You can’t lead others if don’t know yourself

This article is part of the Contemporary leadership series

Syd Finkelstein is a professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. He’s written, researched, taught and consulted extensively on leadership. “I talk about self-awareness,” he says. “Working in a consulting capacity with a CEO or senior executive, the extent to which they’re self-aware is really remarkable; it comes out in a conversation so often. To me it’s really one of the most powerful leadership capabilities. That’s how I label it, to make it more practical to people, because self-awareness is a very touchy-feely type of idea once you get right down to it. But I call it a leadership capability.”

Des Dearlove and Stuart Crainer are the founders of the Thinkers50, which curates the very best ideas in management, and produces the highly influential global ranking of management gurus. Stuart and Des are the co-editors of the bestselling Financial Times Handbook of Management. Their work in business thought leadership led Management Today to describe them as “market makers par excellence.”