The Self-Aware Leader How Your Emotions, Assets, and Liabilities Shape Your Team

We're so busy watching everyone else—scrolling feeds, comparing ourselves to other leaders, checking what the competition is doing—that we've become incredibly others-aware and dangerously self-unaware.

Self-awareness isn't a buzzword. It's the difference between walking into a meeting grounded or bringing your frustration, anxiety, and chaos with you—and watching it cascade to everyone around you.

Here's the truth: as goes the leader, so goes the team. Your mood changes rooms. Your anxiety creates anxiety. Your groundedness brings clarity.

In this episode, we're diving into the third sphere of leadership that most people ignore: how your emotions, your wiring, and your weaknesses are impacting the people you lead. Whether you realize it or not.

Since Daniel Goleman published his work on emotional intelligence, self-awareness has been everywhere. It's in every leadership book, every conference, every corporate training. But here's the irony: we're at an all-time high for talking about self-awareness and an all-time low for actually practicing it.

Why? Because we're too busy being others-aware. Always looking at what everyone else is doing. Always comparing. Always feeling behind.

This episode cuts through the noise and gives you three practical aspects of self-awareness that will change how you lead:

What You'll Learn:

• Why being "others-aware" is making you dangerously self-unaware—and how to fix it
• Social contagion: the psychological reality that your mood spreads to your team whether you want it to or not
• The space between stimulus and response—and why mastering this one thing prevents unnecessary blowups
• How to identify your emotional triggers before they derail your day (and a real story of how this saved a family evening)
• Why context determines the course: how your energy and encouragement levels shape every conversation
• Your assets vs. your liabilities: understanding what work energizes you and what work drains you
• Patrick Lencioni's Working Genius framework and why it's a game-changer for understanding your wiring
• The six types: geniuses, frustrations, and competencies—and how to identify yours
• Why it's not the amount of work burning you out, it's the type of work (and what to do about it)
• Drains and fills: how to design your days around what gives you energy
• Why some leaders love conferences and others absolutely hate them (it's all about wiring)
• How to build a team that complements your strengths and covers your weaknesses

Key Insight:

Most leaders think they're burned out because they're doing too much work. The reality? You're doing the wrong type of work for your wiring. If you spent eight hours a day doing spreadsheets when you're wired for ideation, you'd be burned out in weeks. If you're wired for details and you're forced to brainstorm all day, same result.

Self-awareness means knowing your drains and your fills—and designing your role around both.

The Three Aspects of Self-Awareness:

1. Emotions - How my emotions impact others
2. Assets - What energizes and fulfills me (my wiring, my geniuses)
3. Liabilities - What drains me (my frustrations, my weaknesses)

Reflection Questions:

1. What is one situation that brings you emotions that are unhealthy or unfair to the people around you?
2. What are a few assets or parts of your wiring that you need to be utilizing more in your role?
3. What are some liabilities you need to name to your team—and how can you do less of those things?

A self-aware leader can serve others well with full awareness of who they are and who they're not. This is identity work. You cannot be all things. You are not good at all things. And you cannot compare off somebody else's paper and expect to lead like them.

Resources Mentioned:

• Patrick Lencioni - The Six Types of Working Genius (book and assessment available at workinggenius.com)
• Right Side Up Journal - Coaching companion tool (available on Amazon)
• Daniel Goleman - Work on emotional intelligence

Want to go deeper?

We offer Working Genius training sessions for teams. If you're interested in bringing this framework to your organization, reach out to us at h2leadership.com.

For coaching, consulting, and resources to help you lead as a Healthy + High Impact leader, visit h2leadership.com.

Leadership is complex, but it doesn't have to be lonely. Let's get after it.