Page 205 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

194 HBR Leader’s Handbook

Questions to Consider: Knowing Yourself

We conclude this section with summary questions that you can use—either for your-
self or to guide a third-party assessment of your work—to help you better under-
stand who you are as a leader and thus surface critical implications for your future

development.
■ Consider some specific leaders you admire. What purpose, values, and
aspirations do they seem to have? Which do you have too? What are the dif-
ferences between theirs and yours? Why?

■ Reflect on a few of your career setbacks. What did you learn from the expe-
rience? Did you grow and improve from it? Why or why not?

■ If you asked key stakeholders about your leadership style, what would they
say you should do more of to be more effective? What should you do less
of? What should you keep doing the same?

■ Describe your authentic self? Are there aspects at odds with where you
want to go in the future? Why?

■ What knowledge and skills are most critical to your job today? Why? How
would key stakeholders—colleagues, partners, customers, employees, and
board members—assess your abilities in those? What would they say are
your real strengths and biggest gaps?

■ When you ask for feedback about yourself, how ready are you to hear
something negative? How could you improve any defensive reactions?

Growing yourself

You have now examined who you are and what you’re good at and not so
good at as a leader; the next step is to think about how to keep improving.
New skills and complex bodies of knowledge can be difficult to mas-
ter, but the first challenge for you is to take the time to intentionally work
on self-improvement. Many leaders brush aside learning opportunities