The best leaders I know have one thing in common. None of them believe they’ve finished learning.
Titles, promotions, experience, and years in leadership may bring you authority or may bring you power (two very different things). But the leaders who continue to inspire other people are the ones who remain curious and strive to keep learning long after they become leaders themselves.
That journey begins with self-awareness in leadership and the confidence to be able to admit that while they do have value, they don’t know everything. Not all leaders have that humility and confidence. The good ones do.
Self-awareness is the ability to have a good understanding of your strengths, a reasonable awareness of what you don’t know… and even better, a very good understanding of what you don’t want to know (we can’t all be experts at everything). Self-awareness also includes having a strong sense of how your actions affect others. With all of that firmly in sight, we are then empowered to decide (to choose), how we want to grow.
The unfortunate reality is that some leaders stop investing in themselves. I do believe this is mostly unintentional. Their calendars become full. Their responsibilities increase. Meetings multiply. Before long learning becomes something they expect from their teams instead of themselves. That said, I do find this is happening less with the younger generations.
Yet leadership has never changed this simple truth: You cannot expect your team to grow faster than you are willing to grow yourself. That doesn’t mean you always study the same things – sometimes that happens but not always.
Growth Is a Choice
Every one of us owns and is responsible for our personal and professional development, the same way you and I are responsible for our careers. I learned this early in my career when I worked in corporate banking. At the beginning I didn’t realize I was ‘allowed’ to look for outside training – but when I did realize, I took full advantage.
Sure, sometimes your leader or HR will assign training for you. But if you have an interest or a need, it is at least equally, and often mostly your responsibility to identify and write a business case to try to get your company to pay for the training.
Some of the most successful leaders I’ve worked with didn’t wait for permission to learn. And this is especially true when they were junior employees. They did — and still do — look for opportunities wherever they can. For example, they:
- Read books.
- Listen to podcasts or books during their commute.
- Look for coaching and mentors – maybe even multiples of each.
- Stay curious and ask thoughtful questions.
- Join associations — and volunteer at associations.
- Ask for feedback — and equally importantly, they act on it.
- Get approval to attend conferences.
- Volunteer at the conference if they can’t get financial approval.
And in today’s world, AI can even become a learning partner helping us explore ideas, challenge our thinking, summarize research, or prepare for difficult conversations.
The important thing is that successful people don’t see growth as an event, they know it’s a habit.
The Questions That Matter
When it comes to being self-aware in leadership you have to start questioning what you do, what you think, and why you believe certain things. For example, do you believe in XYZ because that is how you were raised, or have you actually thought through what that means? Where did the idea originate, how has the idea evolved over time and how does your belief impact your life? All of the questions so far are just an extension of learning. There is more…
The people who have achieved a high level of self-awareness often practice some or all the following habits and practices. They:
- Listen more than they talk.
- Ask for feedback.
- Seriously examine and debate their own values and beliefs.
- Examine where they act on autopilot… and ask why?
- Notice when they consistently struggle or are misunderstood.
- Embrace what they are curious about.
Self-awareness isn’t about becoming critical of yourself. It’s about becoming intentional with yourself.
These questions don’t expose weakness. They reveal opportunity because every question you answer, every decision you make, every culture you build, and every person you influence begins with one question: “Am I growing into the leader I can be and that my team deserves?”
The moment we stop asking that question is often the moment our leadership begins to plateau.
Conclusion: Leadership Is an Ongoing Journey of Self-Awareness
The best leaders aren’t those who know the most. They’re the ones who humbly continue discovering what they don’t yet know and then do something about it.
Every day offers another chance to become a little more patient, curious, courageous, intentional, and kind — to yourself and others.
Leadership isn’t defined by reaching a destination where you finally know enough. It’s defined by choosing to never stop learning.
There isn’t one right path. There are simply leaders who choose to keep walking.
BONUS
One of the biggest misconceptions about professional development is that it requires large commitments of time and money.
Leadership often changes through very small but very intentional decisions you and I make every day.
Do one thing different, read one short chapter, listen to one 10-minute podcast. Instead of losing an hour watching Reels, watch them for 50 minutes.
Ask yourself: “What’s one thing I could do differently that interests me and that would likely help me be more successful?”