I recently discovered a blind spot in my leadership I didn’t know I was missing. Here’s how I discovered it.
I had an ordinary conversation with a family member. In the moment, I thought the conversation went fine. Weeks later, she told me I had shut her down, a moment I didn’t even remember happening, and never meant to cause.
Looking back, I realized that I lacked self-awareness in that moment. Not, in general. In that moment. After 30 years of studying and practicing leadership, I realized that self-awareness isn’t something you earn once.
It’s a daily practice, and it decides whether your influence on the people around you makes them stronger, or heavier, moment by moment.
My story also points to another truth. Most people won’t tell you when your influence has weighed them down. They’ll just quietly carry it and remember it.
My story resonates if any of these describe you:
✔️ You’re a leader who wants to understand how self-awareness shapes the influence you have on others
✔️ You have ever misjudged how a conversation landed with someone you care about
✔️ You’re leading people through AI adoption or other organizational change
✔️ You’re navigating a personal transition, a move, a loss, a career change, and you’re also trying to lead others through it
Five Key Points
1. Self-awareness is a daily practice, not a certificate you earn once.
I’ve spent more than 30 years studying leadership and talked to hundreds of guests about it on my Life Fulfilled podcast, yet I still missed the moment my own words closed a door on a beloved family member. Self-awareness has to be practiced daily, in every room, with everyone, because it is easy to lose track of.
2. Leadership is influence, not a title.
If you have ever influenced another person, at work, at home, or in your community, you have led, whether or not you carry a formal title. My core claim: everyone carries that responsibility, whether they want it or not.
3. The most ineffective leaders never learned to lead themselves.
Before you can lead anyone else well, I argue that you have to know how you show up and how that shows up in the people around you. The starting line for every leader, in my view, is self-leadership through self-awareness.
4. Change reveals whether your influence builds trust or fear.
I outline four moves for leading through change, at work or at home: reduce fear, create clarity, preserve meaning, and build adaptability. I developed these to help leaders drive AI adoption, but they apply to any change people are living through, a merger, a move, a loss.
5. Most people won’t tell you when your influence made them feel heavier.
My family member did, and I call that a gift most people never receive. My challenge to you is to ask the question yourself, in every conversation, starting today. Does your influence make people stronger, or does it make them heavier?
Main Takeaway
What I thought was an ordinary conversation with a family member, became the entry point into the realization that self-awareness, and the influence it gives you, or costs you, with the people around you is the basis for leadership.
This realization also made me aware that my Fulfillment Centric Leadership™ program extends beyond its original audience of managers and executives. I realized I can’t separate the person who leads a team meeting at work from the person who shows up at the kitchen table. Leadership, in my framework, is defined as influence: anyone who has ever shaped another person’s experience has led, whether they hold a title or not, and the starting point for leading others well is learning to lead yourself.
This reality has a particularly profound impact on those leading through the widespread adoption of AI in the workplace, which is arguably the most common change that leaders are navigating right now. Those same four moves for building trust apply through any kind of change, professional or personal: reduce fear, create clarity, preserve meaning, and build adaptability.
Self-leadership is grounded in self-awareness. I built a process to help anyone navigate this journey. I call it the 90-Day Blueprint. It’s a tool for turning one of the five life pillars; health, fitness, career, relationships, or legacy, into three small, keepable moves. I created this tool with built-in friction proofing to withstand life’s distractions.
Grab your copy of the blueprint here.
