Self-Awareness Is a Superpower: The Hidden Key to Organizational Wellness

The Mirror Before the Mission

All organizations want to be resilient, innovative, and engaged, however most begin at a place that is far from the beginning. The first step to creating a healthy culture and optimizing systems is to help leaders and teams become aware of their own patterns. Healthy organizational wellness is created by people who are aware of themselves, rather than through processes and policies. Self-awareness is often misunderstood as self-absorption. However, self-awareness is not just the act of thinking about our thoughts and feelings. True awareness is not just a mere glance at one’s self in the past, instead it looks inward for truth and forward for action. Through being self-aware, individuals can identify and develop awareness of how their emotional states, assumptions, and even their tone impacts the way others think and act in the workplace.

The Science Behind the Superpower

Stress in leaders that has never been acknowledged will most certainly be transferred to their departments; a simple defensive reaction or short temper can lead to little if no creativity within the department or produce disinterest among team members. Conversely, a mere second of self-awareness (taking a moment before responding, choosing to be empathetic as opposed to egotistical) can change the climate of the entire team's feelings. The beginning of meaningful transformation does not begin with the creation of new policies or mission statements; it begins with the act of being present. The mirror is where real change happens, not the memo.

Awareness in Action

Organizational research has provided decades of evidence to demonstrate that self-aware leaders create greater team strength, build deeper trust and foster a healthier work environment. In his book Emotional In