Seeing Yourself Clearly – And Doing Something About It
Many of the leaders I work with are thoughtful, reflective, and intentional about their development. They can articulate their strengths with clarity. They can name areas where they want to improve. They’ve read the books, attended the trainings, and spent time thinking about how they show up.
And yet, despite that effort, something doesn’t shift.
The same challenges continue to surface. Similar feedback appears in different environments. Patterns repeat, even when they’ve been acknowledged and discussed. This can be frustrating, particularly for leaders who genuinely care and are actively trying to grow.
What becomes clear in these moments is that their awareness has remained largely intellectual. They understand their
tendencies. They can describe them in detail. In some cases, they can even anticipate when those tendencies will
show up. But that understanding has not consistently translated into behavior.
This is one of the most common—and most subtle—gaps in leadership development.
Because the real value of awareness is not in recognizing something about yourself. It’s in using that recognition to make a different choice in how you lead.
Without that shift, awareness becomes something we carry, rather than something we apply.
Why Most Feedback Doesn’t Create Clarity
Most leaders don’t lack feedback. In fact, many are surrounded by it. But the feedback they receive is often incomplete, inconsistent, or filtered through the lens of the person giving it.
In many organizations, feedback is tied to performance cycles. It shows up periodically, often after the fact, and is
shaped by what feels safe or appropriate to share. Leaders may receive input from their manager, occasional comments from their team, and informal reactions from peers.
Individually, each of these inputs can be helpful. But taken on their own, they rarely provide a complete picture.
Self-evaluation fills in the gaps—but it comes with its own limitations. It is shaped by personal standards, internal narratives, and the context that only the individual fully understands. Leaders tend to evaluate themselves based on what they intended to do, rather than how their actions were experienced.
This creates a disconnect.
A leader may believe they are being clear, while others experience confusion. They may believe they are empowering, while others experience a lack of direction. They may believe they are being efficient, while others experience disengagement.
Not because anyone is wrong. But because no single perspective tells the whole story.
“ Do the best you can until you
know better . Then when you know
better, do better.” – Maya Angelou
A More Complete View: Three Dimensions
To move beyond this limitation, feedback needs to be approached more intentionally. One of the most effective ways to do this is through three distinct dimensions: self, vertical, and peer.
Each dimension provides a different lens.
Self-evaluation offers insight into intention and internal experience. Vertical feedback provides perspective on how leadership is experienced within formal structures of accountability. Peer feedback reveals how a leader operates in environments where influence must exist without authority.
Individually, each perspective adds value. Together, they create clarity.
And more importantly, they create contrast—which is where insight begins to deepen.
Self-Evaluation: Understanding Intent
Self-evaluation is the natural starting point. It allows leaders to reflect, to take ownership, and to build awareness around how they believe they are showing up.
But it is important to recognize what self-evaluation is—and what it is not.
It is not objective.
It is shaped by experience, context, and intention. Leaders know what they were trying to accomplish. They understand the pressures they were navigating. They are aware of the trade-offs they made in the moment.
Because of this, they often give themselves credit for intention.
“I was trying to be efficient.”
“I didn’t want to overwhelm the team.”
“I thought I was being clear.”
These statements are valid. But they are incomplete.
Because leadership is not experienced through your intent. It is experienced through your behavior.
Self-evaluation becomes most valuable when it is held alongside other perspectives that challenge, refine, and expand it.
Vertical Feedback: Experiencing Leadership in Context
Vertical feedback introduces two important perspectives: the view from above and the experience from below.
Feedback from a supervisor tends to focus on outcomes, strategic alignment, and readiness for increased responsibility. It provides insight into how a leader is performing within the broader system. It answers questions related to effectiveness, impact, and progression.
However, this perspective is often removed from the day-to-day experience of leadership.
That experience lives with direct reports.
Team members see how a leader communicates under pressure. They experience the consistency of expectations,
the clarity of direction, and the tone of interactions over time. They notice when behaviors shift, when follow-through
changes, and when alignment is strong—or missing.
This perspective is incredibly valuable, but it is not always easy to access. Direct reports may hesitate to share honest feedback if the environment does not feel safe. They may filter their input to preserve the relationship or avoid unintended consequences.
