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EP 82 // Cultivating Self-Awareness

Ep 82

Pausing and reflecting is something all leaders should prioritize. That's why Akua is using today's episode as a recap of the last several weeks as she's talked about the first step in her leadership framework: cultivating self-awareness. Learn to understand better your strengths, weaknesses, interests, and preferences so you can be the most impactful leader possible.  

Founders, leaders, and managers will benefit from listening to all the episodes around self-awareness, but If you don't have time to go back, this is where you can catch up and be ready to move on to Akua's second step in her leadership framework: simplifying engagement.

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What's Covered in this Episode About Leadership Skills

  • Your relationship with time and productivity really starts with your emotions and your feelings.
  • Creating boundaries around your time ensures your stakeholders can best utilize you. 
  • There is a common misconception that personalities are static - which is why Akua likes to think of personalities as an Operating System that evolves over time and needs periodic updating.
  • It's important that leaders communicate their way of operating (personality) to others. Here Akua refers to SOPs, also known as a "me manual".
  • To be an effective leader, leverage the four pillars of influence: power, emotions, acumen, and nonverbal signs or signals.

Quotes from this Episode of Open Door Conversations

  • "Where leaders spend their time is a true indicator of what is truly valued." - Akua Nyame-Mensah
  • "We should not use our personalities as an excuse. And I think a common misconception is that personalities are static. That's why I actually prefer thinking about my personality as an operating system that can evolve over time." - Akua Nyame-Mensah
  • "It's not just about performing. It's not just about getting results. It's not just about having people like you or even fear you for your leadership to be sustainable to build followership to achieve your goals. It's important you start with cultivating your self awareness." - Akua Nyame-Mensah

If you've enjoyed the Open Door Conversations podcast, please leave a review. When you do, you'll receive Akua's 15-minute Thought Leadership LinkedIn Checklist.* It's the routine she has used to build social wealth and relationships on LinkedIn that have directly contributed to her ability to impact so many leaders around the world.

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Get to Know the Host of the Open Door Conversations Podcast

Learn more about your host, Akua Nyame-Mensah.

Akua is a certified executive and leadership coach, recognized learning and organizational development facilitator, speaker, and former startup executive. 

Since 2018, she has had the opportunity to partner with amazing organizations, from high-growth startups to multinational brands all around the world, to maximize people, performance, and profit.  Outside of her coaching and corporate speaking engagements, she is a regular mentor, coach, and judge for various entrepreneurship-focused organizations.

Stay in touch with Akua Nyame-Mensah, Leadership & Culture Advisor:

  • Read about Akua’s services if you’d like to learn more about how you can hire her to help you strengthen your organization’s culture.

  • Complete her contact form to jump on a call.

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Here’s the transcript for episode 82 about Cultivating Self Awareness

