Presence Podcast - Episode 7: A Journey through Internal Awareness

In this episode, John and Ali explore the internal side of Self-Awareness, which is all about self-discovery and gaining an understanding of how our leadership behaviors are generated through our own individual brain wiring and responses to threats and uncertainty. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hey there, everyone, and welcome to the Presence Podcast. I'm John Miller, Executive Director of the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence, along with my co-host for the podcast, Allie Carson, founder and CEO of Move Air Coaching. Allie, always good to see you. How are things going? I'm fantastic, John. How are you? I'm doing good. Maybe not fantastic, but pretty good. And I am especially looking forward to this week's episode. As you might recall, we have spent the last three episodes of the podcast talking about how we can begin applying the principles of Aristotle's ethos as part of our journey to become leaders with pastice-based presence. Just as some context to remember, the idea of pasteise refers to the ancient Greek concept of the highest form of leadership, reaching toward full maturity as a leader, if you will. Leaders with pasteise were marked by commitment and faithfulness, integrity and service to a cause larger than themselves, as well as seeking wisdom, strong relationships, and collaboration. And Aristotle left us a blueprint for understanding and growing into pastice-based presence through his ideas of ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is about being and becoming the person we're called to be as a leader. It's about being the best leader we can be right now, in the moment, in our character and behaviors, and intentionally and proactively becoming an even better leader as we grow into the future. And every leader really needs to be developing what we're calling their ethos story. In these episodes four and five, we talked about the importance of human awareness, understanding what it means to be human, both the good stuff and the challenging stuff, as the necessary precursor to developing a full self-awareness. And in episode six, we began to make the shift from human awareness to an initial discussion about self-awareness. And of course, to catch up on everything, we invite you to head on over to the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence website at IOLP.net, click on podcast in the top menu portion, and listen and re-listen to any of our episodes at your pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Absolutely. And that's also where you will find the various resources that we've shared on some of these podcasts. So that's a great one to have bookmarked as well. So in our last episode, we introduced two types of self-awareness, internal and external. Internal self-awareness has to do with that self-discovery, which is what I learn and understand to be true about myself and whether I believe my attitudes, words, and behaviors are aligned with who I want to be. But this internal awareness really needs to go deeper than just understanding of behaviors. We need to gain an understanding of where those behaviors come from. Every behavior we display has its own origin story. In other words, it comes from somewhere. And if we only try to solve for the external behaviors and we don't take care of that origin story, we're likely to continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

That is so true.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

So this origin story is all about our six behavioral triggers that you may recall from a couple of episodes back. And the very unique hard and soft wiring that has occurred inside those behavioral triggers as a result of past and present experiences, with a little help along the way from the amygdala hijacks and our brain beast. And as we've learned, everyone has a default style, their go-to behavior that sets them up to deal with the world around them, because our brain loves shortcuts. And so we've set up these kinds of shortcuts for ourselves. Some of these behaviors are good and they serve as helpful templates for our leadership. Other parts of our style may not be so good or not as effective, where we could come off as cold or insensitive, stubborn or pouty with tendencies toward micromanaging, or its flip side, a totally hands-off approach to leading. It's in these hard and soft-wired places of our behavioral triggers, our beliefs and values, our emotional blueprint, our intellect, our communication style, our view of people and relationships, and our motives and motivation. It's within all of these where we should spend some time with internal self-awareness. As leaders and really as human beings, we should consider it as one of our top priorities to discover the real us, which is truly a lifelong journey. I don't think this is something we ever can check off the list and say, okay, we're done. We're always continuing to learn. There are all kinds of tools and frameworks out there that can help us with our internal self-awareness, ranging from developing a set of questions that we ask ourselves on a regular basis to gain self-awareness to some very sophisticated and in some cases complicated assessment tools. We're going to take some time to walk through a few helpful exercises and tools that can help get you in the mindset of seeking self-awareness. A couple of these are pretty basic, but that doesn't mean they're not insightful and helpful.