Carla Miller [00:00:02]:
In today's episode of Influence and Impact for Leaders, we're exploring one of the most talked about and most misunderstood leadership capabilities, self awareness. My guest is Dr. Julia Cardin, Leadership coach, researcher and author of the brilliant book, you are not as self aware as you think you are. Julia has spent years studying why so many leaders believe they're self aware and why the evidence often tells a very different story. In this conversation, we unpack what self awareness really means for leaders, how a lack of it shows up in teams, and why saying I'm very self aware might actually be the biggest red flag of all. If you want to lead with greater impact, build stronger teams and understand the hidden drivers behind your behavior, this episode will give you plenty to reflect on. Welcome to Influence and Impact for Leaders where you'll learn simple, practical strategies to lead with confidence, influence and impact. I'm your host, Karla Miller, leadership coach, author and trainer.

Carla Miller [00:01:03]:
Now, before we dive into the episode, let me tell you a little bit more about Julia's background. Julia works as a relational coach and coach supervisor practitioner with an academic underpinning. Her work focuses on working with the whole person, both individuals and teams, to expand and deepen self awareness so that individuals can connect deeply with others and develop the capacity to sit with uncertainty. This approach is underpinned by her PhD research into self awareness alongside her coaching and supervision practice. She is a visiting tutor at Henley Business School, teaching on the Professional Certificate in executive coaching, MSc in executive coaching for Behavioral Change and heads up the Professional Certificate in Coaching Supervision. I really enjoyed this conversation with Julia. It fits in with some of the previous episodes that we've had around understanding yourself and your impact on others. In particular the episode around micro interactions which I will note in the show notes for you as I record this.

Carla Miller [00:02:08]:
This is the first intro to the podcast that I have recorded in 2026.

Julia Carden [00:02:13]:
So a very belated happy new year to you.

Carla Miller [00:02:17]:
I have got lots of exciting plans for 2026 and there are changes coming to the podcast as well, so I will update you on those in a future episode. But I hope you find this episode super practical and I would highly recommend giving Julia's book a read as well.

Julia Carden [00:02:39]:
Welcome to the podcast Julia. It's great to have you here.

Julia Carden [00:02:42]:
Oh thank you for inviting me Carla. I'm really looking forward to our conversation today.

Julia Carden [00:02:47]:
Me too. So I think would be great to start by you telling us a little bit about your background and what inspired.

Carla Miller [00:02:54]:
You to write this book.

Julia Carden [00:02:56]:
I don't know if you've seen the advert on Channel four that advertised, it's a recruiting video for the Royal Navy and it says born in so and so made in in the Royal Navy. So I was born in Cornwall and made in the Royal Navy. Although probably the Wrens because girls didn't go to see them. I actually joined the Wrens Women's Royal Naval Service. Towards the end of my time. I specialised in HR and assessment development centres and then I did my teaching adults qualification that led me into the learning and development space and it was through that that got me into the coaching and leadership. But my obsession, and I'm going to call it an obsession with self awareness really started back at Dartmouth and they showed us a Johari window and Unknown to self and unknown to others box. And I thought, what is in that box? I've got to find out what is in that box about me.

Julia Carden [00:03:45]:
And hence my interest in self awareness probably grew over all that time and kept growing so much. So I did a PhD piece of research into self awareness and that's really where the book. Because I never set out to write a book, the book came out of my PhD thinking, why would I leave that gathering dust on the shelf and I can translate it into something practical. So that's where it came from. But I also have to say that writing the book was part of me getting into my unknown, unknown box in a way, because it's quite a self healing, writing a book and exploring a topic that's passionate to myself.

Julia Carden [00:04:19]:
Brilliant. Well, I think many people will be glad that you have written that book. Why do you think that self awareness is such a blind spot for so many leaders?

