Become Self-Aware and Self-Managed to Get Results
Know how you come across and choose how you respond.
The people you lead see very little of your intentions. They see how you react when a deadline slips, whether you listen before you decide, and whether you are the same leader on a hard day as on a good one. Over time, those moments tell them what is safe to bring you, how much of their best thinking to offer, and how far to trust your plans. Much of what a leader gets done depends on how closely what they intend matches what others experience.
Two qualities bring them together. Self-awareness is knowing how you come across to others and where your own instincts tend to mislead you. Self-management is choosing how you respond, especially in the moments when reacting would be easier. Leaders who practice both make sounder decisions, hear about problems while there is still time to fix them, and find peers and senior leaders more ready to back their plans.
AI raises the value of both. As work moves faster, a problem that reaches you a week late costs more than it once did, and a team that hesitates to tell you what it sees slows everything around it. As AI takes on more of the work itself, how you lead people becomes a larger share of what you contribute and how you are judged.
Know the Situations That Test You Most
Every leader has a few situations that bring out their least useful reactions. For some it is a surprise in front of senior leaders. For others it is a missed commitment, a project that keeps slipping, or a decision that keeps getting reopened. In those moments judgment narrows, and a leader under pressure tends to decide too quickly, take the work back from the people doing it, or push the team harder on a plan that needs rethinking.
Knowing your own pattern is where better results from yourself begin. Look back at the last few times a week went badly and note what happened just before your response. The pattern is usually easy to see once you look for it, and naming it gives you a moment to pause before it takes over. Watching for these moments as they happen, and reflecting on them across different situations, lets you see your triggers clearly, anticipate them, and respond with the grace and effectiveness you wish you had shown when things went wrong in the past.
“The moment a problem reaches you is when your team learns whether to bring you the next one.”
Learn How You Come Across to Others
Few leaders see their effect on others as clearly as the people around them do. Urgency can come across as impatience, conviction as a closed mind, and a quick question as a sign that the decision is already made. The people on the receiving end rarely say so directly, especially to someone who manages their work.
The most reliable way to learn is to ask about specific patterns, since those questions get the most useful answers: how you come across when a plan slips, whether people feel free to disagree with you in a meeting, and what they hold back and why. Watch for the signals between conversations as well. Pushback that grows quieter, updates that arrive later and more polished, and calls where the same few people do all the talking each show how your leadership is being received.
Early in one role, I joined as an experienced hire with a wider frame of reference than the team I was leading. The growth strategy and plans needed to be modernized, along with how the team worked with the business and measured results, and the work had to move quickly. I drove it at the pace my own experience allowed. Before long I sensed frustration and pushback on individual and team calls, so I opened a direct, honest conversation with the team about how the work was going. What I heard was that the pace was overwhelming. People were losing confidence in their own abilities, and the ambition had started to feel unrealistic. That conversation showed me exactly where they needed help most. I changed how I partnered with them, putting my effort where it would speed their progress, and I was open about the plan and the results it could deliver. We stayed on course, and the team learned at the pace the work required. The problem I corrected was one my own leadership had created.
Decide How You Will Respond Before You Need To
The moment a problem reaches you is when your team learns whether to bring you the next one. A sharp reaction, visible frustration, or a rush to find who is responsible teaches people to wait, to polish, and to come to you only when they already have a fix. That costs you the early warning that gives a leader the most room to act.
These moments arrive without notice, so the response works best when it is decided in advance. Settle on a few habits for bad news and hold to them. Thank the person for raising it. Ask what they know, what they need, and what they recommend before offering your own view. Deal with the problem first, and save the lessons for later, when everyone can discuss them calmly.
Picture a leader whose team discovers that a key client project is two weeks behind. The last few problems they raised were met with a calm question about what they needed, so they tell her that afternoon. She has time to reset the client’s expectations and add help before the delay grows. As AI changes how work gets done, teams will try more new approaches, and some will fall short. A leader whose response to a setback is steady and predictable gets more of those attempts, and hears honestly about how each one went.
Give Others Room to Speak
Leaders often do most of the talking in their own meetings without noticing. They have the most context, the strongest view of where the work should go, and the authority that makes others defer. Each of those pulls the conversation toward the leader’s thinking and away from the people closest to the work.
Self-management here means choosing a different role in the room. Ask questions before you share your view, let others speak first on decisions they know well, and offer your opinion when it adds something the group has not covered. Many teams now receive a written summary of their meetings, which makes it simple to check how much of the conversation was yours.
Several years ago, I noticed my team calls were drifting. The dialogue was active, which was good, but it bounced between topics and pulled attention away from what we had met to decide. I started paying closer attention to my own role on those calls, guiding the discussion and facilitating it as well as taking part. What I learned was more valuable than the focus I set out to restore. Guiding the discussion put more attention on drawing out each person’s best thinking, and it opened the door for the team to work through problems together at a higher level. Our discussions produced better outcomes, and our meetings started working like workshops. I still run most of the meetings I lead this way. It gives people a platform to speak up, and it gives me more value from every conversation we have as a team.
Lead the Same Way With Everyone, on Every Day
Trust grows when people can predict how you will respond. A leader who is patient with senior leaders and short with their team, or open on a good day and guarded on a hard one, leaves everyone guessing, and people who are guessing hold back.
The habits that earn your team’s trust work the same way across the business. Peers who know you will listen before you decide share what they are seeing sooner. Senior leaders who watch you respond to setbacks with a clear head give you larger problems to solve and more room to solve them. Over time that consistency becomes part of your reputation, and your plans start with support already in place.
Self-awareness and self-management are built in ordinary moments: the next update that brings bad news, the next meeting you lead, the next week that goes badly. Each is a chance to make the leader others experience match the leader you intend to be. Leaders who do that consistently get more from their own judgment, more from their teams, and more support from the business for what they set out to do.
About John Fildes
I grow the top line by connecting marketing to business strategy. By leveraging powerful positioning, content marketing, and client insights, I help organizations drive qualitative and quantitative results at scale.
I've built an amazing network of incredibly talented people over the years. What I've appreciated most is those who have invested in me, mentored me, and helped me become the talented professional I am today. I pay it forward by doing the same for other high performing professionals and entrepreneurs.
Learn More: Growth Leader | Business Builder | Leadership Multiplier
All views are my own and not those of my current or prior employers.
