Know Thyself

From the times of the ancient Greeks to the more present day movie ‘The Matrix’

Know Thyself

is one of the first steps to becoming a great leader of people. Philosophers and Oracles have commented that is the only way to become ‘The One’. Ok let’s move on NEO…

You need to fully investigate yourself. You need to understand your strengths and more importantly your weaknesses. Yes, you have them. You are guarding your weaknesses like the crown jewel. You pretend that you can do everything. Face it you can’t. You will ultimately fail because you will get in over your head because you have convinced yourself you are rock star.

So back to knowing yourself…

The very first problem you are going to have is no one is going to be honest with you… especially your direct reports. They don’t trust you. They are going to think that you are setting them up for something.

So who can you ask… not your mother, not your spouse, heck not even your kids on bad days. You need to ask yourself the following types of questions.

• How do I act when a failure occurs in your project, your team’s project, etc…
• How do I act when someone just stole my idea?
• Or another classic… how do I act when your boss tells you to do something when you know its wrong.

Take 5 minutes right now and list your reaction to these things. Think about when you are really tired or aggravated… when you can’t put your smiley face on anymore. That’s you.

Are you really being honest with yourself? Can you handle the truth from an anonymous 360 review. Probably not. You are not ready to…

The great thing about the internet is you can be anonymous and start listing those weaknesses so that you can get them out in the open. That’s half the battle.

Once you see them written down… you can put a Leadership Development action plan together to fix them. I promise we will start slow with the tools.

Take 5 minutes… and complete the exercise. Heck, you can even use the comment section below if you don’t have paper and pen.