awareness & use the below tips for improving each (you probably need to save this post 🤓).

📍For improving external self-awareness:
1️⃣ Be open, curious about, & receptive to feedback from others.
2️⃣ Observe others’ reactions to you (hesitation / coldness could be a sign of their uncertainty about you).
3️⃣ Consult a few trusted friends/mentors about how they see you.
4️⃣ Reflect on your actions, words, & decisions, confirming they match your true values, feelings, thoughts, etc.
5️⃣ Use all of your learnings as opportunities to be more visibly-you.


📍For reaching maximum depth internal self-awareness:
→ Journaling
→ Practicing meditation
→ Attending talk therapy
→ Recognizing & naming your emotions
→ Reflection & critical thinking


“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
– Joseph Campbell

And even more so, being the authentic leader you were meant to be & that your team & company deserve.