Which means that leaders who want this perspective must actively create the conditions for it.
Without that effort, this dimension
remains incomplete.
Peer Feedback: The Test of Influence
Peer feedback is often the least
structured—and one of the most revealing.
Peers interact without hierarchy. They do
not rely on authority to engage. Instead,
they experience leadership through
collaboration, communication, and shared
responsibility.
They see how a leader navigates
competing priorities, how they contribute
to collective outcomes, and how they show
up in moments of tension or uncertainty.
Because there is no reporting relationship,
peer feedback often reflects something
deeper than performance. It reflects
influence.
It reveals whether others want to work
with you, trust your approach, and feel
aligned in how work gets done.
In many cases, this dimension surfaces
insights that are not visible elsewhere. A
leader may be highly effective within their
own team and viewed positively by their
manager, yet struggle to build alignment
across functions.
Without peer feedback, that gap can
remain hidden.
“ The measure of intelligence is the
ability to change .” – Albert Einstein
Peer Feedback: The Test of Influence
The power of 3-dimensional feedback is
not in collecting more information. It is in
comparing perspectives.
Where do all three dimensions align?
These areas often represent consistent
strengths or clearly visible development
opportunities.
But the most meaningful insights tend to
emerge where perspectives differ.
Where you see yourself one way, and
others experience you another.
This is where blind spots exist—not as
flaws, but as areas that have not yet been
fully understood.
This is also where growth becomes
possible.
Because misalignment creates tension.
And tension, when explored rather than
avoided, creates clarity.
From Intellectual Awareness to
Behavioral Change
This is where many leaders pause.
Because this is the point where feedback
stops being conceptual and starts
becoming actionable.
It is one thing to understand that you may
need to communicate more clearly. It is
another thing to actually change how you
communicate in real time, especially under
pressure.
It is one thing to recognize that you could
delegate more effectively. It is another to
shift your behavior in a way that builds
trust and accountability.
This is the difference between intellectual
awareness and behavioral change.
Awareness allows you to see the pattern.
Behavioral change interrupts it.
And that interruption does not require
perfection. It requires intention.
Small adjustments, made consistently over
time, begin to reshape how leadership is
experienced.
A pause before responding.
A question instead of an assumption.
A clearer articulation of expectations.
These moments may seem minor, but they
compound.
And over time, they redefine your impact.
A Practical Framework
To make this actionable, a simple structure
can help.
Begin by gathering feedback intentionally
across all three dimensions. Ask specific
questions that invite clarity rather than
general opinions.
Next, look for patterns. One comment may
be situational. Consistent themes across
perspectives are more meaningful.
Then, identify one or two areas to focus on.
Trying to change everything at once often
leads to dilution rather than progress.
Translate those areas into specific
behaviors. What will you do differently in a
meeting, a conversation, or a decision?
Finally, revisit and refine. Growth is not
linear. It is iterative, requiring ongoing
attention and adjustment.
“ None of us is as smart as all of us .” – Ken Blanchard
The Mindset That Sustains Growth
The effectiveness of this process depends
less on the feedback itself and more on
how it is approached.
Leaders who benefit most from feedback
tend to engage with it through curiosity
rather than judgment.
Instead of asking whether feedback is right
or wrong, they ask what can be learned
from it.
This shift reduces defensiveness and
increases openness. It creates space to
explore perspectives without needing to
immediately resolve them.
It also reinforces an important truth:
growth does not require perfection. It
requires willingness.
A willingness to see clearly.
A willingness to adjust.
A willingness to try something different.
A Final Reflection
Self-awareness is often positioned as the goal in leadership development. In reality, it is only the beginning.
Awareness creates the opportunity for
change, but it does not create change on its
own.
That happens through behavior.
The leaders who continue to grow are not
those who simply understand themselves
better. They are the ones who act on that
understanding. They test new approaches,
refine how they show up, and remain open
to learning over time.
Because leadership is not defined by what
you know about yourself.
It is defined by what others consistently
experience.
And aligning those two—intention and
impact—is where meaningful growth
occurs.
