DISC-Based Leadership: A Leader’s Guide to Team Effectiveness.

Accurate self-awareness is one of the most significant things a person can possess. To know yourself is the foundational cornerstone to bolstering your emotional intelligence. To know your strengths, limitations, skills, emotions, and motivations, fuel self-confidence. Self-awareness influences our attitudes, behaviors, and relationships with others. Effective self-leadership needs clear-eyed self-awareness. You cannot manage what you cannot see.

It is also important to have an awareness of how other people perceive us and experience us. Self-awareness is strong when perceptions about ourselves and the perceptions others have of us are in alignment. If they are not, we can assume there is a disconnect somewhere. Bridging this disconnect is critical to maximizing professional effectiveness.

Business is about relationships. Trust is the currency. When others do not perceive us the way we perceive ourselves, two realities now exist, and trusted relationships can waffle. It’s important to remember that perceived reality is reality to that person.

Psychologists tell us that perceived reality is the reality to that person, even if it is inaccurate. This perceived reality brings the release of neurotransmitters that affect their brain biologically. Now, hidden from their conscious awareness, their emotional response when thinking about us is now affected. If colleagues perceive they are not heard, respected, valued, or appreciated, it can be the root cause of unnecessary miscommunication and misjudgment about the character, intent, and motivation of others.

These emotional judgments turn into conclusions. Subconscious conclusions affect brain chemistry, positively or negatively. And if negative stress hormones increase (primarily adrenaline and cortisol) so do heart rates, blood pressure, unhealthy stress, and anxiety, etc. Bottom line: the outcome is often team misalignment, relational strain, and team dysfunction.