Julia Carden [00:04:28]:
As somebody said on a workshop I was doing the other day in relation to the book was, oh, gosh, self awareness is hard, isn't it? It's hard stuff. So I think on the surface leaders do it quite easily, maybe through a bit of 360 or through some feedback, but they really don't get to the deeper stuff, the harder work stuff, because we only really develop self awareness with intentionality and we have to put some effort in. So I think the blind spot is I don't really want to do the hard work. It's a bit like somebody saying, maybe at Christmas or New Year, I'm going to run the London Marathon in April. And then they realize that the training has to start and getting off the sofa in January and February is hard, hard work. And I think that's it, it's doing the hard stuff. The surface stuff comes easy, but, you know, really thinking about the feedback, really thinking about how I'm showing up with others, really thinking about those people that annoy us, that are probably mirrors to our own stuff. It's tough, it's tough.

Julia Carden [00:05:28]:
So I think that's why. And the other thing I want to say is because until I did my research it wasn't well defined within the space of adult development or within the space of leadership. So most people don't really know what it is. So that's why they stay on the surface because there's so many elements and levels and layers to it.

Julia Carden [00:05:46]:
So that segues me nicely into my next question, which is how do you define self awareness in a way that's meaningful for leaders rather than this vague concept that most of us think of?

Julia Carden [00:05:57]:
Yeah, so I have got a lovely academic definition which is not practical for leaders. So I like to think about it as ingredients and layers. So the two base layers, and they're both. The first is interpersonal. How am I in relation to you and my team and others? And then the other base layer is the intrapersonal, what I know to myself, which of course you may also know if I choose to share with you. They're the two layers and then each there's layers are broken up into other separate ingredients and I've created a visual with the ingredients on them. So in the interpersonal there's how others perceive me and then my behaviours, which I can also get a grip of by watching myself on video and things like that. The intrapersonal are beliefs and values, my motivations and needs, my cognitive estate, which is both my feelings and emotions, but also my thoughts and my thought processes, strengths and weaknesses, or personality types, but also my physiological, my somatic response to what's going on around me in the moment.

Julia Carden [00:07:09]:
So the way I've done it is thinking about ingredients, like ingredients of a cake. Let's split down the ingredients and what I find is some leaders have already done loads of work around their strengths and weaknesses. That's typical actually. But they haven't really thought about what are my needs and being, why do I want to be a leader and what need is that meeting inside of me? So that or certainly not the body stuff. Most of us just do the stuff here in our heads and don't think about what's going on in our physiology. So yeah, series of ingredients would be the easiest way of doing it.

Julia Carden [00:07:43]:
Brilliant, thank you. And one of the things I picked up from the book is that leaders can overestimate their self awareness. So what are the warning signs that someone should notice that will tell Them, oh you might be overestimating that self awareness. You might not be as self aware as you think you are.

Julia Carden [00:08:02]:
The minute we catch ourselves saying oh I'm self aware is the moment we've tipped into the overestimation space. And in fact that was the inspiration for the title of the book actually. I remember asking a leader. So I was coaching several members of this leader's team and it became very evident to me that it wasn't the team members that needed coaching because all of them were bringing their relationship with this manager and leader into the space and how they could manage that, how they could show up differently in that space. And so it became evident to me that it was probably the leader that needed the coaching, not his team. So having reflected on that I one day was having a catch up with him and I just thought, you know, who do you have that challenges your thinking who can give you some other perspectives? And his response to me was oh Julie, I'm very self aware, I don't need any coaching. And that for me is the indicator. The minute I don't need anybody to challenge my thinking, I don't need to think about myself.

Julia Carden [00:09:05]:
That's an indicator. And the other one is if we think we start blaming everybody else. So oh, the reason I was a bit tense or a bit feisty in that meeting was because of so and so or always finding fault in others and not stopping to think about ourselves. They would be the real indicators for me. I think in the book I talk about hubris, self delusion and self deception and I have this personality type which you will have read about in the book which fig jam I won't use the word F U C K I'm good, just ask me. And those leaders that come in, I'm brilliant, I'm perfect. Yeah, overestimated their leadership and their self awareness. The fig jams.

Julia Carden [00:09:51]:
And how do you think a leader's lack of self awareness shows up in team dynamics? So you mentioned there that that leader had got their team to have coaching presumably because they thought there were some issues. But what sort of issues might mis we see come up when the leader isn't very self aware?

