Professor Doug Blaze
Dean Emeritus, Art Stolnitz and Elvin E. Overton Distinguished Professor of Law, and Director of the Institute for Professional Leadership

Self-awareness is one of the key skills behind effective leadership. I want to share two thoughts about how to enhance self-awareness.

First, know and play to your strengths. When we were young we were often told to work to develop and overcome our weakness. Research, however, shows that focusing on and utilizing our signature strengths can make us far more effective in dealing with life and leadership challenges. The first step, of course, is to determine our signature strengths. One of the best strength assessments – and its free – can be found at https://www.viacharacter.org/www/ . If you have not visited the site, I encourage you to do so.

Second, we all need to regularly stop, assess, and refocus. We need to make sure we are heading down a path of our choosing, consistent with our values and sense of purpose. Our own Brad Morgan has just given a TED Talk on that very subject. Check out his video via our Leadership Content page.