In our Second Edition of Exceptional Leadership: 16 Critical Competencies for Healthcare Leaders (Health Administration Press, 2015), Andy Garman and I wrote about four cornerstones that comprise the competencies that exceptional leaders possess. The first cornerstone was a well cultivated self awareness. We described it as follows -

“The first Cornerstone, a Well-Cultivated Self-Awareness, is the foundation of all leadership competencies. Knowing yourself and behaving in an authentic manner are critical to consistently ethical leadership. One CEO once commented, “Self-awareness means that you have a good understanding of what you have and what you don’t have.”

“The word insight comes to mind when contemplating the skill sets described in this section.”

Self awareness is truly one of the most important leadership competencies.