NOTE: Please excuse any errors in this transcript; it was created using an AI tool. Akua Nyame-Mensah 00:00 It's not just about performing. It's not just about getting results. It's not just about having people like you or even fear you for your leadership to be sustainable to build followership to achieve your goals. It's important you start with cultivating your self awareness. And in this week's episode, I wanted to do a quick recap of all the episodes we covered related to getting a better understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, interests, preferences, and leadership style. Hello, and welcome to the open door conversations podcast. My name is a Korea yami Mensa I also respond to Aqua and Akua. I'm a certified executive and leadership coach recognised learning and organisational development facilitator, speaker and former startup executive. And I am so excited because this year I'm celebrating five years of working for myself five years of supporting leaders. And I am so grateful because I've had the opportunity to partner with amazing organisations, from hydro startups to multinational brands all around the world. In 2022. Alone, I serve over 600 Yes, over 600 leaders around the world and in this podcast, you will have the opportunity to learn my three step leadership framework. I actually break it down in Episode 71. I use this framework with my high achieving and entrepreneurial minded clients that are juggling a million responsibilities so they can easily build wealth. This three step framework is going to teach you how to leverage your innate personality to learn how to prioritise and maximise not just your time, but also your money. You don't have to work harder or turn into someone else. To get more done. Let's tune into this week's episode. Hello, and welcome back to the open door conversations podcast. Rather than just jumping to the next set of episodes all about simplifying engagement, I thought it made sense to pause and reflect something that all conscious leaders need to learn to do. And that's also a great space to build self awareness. I thought let's start off with talking about these episodes and starting to build a routine and habit around keeping track of your premises and style. So in today's episode, I thought I would walk through the top three episodes in this first part of this series. These are going to be some key points you should consider as a conscious leader. The first episode I want to share and I think is incredibly important to thinking about cultivating your self awareness is understanding your relationship with time. So that is episode number 76 Time awareness. The second episode, I think that is critical to be able to cultivate your self awareness is episode number 75. rebooting your operating system. The last episode I recommend that you take a listen to within this series around cultivating your self awareness is episode number 79 leadership is influence now I'd like to talk about each one of these episodes and go over a quick summary. In case you don't have the time and energy and you're looking forward to jumping towards listening to my simplifying engagement focused episodes. Those episodes are coming next. So with episode number 76 Time awareness, I find this is an important place to start. why many of my clients talk about feeling stressed, busy and short on time, not creating time or even honouring time to reflect and cultivate your self awareness makes it difficult to be an effective and conscious leader. In this episode, I walk through how knowing your personality is incomplete unless you understand your relationship with time. Another thing I share is that where leaders spend their time is a true indicator of what is truly valued. And because everyone is different, everyone will prioritise their time differently. I also share a valuable list of questions you can ask yourself about your own personality and how it relates to time management and productivity. And a key thing here and if you've been listening to my episodes for a while you probably know this. But a key thing here is that your relationship to time and productivity really starts with your emotions and your feelings. The last thing I share in this episode that I think is important to mention is that I share how you can start to create boundaries around your time to make sure your stakeholders can best utilise you. But it's important that you communicate those expectations, and that you get comfortable letting some people down, that's bound to happen when you start to really think about your relationship with time. The second episode is episode number 75. And this is really where I start to talk about the importance of taking the time to become aware of your personality, and how you're perceived. So episode number 75, is reboot your operating system. I think this episode is so so important. And that's why I wanted to make sure it's included in the summary episode. In this particular podcast episode, we talk about how we should not use our personalities as an excuse. And I think a common misconception is that personalities are static. That's why I actually prefer thinking about my personality as an operating system that can evolve over time. In this episode, I share key questions that conscious leaders should ask themselves to make sure that they remain influential and effective while engaging their team to make meaningful connections. But it really starts with you recognising that you have the capacity to expand, you have the ability to shift and change and that you're open to try new things. I also talk about how knowing your personality is important and recognising that your personality will shift and change depending on the context. And situation, it's essential that you take the time to learn how your team members perceive you. And a great way to do that is by getting their feedback. And if you're looking for a way to accelerate your awareness and gain potentially a new vocabulary or a new way of thinking about how you might be showing up an assessment can be helpful for that. Another thing I introduced within this episode, and I talk a bit more about this particular tool or resource within several episodes is the importance of developing a standard operating procedure for your personality. This also might be known as a meme manual. There's so many different ways in which we talk about this within the leadership or the learning and development space. But it's a great way for you to not only reflect but to share with others on how to best utilise your strengths and the things they might need to be aware of to make sure you're not triggered. And to make sure you can show up best. It's sort of like instructions, but you have to share those instructions explicitly with others. Long story short, we have to teach others how to treat us. And as a leader, it's your job to model that for others. Because as you start to share that with others, others will reciprocate and share what you need to know about them so that everyone can be successful. Let's talk about the last episode I think is crucial or key to this first part of my series. That is episode number 79. leadership is influence. I feel like the title says it all whether you work with two people or 2000 people influence is a key leadership skill. In this episode, I dive into the four pillars of influence that is power, emotions, acumen and nonverbal signs or signals. I talk about each pillar and I share some ideas that you can use to improve each pillar to take your leadership skills to the next level. This episode is really key because I think it really brings together a lot of the episodes that I share, whether it's around being the message, communicating, reflecting on your bias, all of these elements are going to have an impact on whether or not you're able to influence ultimately, whether or not you're able to lead. Some of the key takeaways from that episode includes how you can increase your power and a part of that is being open and able to adapt, empathise being open to listening right asking questions to gain understanding. I also share the difference between power and influence and how Good leaders know which to tap into at the right time beyond talking about power and listening. I also share the importance of empathy and being able to step into the shoes of that stakeholder you're looking to influence connect with or even network with to be able to empathise you need to build your own self awareness first. And that's why cultivating self awareness is the first component I tend to talk about because It's only through cultivating your awareness where you're going to be able to actually influence. Another important element of influence is acumen and acumen is not just about having the knowledge or skills, but being able to apply to effectively and the right situation. And that's why I use the word discernment. And I think that conscious leaders are able to discern when to share their knowledge, and how to share their knowledge, their strategic and how they do it. And they're able to show that they don't just know something for something sake, that it can be applied appropriately. The last thing that we share within this episode is also about the importance of communicating, right? There's an entire episode about that within this series as well. But that's an important thing to keep in mind when it comes to influence because we're communicating even when we're not talking. And that's something once again, every leader, especially conscious leaders need to keep in mind and something I want to make sure that I really reiterate within this first part of the series. So those are the three episodes, I'd recommend that you take another listen to if you haven't had a chance to, but I really just wanted to make sure that I put together this summary episode, especially if you haven't had a chance to listen to the first part of this series. If you've had an opportunity to listen to these last few episodes. Please let me know what you think. I check all my LinkedIn and iG DMS and would love to hear your thoughts. And if you know a leader that might benefit from a reboot or some reflection on whether or not they're influencing in an appropriate way. Please make sure you share one of these episodes with them. As always, thank you so much for taking the time to listen, stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next solo episode where we will definitely start diving into my second pillar engagement. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, please share this episode with someone who can benefit from its contents. If you found this episode helpful, I want to ask you to leave a review. This makes it easier for other people to find my podcast and also allows me to bring on even bigger guests and even more fascinating stories. Thank you so much for listening again. Stay safe and stay sane

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