Self-Awareness and Values Drift: A Sign of the Times?

For leaders and organizations, self-awareness is one of the most important attributes underlying success.  The knowledge of what you are truly good at and what you are weak at and the ability to use that knowledge consistently and authentically allows one to be successful.  This includes both knowing yourself and understanding how others experience you.  8 years ago, Tasha Eurich’s often quoted study found that although nearly 95% of people think they are self-aware (and consequently often accept their level of self-awareness as a given), only about 15% are.  We find in our debriefs of assessments, that this may be a little optimistic.

In many public and organizational settings, we see leaders demanding loyalty rather than earning trust, defending questionable claims rather than examining evidence, and discouraging dissent rather than using it as feedback. These patterns do more than damage culture. They erode self-awareness and values. .I call this values drift: the widening gap between what leaders say they value and what their recent behavior demonstrates.  From what we’ve seen, the drift—where the gap between stated values and behavioral evidence has widened—a more fundamental recalibration process is indicated. This is not therapy; it is strategic identity work.

The process typically involves three phases: first, an honest audit of recent decisions and behaviors against stated values, conducted with external facilitation; second, re-articulation of values in behavioral rather than aspirational terms (not “I value collaboration” but “When I value collaboration, here is what you see me do specifically”); and third, explicit commitment to the monitoring conditions—the situations, triggers, and relationships—where the gap most reliably appears.

Research on authentic leadership (Avolio & Gardner; Walumbwa et al.) consistently finds that perceived authenticity—which followers parse primarily through behavioral consistency, not stated values—is a strong single predictor of organizational trust and voluntary commitment. Values recalibration is thus not a personal wellness exercise. It is a leadership effectiveness strategy with measurable organizational benefits.

The key lesson is that self-awareness recovery is not a single intervention problem. Different erosion mechanisms create different vulnerabilities, and different vulnerabilities require different responses. Leaders who accurately diagnose how self-awareness has degraded are far more likely to select interventions that address the underlying cause rather than its symptoms. By doing this, they will reap the benefits from being a more self-aware, effective and authentic leader.