obiols@coachingbcn.com | +34 610 451 619
Self-awareness, feedback, and authentic leadership
That moment when someone discovers that the image they have of themselves doesn’t match the image others have of them is one of the most uncomfortable experiences in coaching.
And also one of the most valuable.
Because there’s something many executives find difficult to accept: you don’t lead based on who you think you are. You lead based on how others perceive you. Your team doesn’t have access to your intentions, only to your actions, your tone, and your silences.
The problem is that the more responsibility you take on, the harder it becomes to see yourself clearly. In this article, I want to talk to you about the mirror every leader needs: why it gets foggy, what distorts it, and how you can begin to clear it.
The higher you climb, the foggier the mirror becomes
When you were part of the team, information reached you unfiltered. A colleague would tell you that a meeting had been a disaster, someone would let you know that your email hadn’t gone over well, and you would adjust as you went.
With every step up in responsibility, that flow changes. Not because people stop having opinions, but because they stop sharing them with you. The reasons are understandable:
Power carries weight. Your decisions affect performance reviews, projects, and opportunities. Telling you something uncomfortable comes at a cost that not everyone is willing to pay.
Fear of your reaction. If you’ve ever responded defensively to criticism, your team remembers. And they learn.
People-pleasing. The higher you climb, the more people tell you what they think you want to hear, sometimes without even realizing it.
Limited availability. You’re not always easy to reach. You’re busy with multiple priorities, leaving little time for meaningful conversations.
The result is paradoxical: the person who most needs honest information about their impact is the one who receives the least. And when few people—and sometimes no one—tell you what you need to know, it’s easy to conclude that everything is going well.
Your team’s silence doesn’t necessarily mean agreement. Often, it means caution.
What you see and what others see
There’s a classic model I often use to explain this: the Johari Window, developed by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham. It divides what we know about ourselves into four areas:
Open area: what you know about yourself and others can see, too.
Hidden area: what you know about yourself but don’t reveal.
Blind area: what others see in you that you don’t see yourself.
Unknown area: what no one has discovered yet, neither you nor others.
For a leader, the most important area is the blind area. This is where the habits your team discusses among themselves—but you’re unaware of—live: the way you interrupt, the expression on your face when you dislike something, or the urgency in your late-night emails.
Self-awareness isn’t enough; we need other people’s perspectives to discover who we really are.
Intention versus impact
The blind spot often comes down to the gap between what you intend and the impact you have. Here are some examples I frequently see:
| What the leader intends | What the team experiences |
|---|---|
|
Being demanding |
That nothing is ever good enough |
|
Being available |
Not leaving room for others to make decisions |
|
Running efficient meetings |
That there’s no room to voice doubts aloud |
|
Protecting the team from pressure |
That they’re not being told what’s going on |
None of these intentions is bad. The problem is that your team doesn’t respond to your intentions; they respond to your impact. And if you don’t understand your impact, you can’t adjust it.
The three mirrors that distort a leader’s image
Having a mirror isn’t enough. The type of mirror you use matters, too. In the coaching processes I work with, three mirrors come up that distort the image in very different ways.
1. The mirror of complacency
It only reflects what you do well. This is the mirror of someone who has been delivering strong results for years and has stopped asking themselves how they achieve them. Every success confirms that their leadership style works, and every problem is explained by external factors: the market, the organizational structure, or the team.
The warning sign: you struggle to remember the last time you changed something about the way you lead because someone pointed it out to you.
2. The mirror of self-criticism
It’s the opposite, and far more common than you might think among executives. It only reflects what’s wrong. Someone who looks in this mirror can receive ten positive comments and spend the rest of the day dwelling on the one critical remark. One observation: I tend to see this more often in women executives than in men. I’ll leave it at that…
It may look like humility, but it’s also a distorted image. And it comes at a cost: a leader who doesn’t recognize their strengths doesn’t know how to draw on them and often expects their team to meet the same standards of perfection they demand of themselves.
3. The mirror of results
This is the most deceptive one because it appears objective. The reasoning is simple: if the numbers look good, I must be leading well.