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, that's right, Ellie. But before we dive into the tools themselves, I just want to urge anyone who's thinking about going down the internal self-awareness path to consider starting that journey with a coach. And I'm not saying that because Allie and I are both leadership coaches. It just makes sense because there's so much on the line for a leader, and the journey can be full of pitfalls and misunderstanding and even miscalculations. It can be very helpful to have that objective seeing this kind of situation before voice of experience to help you sift through all that data. Wouldn't you agree, Ali? Oh, absolutely. Everybody needs a coach, including us coaches. Well, that's true. Um, a coach is vital for a leader self-awareness journey because they provide a safe, unbiased partnership to uncover blind spots, bridge the gap between intent and impact, and build essential emotional intelligence. Coaches use assessments, structured reflection, and honest feedback to transform raw, sometimes even uncomfortable personal data into actionable growth strategies, fostering authenticity and better decision making. So it's totally up to you, but I would definitely consider a coach if at all possible. So I believe a really good place to start our self-awareness journey is by examining our values and beliefs, because as we've said before, they are really the gateway to the rest of the behavioral triggers and in fact our entire ethos story. As we said back in episode four, values and beliefs are similar, but not exactly the same. Values are those principles that show up in our behaviors. Beliefs are those fundamentals that we consider to be larger than our own life and deserve our commitment. The challenge is that many of our values and beliefs were formed long before we ever stepped into leadership, shaped by family culture, and early experiences. And if we've never examined them or challenged them, those early belief systems will subconsciously become our default go-to without us even taking stock of them or validating them. So let's start with values. Defining and articulating our core values is a foundational step in self-awareness, transforming what can often be vague subconscious principles into a conscious North Star that guides life decisions, behaviors, and emotional responses. When these values are left undefined, operating only as a gray mass in our subconscious psyche, individuals may experience a disconnect between their actions and their true self, leading to unhappiness, burnout, or a lack of direction. So, practically speaking, why does defining and articulating values matter? Well, first, clearly defined values allow for faster, more confident decisions, because they establish what is non-negotiable and they really create that compass for our behaviors. Second, when actions are aligned with articulated values, our brains allow us to experience higher self-esteem, reduced stress, and increased genuine contentment. Because we have made those values clear through articulation, the brain has some concrete messages to send to both our conscious and subconscious when we need them. Third, knowing the values that we care about most helps ground us during times of conflict or adversity. Again, because the brain has something tangible to work with when our default thinking and behaviors are trying to kick in. And articulating our values uncovers what brings meaning, moving beyond merely setting goals to understand why you care about reaching those goals. But again, uncovering these values requires transforming them from subconscious thoughts into articulated concepts through a structured reflection process. We start this process by identifying and analyzing our most fulfilling moments, those moments when we felt our happiest, most proud, our deeply fulfilled. And then asking ourselves, what values were present in those moments? Perhaps it was how you felt about a family member or a close friend. That speaks to the value of close relationships. Perhaps it was a moment when you felt like what you did on the job really hit the mark. That speaks to the value of contributing your highest and best skills. Perhaps it was a moment when you met the needs of another person or a group of people, the value of serving others. Thinking about those fulfilling moments may hold the key to understanding what your life needs to be about. Next, in addition to the fulfilling moments, we should also examine friction points. Sorry to be a party pooper. We need to analyze times when we felt frustrated, angry, or disappointed. Often these emotions reveal that a personal value has been violated. Perhaps you were disappointed when you failed to reach a goal that you had marked as important. That speaks to the value of bouncing back and being resilient. Perhaps you became angry when you lost a promotion to someone else at work. That experience teaches about the value of celebrating the good fortune of others and not thinking only about yourself. So both fulfilling times and those friction points help us to understand what our values truly are. Then there's an exercise called the non-negotiable test, which I find particularly valuable. This is where you identify the top three to five values that you are unwilling to compromise on, regardless of external pressure. This hits the brain from another direction, informing it that you have some values that you draw the line around. Once you've crafted a list of no compromise values that define who you are and who you want to be, then it's time to draft an actual personal value statement where you clearly articulate your most important values in writing, providing a succinct definition of what each value means to you. Identifying your personal values provides not only the how of life, but also the why. And once you've created this personal value statement, experts recommend reviewing these core principles at regular intervals, perhaps quarterly, to ensure that they still reflect your evolving true self. Again, knowing and articulating your core values can