Self-Awareness

When I conduct leadership workshops or work 1:1 with executives, I stress self-awareness as the fundamental, underlying attribute of leaders. If you are self-aware, you know who you are and what you can do. You also know what you aren't that good at so you can learn the things you need to learn and avoid the things you need to avoid.

Without accurate self-awareness, you've got nothing. You don't know what you don't know, and that will kill you as a leader. I've often thought that with decent self-awareness and a good ethical foundation, you can go pretty far, as long as you're committed to continuous learning.

Which brings me to today's topic, jailed Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

Not only is Blago ethically challenged, to say the least (I lived in Illinois for almost 30 years, and we wondered not only how did this guy get to be gov, but why wasn't he in jail already). But he may be the least self-aware leader anyone's seen in years, and that's going quite a ways.

Just yesterday, the day before his arrest, Blago took questions from the press while appearing at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago, the factory where workers are holding a sit-in to get their severance and vacation monies. The gov was asked if he was worried about allegations that the Feds were taping his conversations. His reply, " If anyone wants to tape my conversations, go right ahead. Feel free to do it."

Lack of self-awareness and hubris edging into meglomania combined with criminal behavior for a pretty spectacular downfall. You might say that lack of self-awareness is the least of it, but to not even be aware of what you are saying on the phone is quite amazing. Long-time colleagues of Blago uniformly describe him as difficult to work with, making every policy dispute personal. According to them, he didn't even seem to know when he was making enemies. Yet this is a politician whose approval rating (prior to arrest) in very blue Illinois was even lower than George Bush's and whose budget/tax proposal once lost in the Illinois House by a vote of 107-0.