Julia Carden [00:10:09]:
Team dysfunction. Teams start to break down conflict and tension. So I think some conflict where conflict is about a difference of opinions and a difference of perspectives is healthy but conflict when it's based on interpersonal conflict. I'm not getting on with you. Is unhealthy. And I think the other danger is in the team dynamics when the leader is always thinking they've Got all the answers all the time at there that I'm right, everybody else is wrong actually why have you got a team there who the power of thinking? It could be amazing if we could embrace and hold the multiple perspectives of that team. And what my research showed was we can't truly have team connection or a group connection if we're not first connected with ourselves. And the way to get connected with ourselves is to do work on our self awareness to get to the point where we can accept ourselves, accept we're not perfect, accept our egos, not the everything that you know, we're there as part of a team and then because we accept we haven't got all the answers we can ask our team and then we get connected to them as well.

Julia Carden [00:11:24]:
So the leader who lacks self awareness is not going to be able to hold that space of uncertainty, is not going to be able to use their team to think creatively and think at their best around those wicked problems which all organisations are grappling with in the current era that we're working in. And then team dysfunction. So yeah, a real impact. A real impact. Interesting.

Julia Carden [00:11:50]:
And I can definitely see that play out. I imagine there are some situations where you have team dysfunction despite having a good leader in place. Sometimes there's all sorts of different things going on as well, isn't there? But yeah, I can see that that's a big red flag for what role is the leader playing in this? Now the point you just made about how we can't really connect to other people if we're not connected to ourself. I was thinking that makes a great case for everybody having some coaching. Coaching is a brilliant way to build your self awareness. But for those who aren't currently working with a coach or don't have the budget to work for a coach, what can we do as leaders to start to build our self awareness?

Julia Carden [00:12:29]:
I think the first thing is get curious and want and what motivated to think about it and then I think just start at the end of maybe not even every day but maybe the end of a week or even the end of month. Just saying I wonder why I behaved in that way, what drove me to respond in that way. And that could be a positive response and a less than positive and I would start with both of those and just get really curious and even better if they can then journal or capture their response to go back and reflect on it. So it doesn't need to be big activities. But the more they do that reflection and exercise that muscle of reflection, the more the Self awareness will build and that doesn't have to be journaling, it doesn't have to be sat in a dark room. They could do a voice note, they could do a mind map, they could create a piece of poetry or a song if they're really creative or a picture. But who are they as a leader? And just if the more they do that, the more they reflect, the more they'll be tapping into their unconscious and the more some of those drivers to the behaviours will start to become evident over a period of time. So it could just be a couple of minutes each, each week and then get the collective reflection going.

Julia Carden [00:13:51]:
I like that idea. I used to journal a lot, now I walk every day and so I often do my reflection the next morning.

Julia Carden [00:13:59]:
About the day before.

Julia Carden [00:14:00]:
Particularly those moments that sort of hanging around, feeling slightly uncomfortable, unsettled about and I haven't really thought enough about why did that happen or what felt uncomfortable about that and how could I have dealt with it differently.

Julia Carden [00:14:14]:
The unsettling moments are the most revealing and also those people that, that annoy us or irritate us. A mentor of mine once said when I was reflecting on somebody that I just was really struggling with, just said well Julia, they're just holding a mirror up to the stuff you don't like in yourself. Which was a tough, tough message. But actually that was a great moment of self awareness, of really thinking about what is it about that person I don't like or yeah, that's something to think about for me.

Julia Carden [00:14:48]:
Yeah, I find that myself that often the people where I have more tension, we actually have more in common in our approaches than we have in differences. Yeah. Although sometimes it's like yeah, I would do that too if I could show up unedited. But I think about my impact on other people so I don't do that. So sometimes I'm still not able to be fully self aware in that moment. So you've already answered this a little bit. But what do you think are the most effective ways for leaders to uncover those blind spots, particularly when it comes to dealing with their team, but without feeling defensive or making others uncomfortable. Because if there isn't 360 degree feedback set up in your organization, how do you, I guess how do you create the psychological safety to be able to ask those questions about how you're showing up and your impact on others?

