What a Wrong Turn Taught Me About Awareness

A wrong turn on a Hawaiian road reminded me how often we make decisions based on assumptions rather than facts. In leadership, the same thing happens when we react to people, situations, and challenges through the lens of our own biases and experiences. Awareness is the discipline of questioning those assumptions, seeking other perspectives, and staying curious. The strongest leaders aren't always right. They're the ones willing to ask, "What else could be true?" and remain open to a fuller picture.

I was driving along the coast in Hawaii, windows down, feeling pretty good about life. The kind of day where the scenery does all the work and you just have to show up. With my eye on the GPS, I came to an intersection, glanced quickly, and made a snap decision about which way to go. I was sure, absolutely sure, it was the right path.

It wasn't.

What I'd done was make a judgment based on a sliver of information and a whole lot of unconscious bias. My brain filled in the blanks with what it expected to see, not what was actually there. I was driving blind, convinced I had 20/20 vision. And it nearly sent me in completely the wrong direction.

Here's the thing: I do the same thing in leadership. You probably do too.

Why Do We Think Our View Is the Whole Picture?

In my first post in this series, I introduced the COR.E Dynamics framework. The framework includes ten disciplines that define what iPEC calls a 7th Level Leader. The kind of leader who doesn't just react to the world but consciously shapes how they show up in it. Awareness is the first of those ten disciplines, and honestly, it's the one that humbles me most.

iPEC defines Awareness as the practice of constantly observing and assessing yourself and everything around you. It means understanding your reactions, noticing your patterns, and, this is the part that's hard, recognizing that what is true for you is not necessarily the Truth with a capital T.

In everyday leadership language, that looks like this: you walk into a meeting and your direct report says something that lands wrong. Your stomach tightens. You form an opinion. You're ready to respond. All of that happens in about two seconds, and most of it happens below the surface.

Awareness is the muscle that lets you pause before that response and ask, "What else could be true here?" Maybe they're nervous, not disrespectful. Maybe you're projecting yesterday's frustration onto today's conversation. Maybe the story your brain just wrote has almost nothing to do with what actually happened.

That question, What else could be true?, is the cure I found on that Hawaii road. And it's become one of the most powerful tools in my coaching practice.

Why Is It So Hard to See Your Own Blind Spots?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: the biggest barriers to self-awareness aren't ignorance or laziness. They're comfort and certainty. When you've been successful doing things a certain way, your brain stops questioning whether that way is still working. Your patterns become invisible precisely because they've been rewarded.

I see this constantly with the leaders I coach. They're smart, driven, and genuinely want to grow. But they've built careers on being right. Yet awareness requires getting comfortable being wrong. It means admitting that the story your brain just told you might be incomplete, biased, or flat-out fiction.

The other barrier? Speed. Leadership moves fast. You don't have twenty minutes to reflect before responding to a Slack message or a tense moment in a one-on-one. So your brain takes shortcuts, and those shortcuts are built on assumptions, past experiences, and the kind of unconscious bias that had me turning the wrong way on a Hawaiian highway.

How Do You Actually Build Self-Awareness When You're Leading Every Day?

I want to be honest with you. Self-awareness sounds great in a coaching brochure, but building it when you're managing a team and trying not to burn out? That's a different story. Here's what I've found actually works, not in theory, but in the messy reality of leading people.

Step 1: Journal the ugly stuff. I don't write gratitude lists at sunrise. I don't journal at the end of the day. But I evaluate what happened at the end of a hard day and try to really see what happened. What triggered me? Where did I react instead of respond? It's ugly and unfiltered, and that's exactly why it works. When you see your patterns in writing, you can't unsee them.

Step 2: Get coached, not just coach others. I'm a coach. I still have a coach. That might sound redundant, but it's the opposite. My coach sees what I can't. She sees the blind spots I've decorated so nicely I forgot they were blind spots. You can't figure it all out yourself. None of us can. That's not weakness; it's how awareness actually grows.

Step 3: Build a feedback ritual that doesn't feel like a performance review. Ask the people around you one simple question on a regular basis: "What's one thing I could do differently?" Not annually. Not in a formal setting. Just casually, consistently, and with genuine curiosity. Keep asking. Eventually, they'll trust you enough to tell you the truth. And that truth is gold.

Step 4: Put yourself in other people's shoes. Ask yourself what could they see? What might their perspective be? That helps you understand that your truth is not necessarily the Capital T truth.

How Do You Know When You're Practicing Awareness?

Here's something I've discovered that goes beyond the textbook definition: there's a difference between thinking about self-awareness and actually catching yourself in the moment. I spent years reading about emotional intelligence. I could talk about blind spots like an expert. But the real shift happened when I started noticing my reactions during conversations, not in reflection afterward.

It's like the difference between knowing you have a blind spot in your car and actually turning your head to check it before you change lanes. One is intellectual. The other keeps you from crashing.

I now catch myself judging others before I let it stress me out, which helps support my goal of being less judgmental. In the blog post about judgment, I refer to a great tool my coach gave me to tame my judge. It was a book called, “Change Your Questions, Change Your Life”. It teaches you to replace judgment with curiosity.

What's the One Thing You Can Take From This Today?

Awareness isn't a destination you arrive at. It's a practice, a daily, sometimes hourly decision to question the story your brain is telling you. To look past the sliver of coastline you can see from the driver's seat and wonder what's around the bend.

Here's the part that took me years to understand: awareness isn't about being right more often. It's about holding your conclusions more loosely. The best leaders I've coached aren't the ones who see everything clearly from the start. They're the ones who stay curious long enough to let the full picture emerge, even when it contradicts the story they already told themselves.

You don't need to overhaul your leadership style to start. You just need one question: What else could be true?

Try it in your next difficult conversation. Try it when someone frustrates you. Try it when you're absolutely certain you're right. What might change if you did? Remember, perception may be reality, but it isn't necessarily the truth.

Ready to See What You've Been Missing?

If this post hit a nerve — if you're realizing that some of your leadership blind spots might be costing you more than you thought — I'd love to help you explore that. Book a free discovery coaching session. No pressure, no pitch. Just a conversation about where you are, where you want to be, and what might be standing in the way.

See other posts in this series:

1. What does it really take to lead well?

3. What a wrong turn taught me about awareness