Great Leaders Always Know Themselves Well

June 16, 2022 Jamie Notter

Remember that great leader that you worked for that had zero sense of who they were and was completely unaware of the impact they were having on others at the office? Yeah, me neither. If you created a venn diagram with two circles, one of which was “great leaders” and the other was “people who know themselves well,” the great leaders circle would be entirely inside the people who know themselves circle. Not everyone who knows themselves is necessarily going to be a great leader, but you simply aren’t going to achieve “great” leader status unless you know something about what makes you tick so you can be more intentional about your use of self.

That’s why Maddie and I are partnering with Sidecar to run a 4-week bootcamp titled “Improving Your Effectiveness at Work with DiSC.” You will complete the DiSC personality assessment and get your own personalized report, and then we will run four one-hour sessions to dig into how you can apply that self-knowledge in the work setting, including knowing when to move out of the comfort zone of your natural style in order to communicate more effectively or resolve conflict.

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There are lots of personality typing systems out there, but we like DiSC for its balance of simplicity and depth. It’s nuanced enough to be effective but clear enough to be memorable. Even if you ran your DiSC profile in the past, it’s useful to take a new look (you can shift over the years, by the way) and be more intentional about how you show up at work.

For example, I’m a strong S (S stands for Steadiness), and that means I am very comfortable with a slow pace. I love gathering more data, weighing more options, etc. There are key moments at work, however, where I need to be fast and resolute, and because I know myself, I can resist that natural pull to ask for one more day or week to analyze the situation and make a bold move instead. Without the self-knowledge, I would probably fall into my familiar rut and would miss the opportunity. Sound familiar?

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Come do this bootcamp with us, and up your leadership game by improving your self-knowledge. Register here.

Jamie Notter

Jamie is a co-founder and culture strategist at PROPEL, where he helps leaders create amazing workplace cultures that drive greater performance and impact. He brings thirty years of experience to his work designing and managing culture, and has specialized along the way in areas like conflict resolution and generations. Jamie is the co-author of four popular business books, including the award-winning Non-Obvious Guide to Employee Engagement, and his fall 2023 release, Culture Change Made Easy. He holds a Master’s in conflict resolution from George Mason and a certificate in Organization Development from Georgetown, where he serves as adjunct faculty.