Julia Carden [00:15:43]:
The concept of creating psychological safety is quite interesting because we can only go so far. But what do I need to access safety for myself so as the leader I could put into some place. But what I really need to know from you, the team, is what you need to feel safe, to give me feedback or reveal some things about me. So that takes some slower, purposeful conversations with my team to notice that as well. The defensiveness, I mean if I think about, if I ask you for feedback on how I'm showing up, feedback is like an Exocet missile coming in to destroy the very being of my soul and my ego. So it's very difficult to receive that. So I think leaders can only ask that when they're in a good place themselves. So what do I mean by that? That they are feeling resilient, they're feeling resourceful, they're feeling grounded and they're doing it out of a genuine desire to understand, not as a reaction because somebody said you need to be more self aware or this is the latest fad in this company or this is the thing that we all want you to do.

Julia Carden [00:17:00]:
And also I've got to be able to just sit and hold with what I don't like as well as what I do like. And I say to managers, ask two questions of your team members and just write the answers down and just say to them thank you for the time and I'll think about it. And the two questions are. And the leaders can choose their adjectives, but what do I do as your leader that you appreciate or you value or that supports you or whatever adjective you want to use at the end. And then the second question is what do I do as a leader that irritates you, gets in the way, demotivates you and you've got to ask both and then just hold the thing. And I think the team readiness to deliver that as can I email that or send that in advance so that they, they're not caught, blindsided in a one to one saying oh now I your manager, I want some feedback. Let that other person prepare to give it to me so it's not catching them out cold. And that can be revealing.

Julia Carden [00:18:05]:
But if I'm a leader that's feeling unresilient, I'm not feeling well in myself physically or I've got some stuff going on in or out of work that's affecting my capacity to receive, the defensiveness is going to kick off straight away. It still might kick off, but I'm minimizing, mitigating that to a degree with feeling grounded myself.

Julia Carden [00:18:27]:
I 100% agree with that. And it is really, really hard to not react to feedback when it's coming in if it doesn't feel Fair. But if you ask for it, you have to be able to create that safe space for people to say it. And how about afterwards? So someone's given you feedback on, on your behavior. How do you then, what's the best thing to do with it after that?

Julia Carden [00:18:50]:
Well, ideally process it with a thinking partner. So of course I'd say a coach or a therapist. It doesn't have to be a coach or therapist, but somebody who can just hold you to process it. So not necessarily a friend who's going to chip in, but somebody who's just going to hold the space for you to express it. If you haven't got the luxury of that, write it down and just let it sit without, oh God, I've got to do something about it. I need some action. Can I just let it sit? I could make that even more impactful by okay, here's the feedback. What is the question that arises for me as a result of that feedback? And then just sit with the question rather than move straight to action.

Julia Carden [00:19:36]:
And I think many leaders take that feedback, think, right, I've got to do something instantly. And of course that becomes quite inaccessible to react straight away. If I react straight away, I probably won't sustain those actions because it's so unfamiliar. But if I could just sit and see what emerges and then think, ah, now I can see where I need to go, I'm more likely to sustain it and do it.

Julia Carden [00:20:03]:
And do you find that people might get different, totally different feedback from different members of their team? I wonder if sometimes the feedback you get is actually quite confusing even if you just take a non behavior example. I run workshops, I do feedback forms and some people are like too many breakouts. And some people are like please give us more breakouts, give us more time. And I'm like, oh, there is no one way to keep everyone happy in this situation. But I wonder if it works that way for leaders as well.

Julia Carden [00:20:29]:
Absolutely. And don't forget, when I give you feedback, I'm giving you feedback from my map of the world. So I'm projecting onto you my own unconscious stuff, good and bad. So this is why my book's called you're not as self aware as you think you are. Because a getting a handle, a grasp of that other person's perspective perceptions is hard for the reason you said I could get defensive. But the other reason is when you give me that feedback, you're going to give it from your, your moment in time and however you're showing up in that moment in time and from your own Intrapersonal, you know, dimensions. They're like a filter and you're going to give me that. So it's never 100 accurate.