establish the compass that guides you through choosing the most effective behaviors, making the right decisions, and building a pastise-based presence that others can admire and follow. Now let's turn to our beliefs. Beliefs represent the trust and confidence we hold in what we perceive to be the truth, usually concerning the larger themes of life, and the faith that those truths will result in the best outcomes and success for those who hold those beliefs. These can be rational beliefs, scientific beliefs, or religious slash philosophical beliefs. Beliefs include concepts such as I believe in God and in the love of God, or I believe most people can be trusted, or I believe in helping those who are less fortunate than myself, or I believe that everyone needs to carry their own weight, or I believe in vaccines as the scientifically based antidotes to certain illnesses, or I would never allow my body to be invaded by a serum that some control freak developed in a laboratory. Some people require scientific proof for everything they believe. Some rely on faith in securing their beliefs, others believe in things based on the specific philosophy of a social media channel. But the question most relevant for our discussion in this moment is this What drives your beliefs as an organizational leader? Now, you might ask, what do you mean my beliefs as an organizational leader? I just try to do the best in each situation to make the right kinds of decisions as I go. Well, sorry, but that's not really possible. Your responses to those situations, whether you realize it or not, stem from beliefs that you have about your work, your leadership, and the people you're leading. It's just that those beliefs are either grounded and articulated, or they are not. And when they are not, that's when we're more inclined to go to default or wired beliefs. So with that in mind, here's a list of some questions you can think about and answer regarding your beliefs as a leader. Number one, what do you believe to be true about organizational employees and what they're looking for in a job, in an organization, and in a leader? What kind of value does each employee on your team represent? What are your beliefs about servant leadership? What are your beliefs about organizational change and your role in supporting and encouraging change? What is your belief about a leader's need to build trust and how do you think trust is earned? What do you believe about workplace diversity and why is it critical to embrace that diversity? What about emotional intelligence? And what are your beliefs about multi-generational teams? What are your beliefs about leaders as stewards of the organization? What do you believe are the implications of stewardship? What is your belief about the need for self-awareness and humility? What about soliciting feedback, admitting mistakes, and empowering others to lead? Do you believe that all employees, regardless of their role, deserve to be respected and valued as a human being and as someone whose rational ideas and thoughts should be heard? In what ways do you think your beliefs about each of these areas of leadership have been hard or soft wired? We could go on. For most of those questions, it's not good enough just to answer yes or no. But articulation of why and how for each of these and more questions is important. This can be a tough exercise, especially if you've never demanded your brain to come up with honest and specific answers about your leadership. But asking these kinds of questions is essential to true self-awareness for leaders in the 21st century. So articulating and examining personal values and beliefs is a basic yet valuable place to start with in becoming internally self-aware. And then once you finish there, it would be time to move beyond values and beliefs to the next of the six behavioral triggers, which is your emotional blueprint, and then across the spectrum of your behavioral triggers. In our presence program, we actually have our participants answer a battery of questions that contain all six behavioral triggers, as well as questions about their own personal wiring and their tendencies towards the amygdala hijack and questions about their brain beast as well. But suffice to say, Allie, it's just important that we get really curious about ourselves and about our values and about our beliefs so that we can push through that initial drive to become self-aware.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Absolutely. It really is so foundational to this work. And actually, I'm going to challenge our listeners. This would be a great time for you to rewind and actually take some time to pause and answer each of these questions as John is sharing them. Would be a great exercise to do. And that's where so many of the leaders and the clients that I work with kind of miss the boat because they don't slow down and take the time to actually articulate what their values and beliefs are. And to your point earlier, it's so foundational in driving so many other behaviors and how you show up. So encourage everyone to take some time to do that. Another basic yet extremely valuable way to gain self-awareness is to understand your personality and how it might both enhance or diminish your effectiveness as a leader. As we mentioned in episode four, personality is the observable outcome of the six behavioral triggers working together. Our personality is a dynamic blend of genetic predispositions and environmental influences that can be proactively shaped over time. And while core traits are relatively stable, research confirms that personality is malleable, allowing individuals to intentionally change behaviors, habits, and mindsets to foster long-term self-directed change. It's not necessarily easy change, but it is possible change.

