Being a more conscious, self-aware person will enhance your ability to get along with others and be a more effective elite leader. Self-awareness is the gateway into our own authenticity, our own unique selves, whereby we show up in our relationships reflecting our own highest truth.

In order to get to our own truth and authenticity, introspection, reflection, deep questioning, and honest evaluation are required. Tapping into your “inner voice” will reveal your own truths to you. To reach a higher level of honest self-awareness, we also must take into account there are “multiple voices” inside our head often vying for the alpha position in our minds.

We have many beliefs, stories, values, morals, and fears that have been passed onto us from many sources. Parents, grandparents, siblings, extended family, teachers, clergy, books, TV, heroes, villains, and more. They have all shared their beliefs, stories, values, morals and fears with us, intentionally and unintentionally. By the time we become adults we have taken on so much of other peoples’ stuff that we become a mirror of what we have been exposed to without even consciously thinking about it anymore. At the same time that inner voice that is and has always been there gets drowned out more and more by the noise of what others think we should think, do and say.

Consider for a moment that we have three levels of awareness available to us: two halves of Ego (the Healthy and the Negative), and an Authentic Self. The ego is our default, hard wired survival program. Ego looks out for our survival, our sustenance, and our ability to get around. It sees the world as two centers, one as itself and the other is everything outside it. Feeling apart and needing to survive, succeed, and progress, it seeks to keep us safe, free from danger, and able to thrive.

The unhealthy aspects of ego keep us mired in some form of fear-based thinking. Whether experiencing sadness, anger, depression, blaming, regret, despair, unworthiness, disappointment or hate from things in the past – or worry, anxiety, pessimism, frustration, doubt, overwhelm, insecurity or powerlessness from things not yet manifested in the future. Unhealthy ego keeps our consciousness below the level of active self-awareness. When we are focused on the past or the future we have no room to be present. These are the “other voices” we listen to, and they often scream so loud and kick up our emotional states to such a frenzy we don’t allow our higher-self much room to show-up and offer its wisdom.

A healthy aspect of ego is the in-between state of the unhealthy and our authentic selves. This blossoms when we mature and see that living from unhealthy ego has its limits, creates too much pain, and doesn’t provide the better things in life most of us seek. As we learn to grow and develop the healthy aspects of ego life takes on more positive flavors, and improved relationships and results are realized. This takes a good deal of effort, and is accomplished through some form of personal or professional development, over time, and also just by being more open to the life-lessons that constantly come to us.

My hope for all leaders is to see that a wider field of awareness can be sought, developed and expressed within everyone. Each of us experience some level of our authentic selves, we call these “peak” moments. We experience this moments during our days and yet get pulled back into ego consciousness far too often. In these peak moments is where our higher self is most active; it allows a more dynamic level of awareness to look at people, issues, and life in ways most of us deeply desire, and allow our better faculties to arise when dealing with the challenges of leading an organization.

The chart below may help you visualize these three levels of awareness, how they reveal where our awareness typically resides, and how we bounce between states, often automatically without any conscious thinking. See which words and states speak to you, reflect back to you, and see where your awareness spends its time. You’ll have bouts of time in each section, and only you get to determine what’s real and true for you, and what you’d like to see improved.

Leadership attitudes and behaviors can be separated into these three levels of awareness as follows:

Unhealthy Ego   Awakening Ego        Elite/Conscious

Autocratic          Achiever                    Integrative

Authoritarian     Collaborative             Systems

Dictatorial          Democratic                Self-leading teams

Directive            Empowering              Inspirational

Domination        Strategic                    Mastery

Obedience         Trust                          Align & Engage

Self-esteem       Self-actualization      Service

Individual           Team                         Stakeholder Focus

Directive            Coach                        Entrusting

Push                  Attract                        Resonance

Reject                Recognize                  Rejoice

Contractual        Covenant                   Trust

Tolerate              Appreciate                 Love

This is such a huge subject and we are only scratching the surface. I want to share what I have learned and still learning about consciousness and my own levels of awareness. We will refer to ego and authentic self as we dialog about consciousness and conscious leadership over time giving us a context for future conversations.

It’s up to each of us who desire to push our leadership capacities to higher levels being open to adding and expanding our own awareness. Let me know your thoughts on this and let’s help each other learn, grow and evolve into the highest level, best people and leaders possible!