Julia Carden [00:21:10]:
So actually the more views I have, the more difference as many pieces of the jigsaw and some are going to be valid and some aren't. I say the ones that you have the strongest emotional react or physiological reaction to are the ones that are probably worth paying attention to. Good and bad emotional and physiological reactions.

Julia Carden [00:21:32]:
Yeah. And let's just normalize that. It is really human to have those reactions. Like we're both coaches, people must look at us. People probably look at us and think, oh, they're very evolved. They wouldn't react to feedback. I feel a sense of dread in my stomach every time I open a feedback form. Even though I've done the session, there's been a good vibe.

Julia Carden [00:21:51]:
My brain is very quickly scanning for where's the person that said it wasn't good enough and how am I going to justify that to myself? And I don't like that trait in myself, but I absolutely recognize it's there.

Julia Carden [00:22:06]:
And you know, as you said, it's normal human behavior. And isn't it interesting you could have 20 pieces of feedback, 19 of which are good and one is bad. And we focus on the, the bad. So what does that. That in that very moment is giving us a window into our self awareness about how we are wired as, as a person. I suspect the Fig Jan character I mentioned earlier on would pay attention to the 18 and dismiss the other one. So again, that's just data about who you are. I think all, all I keep saying is you're collecting data about yourself.

Julia Carden [00:22:39]:
Use that to inspire a question for you to reflect on so you can take your awareness, awareness to a deeper level.

Julia Carden [00:22:46]:
And I just think about some of my clients because I automatically go to struggling to hear the bad feedback. But I have some clients that really struggle with the positive feedback as well. Like that doesn't match their view of the world. Their self awareness is the opposite from that character you were just talking about where they can't see the things that they're doing Right. So that self awareness as a leader doesn't necessarily mean that you can't see all your floors. Maybe sometimes you're seeing flaws that aren't even there potentially.

Julia Carden [00:23:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure with your work you see many people that talk about imposter syndrome or not feeling good enough and so they're not even looking at the positive feedback they're getting because they've just dismissed it or deleted it. So again, there's work to be done in the positive. So that's the other thing with self awareness. It doesn't always all have to be negative. It can be joyous, compassionate, celebratory as well.

Julia Carden [00:23:44]:
And you talk about there were lots of different bits within your book in terms of that intrapersonal side of things. Which is your favourite to explore or which do you think moves the lever most in terms of self awareness?

Julia Carden [00:23:57]:
I think about it like a messy ball of wool. If I take all those ingredients, I talked about both interpersonal, intrapersonal and. And each ingredient had a different color piece of wool. And then I tangled it all up in a nice messy ball. A cat, you know, said, got it all out and tangled it all up. If I start pulling one bit of wool, other things will be revealed to me along that way. I think if a leader saying, gosh, I don't know which strand to start with. I would say start with values and beliefs.

Julia Carden [00:24:29]:
But it doesn't really matter if you're thinking, gosh, I've never thought about my physiological responses. And you start there. Other things will be revealed as you pull that because you'll be realizing and exploring, oh, I feel tightness in my shoulders and neck. In a team meeting, you're probably then maybe presenting in a way that's maybe a bit. Your body shape is going to be different and that's going to be showing up as a behavior which is then going to elicit a different response from your team. Then when you go in and you're not feeling tight in your shoulders and you're feeling more open and accepting to the world, you're going to get a different response. So it doesn't matter which piece of wall strand you start with, but pick one that is of relevance to you and other things will be revealed. But I'd say if you can't decide, start with values and beliefs.

Julia Carden [00:25:18]:
Yeah, they're quite fundamental to who we are as a person, aren't they? And also some of the tensions that arise with other people too.

Julia Carden [00:25:27]:
Yeah. And really question the beliefs. The beliefs are really interesting. So we could say all values. We could say all like integrity, honesty, you know, they're the standards. But really start to interrogate your beliefs. So one of my beliefs which comes from my family system is it's really important to do your duty and to put everyone before you yourself. So that drives a never saying no perspective, never holding my own boundaries perspective.

