The current paper is focused on how such qualities as self-awareness and continuous self-development contribute to a leader’s or manager’s personal success. These qualities are crucial to a successful leader and manager because they provide them with progress. The paper explains that a true leader has to be aware of own role, knowledge, skills, and experience. Self-development means that a leader should learn the most innovative features of their profession, upgrade their skills and knowledge. The more a leader or a manager learns, the more effective, successful, and progressive they are. The paper is based on 14 credible sources, including articles, course materials, and different theories of leadership that relate to self-awareness and self-development. These features are especially important because a successful and effective leader or a manager contributes to an overall organization’s progress.

Self-awareness refers to self-knowledge, and that is a crucial feature not only for the leaders but for everyone who wants to be successful. Hicks & Dess (2008) define self-awareness as having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and drives. There are a lot of tools that help recognize and actualize own self. For example, the so-called Johari Window is one of the most effective since it “distinguishes between what you know and don’t know about yourself, and what others now or don’t know about you” (Vorce & Fragasso, 2016). According to the Johari Window, a person should be aware of own self, the you as you see yourself, the you as you are seen by others, and the you as you want to be seen. This knowledge is especially important to the leaders because it helps be aware of their significance to a company and personal efficacy as the managers.

Killian (2012) makes the emphasis on the significance of emotional intelligence as a unique contributor to psychological well-being and performance. Self-awareness and self-development refer to the emotional intelligence as an ability to perceive, recognize, and identify emotional reactions in both self and other people. A true leader should be able to manage own affections, emotions, and reactions to enhance both personal and professional relationships, the efficacy of an organization, and the overall well-being. Leadership potential depends on emotional intelligence that includes self-awareness and self-development. Bourner (1996) insists that there is a chain of causation from self-awareness through self-acceptance to self-development and personal growth. A high level of emotional intelligence allows me to understand and regulate my relationships with others (Newsome, Day, & Catano, 2000).

I have understood that relationships and emotions are crucial for organization’s progress. Harms, Roberts, & Wood (2007) make me realize that personality is enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as well as motivations, abilities, and narratives. A successful leader, therefore, should possess a high level of self-awareness to know themselves better. I understand that self-awareness helps understand others greatly. Financial measures are not so important to the leaders as they seem to me before. Luthans & Peterson (2002) explain that cognitive attitudes, personality traits, emotions are closely connected to job performance and favorable job outcomes not only in leaders but in employees as well. I agree with Takanori Tsuchiya (1996) who insists that self-awareness and self-development should be the parts of human education because the basic needs of a human being claim priority over the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and experiences. The leaders and their employees should strive to get the full development of their talents, and that is the most important feature of the corporate philosophy. Striving to realize my employees’ potential will be one of the key tasks of my leadership in the future.

Self-awareness makes me develop the strongest sides of my character because I can analyze myself thoroughly. I have realized that expansion of my capability is not enough to be a successful leader because there are the deeper qualities I should work with through observation and research. The openness to personal change and the confidence to hold uncertainty are crucial to me because they help mobilize, inspire, and guide the people to confront challenges they may face within their work (The inner qualities of leaders). Checkland & Haynes (1994) make me understand that the core system idea of leadership is to adapt and survive in a changing environment. Self-awareness and continuous self-development enhance my ability as a leader to tune into my own internal world for engaging emotionally with followers and winning emotional commitment (Richards, 2004). Self-awareness helps understand own self better and investigate it through the categories of the open, the hidden, the blind, and the unknown (Wilson, 2009). This investigation will contribute to a better understanding of my employees’ needs and problems they will face in the workplace.

I agree with Checkland (2000) who states that self-awareness and self-development help in a real-world problem situation because these issues make realize a complexity of relationships and explore this complexity via models of purposeful activity based on explicit world-view. Cullen & Gentry (2015) admits that it is important to overcome biased self-perception through a framework of self-other agreement rating discrepancies. Self-awareness should get rid of self-enhance as overrating and self-diminish as underrating because both views are perceptual biases. Biases make a manager derailed, therefore, overcoming them via self-other agreement and specific implications is crucial to me to become a successful leader. Hicks & Dess (2008) define self-awareness as having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and drives.

Self-awareness and continuous self-development are the issues that help me to become a successful leader or a manager in future. These issues imply knowledge about myself, the strongest sides of my character, my weaknesses, and those things that drive me to go ahead. A successful leader is not only a person who has a range of professional skills to make profits but mainly a person who has a high level of emotional intelligence. Any organization consists of the employees with their needs, problems, concerns, and beliefs. A good manager should understand a complexity of human relationships, empathize, motivate, and inspire the employees. Without self-awareness, personal changes, and ability to develop own self, a leader cannot become successful. Self-awareness and self-development provide me with flexibility, a deeper understanding of human nature, compassion, and specific techniques that help solve the conflicts in the workplace. As a future leader or manager, I will take care of my employees’ progress, their comfort, motivation, and drivers, and that will enhance the overall well-being of the organization.