The number one quality of a leader is self-awareness. Whether they know who they are, what they want, and where they are heading. I know it sounds like something you write in a notebook and never look at again. I still use it as the test. If that part is missing, I find it hard to care about the rest of the story.
I have hired CTOs, CPOs, COOs, and leads. Some already had a point of view. Some, same title, just waited for the next ticket. I used to think the role would force one to show up. It does not.
Not just the CEO
Leader does not just mean CEO. Anyone in any form of leadership. A CTO who does not know what they are building toward is still reacting. A CPO who cannot name what they care about will ship whatever is loudest this week. A COO with no private direction becomes a very expensive coordinator.
I have been that coordinator. More than once. You look busy. You are.
This also shows up at home. Being a leader of the family. Being a leader of a sports activity that might last two hours. Being a leader of house chores you asked someone else to do. Same job. Know yourself, or you are handing out a list. Or taking one.
I wrote about people’s perspective of leadership once. The short version still holds. Nobody leads anyone well if they have not sat with themselves first.
Know who you are
A leader has to know who they are, what they want in life, and where they are heading. Not the vision deck. The private version. The one that would feel a bit embarrassing on a slide.
Most people think they already have this. Tasha Eurich, writing in HBR in 2018, found that only 10 to 15 percent of people studied actually met the criteria for self-awareness. The rest were sure they did. I have been in the sure group.
There is no single mold for a founder, and there is no single mold for a leader either. You have to understand your own wiring well enough to stop borrowing someone else’s.
People invent the tasks
Without that compass you become a task rabbit. People invent tasks for you. You execute. You look busy. You clear the board. Then you wait for the next list.
I have seen this a lot. Smart people. Senior titles. Full calendars. No point of view. Someone else decides what matters. Slack will fill a week if you let it. So will the calendar. Other people’s urgency becomes the job, and you only notice when someone asks what you are actually for.
I have needed that person. I have been that person. I just get tired of it.
They pick things up
A self-aware leader cares deeply. They pick things up unprompted. They go into every nook of their work-scope because they cannot stand leaving the product, or the company, half-finished.
They do not wait to be assigned the ugly parts. They find them. Then they limit their options and do those few things well, and they keep going deeper.
I have watched leaders walk into work they did not start and treat it as theirs. Usually it is just the extra pass through the thing everyone else walked past.
Leaders lead from the front. With discomfort. They simply show up. The hard conversation. The night the thing is broken and it is theirs. I do not trust a leader who only sends other people into the parts they would skip.
Hold your own bar
A self-aware leader holds themselves to the standards they set for themselves, not just what is expected of them. The job description is the floor. Self-worth is the refusal to live below your own bar.
I hold myself to a bar I chose. Some days I miss it. A lot of days, if I am honest. The only part I will not give up is that the bar is mine, not the one implied by a title.
If you do not know who you are, people will happily write your list. I have written those lists. I have taken them. It felt like work. It did not feel like I was going anywhere.