Why Self-Awareness is misunderstood.

In leadership and coach development, in assessment centres and in competency frameworks the term self-awareness is frequently used, and personally I know it is a competency that I have strived to develop.  It has become a popular ‘buzz’ word in management and leadership publications, with claims that it is linked to increased performance, emotional intelligence and effective leadership; and it is often perceived to be a critical component in leadership and career success.  This led me to assume that it was well defined and so when I started my research I was surprised to find that was not the case.  Instead, it is a term that has multiple connotations, meanings and is frequently confused with other terms about self-e.g. self-knowledge and self-consciousness.  Therefore, is it any wonder that it is misunderstood?

Whilst we may be able to offer a broad statement on what we think it is or what it means to us getting granular on the components takes some deeper thinking.  Understanding what it is and how it differs from self-knowledge and self-consciousness is complicated by the fact that the individual elements of ‘self’ and ‘awareness’ have a multiplicity of definitions.

My research revealed that self-awareness is multi-layered and made up of several components, which can be divided into intra- and inter-personal elements.  The inter-personal elements comprise of those which can be observed by another person and include perception of others and behaviours.  This of course means we need to attain feedback from others when we are developing self-awareness.  This is fraught with difficulty as we tend to ‘filter out’ what we may not want to see or hear, so this means that developing self-awareness and knowing that one has developed it accurately is a real challenge.  The intra-personal elements include beliefs and values, internal mental state, physiological responses, strengths and weaknesses, motivations and needs.

It is ever-evolving it and developing it is a dynamic process where we are continually developing it – i.e. an infinite game.

In terms of differentiating self-awareness from self-consciousness and self-knowledge, it was identified that self-consciousness is the intra-personal part of self-awareness, whereas self-knowledge is the output of self-awareness i.e., self -awareness gives us self-knowledge of our biases, prejudices, responses, needs and wants.

This is explored in greater depth and detail in my book “You Are Not As Self-Aware As You Think You Are” – out on 21 October 2025.