But results measure what has been achieved, not how it was achieved or at what cost. A team can meet its targets while accumulating stress and exhaustion, losing talent, or stopping the flow of new ideas. The dashboard doesn’t capture any of this until it’s too late.
All three mirrors have something in common: they let you look at yourself without having to ask anyone else. And that’s precisely why they fall short.
Asking for feedback (and being ready to hear the answer)
If your blind spot is what others see but you don’t, there’s only one way to reduce it: ask. But asking for feedback is harder than it sounds, and most leaders do it in a way that guarantees they won’t get anything useful.
How to ask for it
“How am I doing?” is a question that almost always gets the same answer: “Fine.” It’s too broad and too risky for the person answering. A specific question focused on a behavior and a particular situation works much better:
“What could I have done differently in yesterday’s meeting to encourage more participation?”
“If you had to point out one thing about the way I communicate that makes your job harder, what would it be?”
“Is there anything you hold back from telling me because you’re not sure how I’ll react?”
Timing matters, too. Asking during a team meeting is not the same as asking in a calm, one-on-one conversation where you create a safe environment.
How to receive it
This is where it’s decided whether people will give you feedback again. The natural reaction to criticism is to explain, justify, or qualify. But every time you do, the person who dared to speak up learns that it isn’t worth it.
Three simple guidelines:
Listen until they finish without interrupting or preparing your defense while the other person is speaking.
Ask questions to understand, not to argue back: “Can you give me an example?” “How did that affect you?”
Say thank you, even if you disagree. Saying thank you doesn’t mean agreeing; it means recognizing the value of someone being willing to tell you.
How to close the loop
This is the step almost everyone forgets. A few weeks later, go back to that person and tell them what you’ve done with their feedback. Even if it’s just a small change. It’s the most effective way to show your team that telling you the truth makes a difference.
Authentic leadership isn’t about saying “that’s just who I am”
In recent years, authentic leadership has become a widely used term. And with it has come a misunderstanding: confusing authenticity with not having to change.
“That’s just how I am. I’m direct.” “I don’t like sugarcoating things.” “People who know me already know what I’m like.” These are phrases I hear often, and they almost always serve as a shield. They turn a personal trait into an untouchable identity and shift the responsibility for adapting onto the team.
Authenticity, properly understood, is something else. It’s consistency between what you value, what you say, and what you do. And you can’t assess that consistency from the inside. You may believe you value your team’s autonomy while, at the same time, reviewing every decision they make. Only someone observing you can point out that contradiction.
That’s why self-awareness and authentic leadership go hand in hand. You’re not more authentic simply by showing yourself as you are, but by understanding who you really are—including the parts you can’t see—and consciously deciding what you want to preserve and what you want to change.
Being authentic doesn’t exempt you from evolving. It commits you to doing so in a way that stays true to your values.
An exercise for this week: three people, one question
Reading about self-awareness won’t change anything unless you put it into action. Here’s a simple exercise you can try over the next few days:
Choose three people who see you lead from different perspectives. For example, someone on your team, a peer at your level, and someone you report to.
Ask them the same question in a one-on-one conversation: “What’s one thing I do that helps you do your job well, and one thing I do that makes it harder?”
Listen without defending yourself and say thank you, whatever their answer.
Write down what surprised you. Not what you already knew, but what you didn’t expect. That’s where your blind spot lies.
Choose just one thing to work on over the next month, then go back to those people and tell them what you’re doing about it.
If two out of the three give you the same answer, it’s probably not an isolated opinion. It’s a pattern.
A clear mirror
Learning to see yourself isn’t an exercise in vanity or self-criticism. It’s a prerequisite for guiding others. Because you can’t lead anyone to a better place if you don’t know exactly where you’re starting from.
The more responsibility you have, the more you need a mirror free from conflicting interests: someone who reflects what they see with respect, without fear or people-pleasing. That’s a big part of the work we do in a coaching process.
And I’ll leave you with a question: if your team could describe your leadership style with complete honesty, would their description match the one you would give yourself?
If the answer leaves you uncertain, perhaps it’s a good time to take a closer look at yourself. If you’d like some support along the way, you can email me at obiols@coachingbcn.com and we can talk.
Coach, Author and Trainer in
Coaching, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership
Coaching, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership