By: Laura Barker

Self-awareness isn’t just a buzzword in leadership development; it’s the cornerstone of effective leadership. But true self-awareness goes far beyond surface-level introspection. It requires understanding two fundamental components: knowing who you are at your core, and understanding how others perceive you. When leaders master both dimensions, they unlock the ability to lead with authenticity, make aligned decisions, and navigate challenges with greater resilience.

The Two Components of Self-Awareness

Component 1: How Others Perceive You – Your Professional Reputation

The first component of self-awareness—understanding how others perceive you—is often the more tangible of the two. This external view of your leadership style, communication patterns, and behavioral tendencies forms your professional reputation, and fortunately, it’s measurable.

Tools like the Hogan Assessment Suite provide invaluable insights into how your personality shows up in the workplace. These assessments reveal your reputation by identifying the consistent behavioral patterns that others observe in you, particularly when you’re under pressure. They illuminate your leadership style, potential blind spots, and the impression you leave on colleagues, direct reports, and superiors.

Understanding your reputation allows you to:

  • Bridge gaps between your intentions and your impact
  • Identify areas where your behavior may be misaligned with your goals
  • Develop strategies to communicate more effectively
  • Build stronger relationships based on awareness of how others experience you

Component 2: Knowing Who You Are – The Inner Work of Fulfillment

The second component—knowing who you are—represents the deeper, more transformative work of self-awareness. This is where coaching, rooted in the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) model, becomes essential. This inner work focuses on two critical areas: understanding your core values and recognizing your patterns of self-sabotage.

The Power of Values-Based Leadership

Your values are your internal compass—they represent what matters most to you and what drives your intrinsic motivation. When leaders gain clarity on their values, everything else becomes easier to navigate.

Value-driven leaders experience several key advantages:

Clearer Decision-Making: When you know what’s truly important to you, decisions become less about external pressures and more about alignment with your authentic self. Each choice can be evaluated against your core values, providing a consistent framework for leadership decisions.

Authentic Vision Creation: Your vision as a leader isn’t something you manufacture—it’s the natural output of what matters most to you. When your values are clear, your vision becomes authentic and compelling, not just to you, but to those who follow you.

Enhanced Motivation: Leading from your values means leading from a place of intrinsic motivation. This creates sustainable energy and passion that doesn’t rely on external validation or rewards.

Better Alignment: Understanding your values helps you recognize when you’re in situations, roles, or relationships that support your authentic self, versus those that drain your energy through misalignment.

Through targeted exercises and coaching conversations, leaders can uncover these driving values and learn to use them as a practical leadership tool.

Navigating Self-Sabotage: From Saboteur to Sage

Even the most self-aware leaders face moments when they derail or self-sabotage. This is where understanding your patterns under stress becomes crucial. The Positive Intelligence framework offers a powerful lens for this work.

Identifying Your Saboteurs

When we’re under pressure, stress, or facing challenges, we often default to mental patterns that feel protective but are ultimately counterproductive. These “saboteurs” represent the negative thinking patterns that hijack our leadership effectiveness. Below are examples of a few of them:

  • The Judge who constantly finds fault and criticizes
  • The Controller who needs to take charge of every situation
  • The Pleaser who prioritizes others’ approval over authentic leadership
  • The Victim who feels powerless and focuses on what’s not working
  • The Avoider who procrastinates or sidesteps difficult conversations

Each leader has a unique combination of these saboteur patterns and recognizing them is the first step to transformation.

Transitioning to Sage Mode

The goal isn’t to eliminate stress or challenges, it’s to respond to them from a place of wisdom rather than reactivity. The “Sage” represents our capacity for positive, solution-focused thinking. When operating from sage mode, leaders can:

  • Approach challenges with curiosity rather than judgment
  • See opportunities within obstacles
  • Respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively
  • Access creativity and innovation under pressure
  • Lead with empathy and emotional intelligence

The transition from saboteur to sage mode is a learnable skill that requires practice, awareness, and often, coaching support.

Integrating Both Dimensions of Self-Awareness

True leadership transformation happens when both components of self-awareness work together. Your reputation assessment might reveal that others perceive you as overly controlling, while your values work might uncover that autonomy and empowerment are actually core to who you are. This apparent contradiction reveals a saboteur pattern—perhaps your Controller kicks in under stress, causing you to micromanage despite valuing independence.

With this integrated awareness, you can:

  • Recognize when you’re moving into saboteur mode
  • Reconnect with your authentic values
  • Shift your behavior to align with both your true self and your leadership goals
  • Build trust and credibility by closing the gap between who you are and how you show up

How TalentRise Supports Your Self-Awareness Journey

At TalentRise, we understand that developing authentic self-awareness requires both the right tools and expert guidance. That’s why we’ve built our leadership development approach around this comprehensive two-component framework, combining proven assessment methodologies with deep coaching expertise.

Our Integrated Approach

Assessment and Feedback: We utilize the Hogan Assessment Suite to provide leaders with clear, actionable insights into their professional reputation and behavioral patterns. This external perspective forms the foundation for understanding how your leadership style impacts others and where opportunities for growth exist.

Actionable Insights: Our coaching team is trained in the Co-Active Training Institute (CTI) model, specializing in helping leaders uncover their core values and align their leadership with what matters most to them. Through structured exercises and coaching conversations, we guide leaders through the inner work that transforms how they show up professionally.

Positive Intelligence Framework: We integrate Positive Intelligence methodologies to help leaders identify their unique saboteur patterns and develop the skills to shift from reactive to responsive leadership. This practical approach gives leaders tools they can use immediately when facing stress and challenges.

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Tailored Solutions for Organizations

Whether you’re looking to develop individual leaders, strengthen your leadership team, or create a culture of self-aware leadership throughout your organization, TalentRise offers customized solutions:

  • Individual Executive Coaching: One-on-one coaching that combines assessment insights with deep personal development work
  • Leadership Team Development: Group programs that build collective self-awareness and improve team dynamics
  • Organizational Culture Change: Comprehensive initiatives that embed self-awareness practices into your leadership development culture

TalentRise Services – Executive Coaching & Leadership Development

Why This Approach Works

Our methodology goes beyond surface-level leadership development. By addressing both external perception and internal authenticity, we help leaders create sustainable change that impacts not just their effectiveness, but their fulfillment and the engagement of their teams.

The leaders we work with report greater confidence in decision-making, improved relationships with their teams, and a clearer sense of purpose in their leadership roles. Most importantly, they develop the self-awareness skills to continue growing long after our formal engagement ends.

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The Ongoing Journey

Self-awareness isn’t a destination—it’s an ongoing practice. The combination of external feedback, values clarity, and saboteur awareness creates a comprehensive framework for continuous growth. Leaders who commit to both dimensions of self-awareness don’t just become more effective; they become more fulfilled, authentic, and capable of inspiring others.

As you consider your own leadership journey, ask yourself: How well do you understand your reputation and impact on others? How clearly can you articulate your core values? And when stress hits, do you recognize your saboteur patterns and know how to shift to sage mode?

The answers to these questions will illuminate your path forward in developing the kind of self-awareness that transforms not just your leadership, but your entire approach to professional and personal fulfillment.

Ready to develop deeper self-awareness in yourself or your leadership team? Contact TalentRise to learn more about our comprehensive approach to leadership development that combines proven assessments with transformative coaching.