unknown 19:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

So being self-aware of your personality is crucial because it acts as that foundation for emotional intelligence, improved decision making, and personal growth. Understanding your personality's strengths and weaknesses allows you to manage behaviors, strengthen relationships, improve communication, and align your life with your core values for greater happiness. So there's a lot of work that you can do with this understanding. One of the most popular and effective ways of looking at your personality is by using the Big Five framework. The Big Five Personality Framework is a scientifically validated, widely recognized model that classifies human personality into five broad, independent dimensions: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism, which in some usage is redefined as emotionality. It provides a comprehensive map of our personality, measured by high to low spectrum scores, that helps explain how individuals think, feel, and behave. The original five core traits spell the word ocean, making it easy to remember. And here we're going to run through a brief explanation of each of those core traits. So starting with openness to experience, which is often simply called openness, which measures a person's level of creativity, curiosity, and willingness to engage with new ideas, experiences, and unconventional thinking. It sits on a spectrum ranging from being imaginative and adventurous in your thinking and in your life choices to being more conventional and routine-oriented. Some might even say boring, right? That's kind of the continuum that goes on. No personal attacks, right? The second of these traits is conscientiousness, which reflects a person's tendency to be organized, responsible, hardworking, and goal-directed at the higher end of the spectrum, or more spontaneous, easygoing, and laid back on the lower end of the spectrum. Extroversion, which seems to pop up on a lot of personality assessments, measures how a person gains energy, interacts with the world, and manages social stimulation. High extroversion scores indicate someone who is outgoing, energetic, and talkative, who recharges by being around people a little bit more like me. Those with lower extroversion tendencies, or introversion is often what it's called, tend to be more reserved, more reflective, and draw energy from solitude, much more like John.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Well, I don't have much to say about that.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Agreeableness represents a person's tendency to be cooperative, compassionate, polite, and considerate of others, as opposed to someone who tends to argue or find holes in other people's arguments. Those are people who might feel more comfortable in individual work settings and kind of lone wolf decision making versus a cooperative setting. And finally, neuroticism, which is associated with that. Go-to use of emotion. So people who are high in neuroticism tend to experience negative emotions like fear, anger, shame, envy, or depression more often and more intensely than those who score lower in this area. This is sometimes referred to as emotionalism because neuroticism is often associated as a mental illness. And so we want to make that separation there.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah, you know, that is true because, you know, I've worked with this on people and they say, Do you think I'm really neurotic? And, you know, that uh they get kind of confused by that.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah, it can have a little bit of a stigma to it that I think can create a barrier to understanding what the assessment's really trying to tell them, right? Right. Yep. So when we talk about assessments and dimensions of scores for personality, we almost always run into the question of use and overuse of personality traits. As we've discussed before with our brain beast model, where the T of the acronym stands for trait use or underuse, this use or underuse can be a danger sign in behavior under stress. It's not uncommon to experience both overuse, so very high scores, and underuse or very low scores of traits within the big five personality framework. These extreme positions at either end can sometimes lead to negative outcomes. Overuse or underuse of these traits serve as a critical point of self-awareness for a leader. Psychologists often refer to the golden mean of personality traits, where optimal function would perhaps appear somewhere in the middle and would involve expressing the right degree of a trait for the specific situation. So, for example, overuse of openness could lead to developing impractical ideas or being too unconventional, sometimes struggling to ground your ideas in reality, while underuse might be associated with being too rigid or dogmatic, resistant to change, or having a narrow range of interest. The golden me in this case, then, might mean really open to and encouraging new ideas while also ensuring that those ideas remain practical and within reach, kind of finding that happy medium. Overuse of conscientiousness could lead to being a workaholic or having perfectionistic tendencies, rigidity, inability to adapt to change, and sometimes even burnout. Underuse, on the other hand, can be associated with carelessness or unreliability, procrastination, or a lack of goal-directed behavior. The golden mean in that situation would put someone in a place where they care about quality, safety, and getting things right without holding up a project or a process until it has reached 0.9999999 quality in every situation, right? It's again that happy medium. So you can kind of get the idea here. That golden mean keeps us grounded in a reality-based approach without going to the extremes.

SPEAKER_00 24:53

And by the way, Ali, just for the record, Aristotle was the first to come up with the golden mean methodology about 2400 years ago. Uh so the rest, the rest of us are just late followers. Uh, just wanted to let you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me at all.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Yeah. Uh the Big Five Ocean Framework is popular because it really is more instinctive and easy to understand than most models out there. And there is a ready-made scientifically backed assessment to go with it that's easy to track for self-discovery purposes. The test takes roughly about five to seven minutes to complete, and it's normally available free online. And the reports are very easy to understand as well, and again, are somewhat instinctive in mapping results to behaviors. Speaking of mapping, the big five personality traits can also be mapped directly to the six behavioral triggers by aligning the stable inherent tendencies of the big five with the psychological and functional drivers of behavior. Here's just a couple of examples. A healthy emotional blueprint, one of these six behavioral triggers, would most likely map to lower neuroticism and higher agreeableness scores. A higher intellect would most likely map to higher openness scores, as it defines a cognitive style characterized by intellectual curiosity, imagination, and a preference for abstract thinking rather than just practical knowledge. An active intellect would also probably map to higher conscientiousness scores reflected by discipline learning, organization, and focus. And you can go down the list of behavioral triggers and see clear connections to the big five. What this means is that we can look at our big five personality assessment results and figure out how to make adjustments in our behavioral triggers that will allow us to create more effectiveness in our overuse and underuse tendencies. That's the kind of self-awareness connections we're looking for. And there are plenty of other assessment tools that can help us in our self-awareness journey. Let's say that we wanted to gauge our tendencies towards behaviors associated with the brain beast. Well, to understand our potential biases, we can use the implicit association test or the IAT. For additional data on our emotional blueprint, we can use the emotional regulation questionnaire or the ERQ. To better understand our tendencies to jump to assumptions, there's the Watson Glazer assessment, which really is a good assessment. To measure our tendency towards self-deflation or self-inflation, there's the state self-esteem scale. And for trait underuse and overuse, we can use a tool called the VIA Total 250 or the Thomas Killman assessment, which was quite popular in the late 1990s. As part of our work with leaders in the presence program, we put participants through a battery of assessments over the year-long span of the program, spacing them out over four quarters so that our learners don't get assessment fatigue, which by the way is a real thing. Again, I want to emphasize that pairing personality self-assessments with solid coaching is an exceptionally effective way to practice internal self-awareness. This combination accelerates self-reflection by revealing hidden strengths, blind spots, and behavioral patterns while providing a safe, structured space to process these insights and turn them into actionable growth.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Absolutely. You might even consider reading and journaling as pathways to internal self-awareness. For example, reading the biographies of successful and failed leaders offers a quote-unquote safe way to study mistakes, emotional reactions, and decision-making processes, which can help leaders identify similar traits in themselves. Engaging in diverse nonfiction reading also exposes leaders to new mental models, broadening their perspectives on leadership, psychology, and management. Journaling also regularly helps us track important learnings from the situations and events in our lives, whether it's a daily thing you do, less regular, it's a really fantastic way of getting the things out of your head and into the paper where you can come back and look at them later through a fresh lens. I agree. By combining these different external indicators with internal reflection, leaders can move beyond just knowing their feelings to understanding their behavioral patterns and the impact that those patterns have, ultimately fostering resident leadership.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So internal awareness is a crucial lifelong process of uncovering personal values, beliefs, wiring, and stress responses to boost self-awareness. Regular intentional awareness opportunities lead to better decisions, stronger relationships, and increased sustainable happiness and success. But the bottom line is that we must have an open mind and an open heart to be willing to listen to and accept that incoming data that tells us things that we probably would rather not know. And at the same time, we have to be able to distill our emotions in the moment of feedback and then seek clarity through reliable sources. That's the way to true growth. So, Allie, in our next episode, we'll turn our attention to external self-awareness, which of course brings in the added complication of bringing other voices into our awareness process, a dynamic that can be extremely helpful and at times extremely tricky.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Yes, and another time where it's a great opportunity to engage a coach. So that will be an interesting conversation to say the least.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yep, very true. So, Allie, for all those leaders out there being called to check out Move Air Coaching as a result of our conversations today, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 31:04

They can find us at www.moveaircoaching.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn and Instagram at MoveAir Coaching.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Sounds good. And thanks once again to all of you for tuning in. We appreciate your support. And please tell your friends and colleagues whom you think might benefit from the Presence Podcast. And for more information on the Presence Leadership Program or just to reach out and chat, please head over to the Institute for Optimal Leadership Presence website at iolp.net. And we'll see you again for episode eight of the Presence Podcast. Until then, take care of yourself and be well.