Julia Carden [00:25:55]:
That then leads to resentment sometimes when I've said yes. So really thinking about what are the beliefs I live my life by and some of them won't be revealed to you immediately but yeah, beliefs are a good, good place to start.

Julia Carden [00:26:10]:
And as you were talking about what your body does or what your body can do and distress reminded me that that was the one thing I never had any awareness of a leader was.

Julia Carden [00:26:20]:
When I was stressed.

Julia Carden [00:26:22]:
Like it would take my body breaking down or even now I will go, I have a back massage every two weeks. I've got a bad back. And she was like have you had a stressful week? Because my back is totally out of sync and I'm like oh, oh yeah, actually I guess it has been stressful. So I've always found it. I think part of my brain goes no, you haven't got time for stress. No, you're not stressed, you can cope with everything. When actually there's all these signals and other people can see oh, she's clearly a little bit stressed.

Julia Carden [00:26:52]:
Yeah. And I wonder what the belief is underneath there that's saying you can cope with everything.

Julia Carden [00:26:57]:
Yeah, that's an old favourite that one. So what habits or routines have you seen the most self aware leaders practice? Consistent.

Julia Carden [00:27:10]:
Yeah, I'm thinking about one of my clients at the moment does regular reflective practice of. Of a couple of things. One, you talked about walking, he goes for a run, he does that every morning he and in that time he's processing, he uses it as his process time. He also does a mindfulness, a 10 minute mindfulness practice and he has coaching once a month and I think it doesn't have to. I know other leaders that maybe have a therapist therapist once a month or something or they have a thinking partner that they think with. But there's the good ones have some method of reflection be that mindfulness, a walk, thinking with somebody else or a combination of all of those. I think they're the most self aware that I've seen really and worked with.

Julia Carden [00:27:57]:
And so if leaders listening to this took only one action in the next 24 hours typically become more self aware, what would it be and why?

Julia Carden [00:28:06]:
Ask yourself daily why did I behave in the way I did today?

Julia Carden [00:28:12]:
I like that. I think I could apply that to my parenting. That's where my stress in my life is not leading a team at the moment, it's more leading a household of just one small person.

Julia Carden [00:28:23]:
Hey, I think that's the most challenging leadership job in the world being a parent because we're role modeling 24 7. Everything we do is a role model, isn't it? It's just us there's no time off.

Julia Carden [00:28:38]:
Absolutely. And just to bring this to a close, what do you hope will be different in organizations? Let's say, fingers crossed, this becomes a huge bestseller and everyone goes, everyone reads it and starts to put it into practice. What difference do you hope this book will, will make to working life for people?

Julia Carden [00:28:58]:
Yeah, acceptance and bringing more compassion. Because if I bring acceptance and compassion to myself, I'm going to be bringing it to my team, then I'm going to be bringing it to my organization, and then my organization is going to bring it. I see so much polarization in organizations and in our communities right now. And so I'd really hope that. But let's start with bringing the self acceptance to myself. That would be a great hope. Really.

Julia Carden [00:29:24]:
I absolutely love that. And I think it very much goes hand in hand with this self awareness, doesn't it? Because there is a little bit of, oh, if I lift up this rock, am I going to wish that I hadn't seen what was underneath it? But if you can do it with compassion, realizing I don't have to be the perfect person, it's okay to have flaws, but I do need to manage my impact on other people. So I really love that combination of the two.

Julia Carden [00:29:50]:
And I think that is what's important about self awareness. We're going to lift that rock up and we may not like what we can see and we can accept it because none of us are perfect. There's that Leonard Cohen quote about allow the. I can't, I'm going to paraphrase it because I can't remember exactly, but allow the cracks that. Allow the light to get in and that acceptance that we've all got cracks. And I think that's the difference between a self aware leader and a leader that's not self aware is the self aware leader knows that they've got cracks. They know they're not perfect. They know they aren't the finished product and therefore they're willing to embrace their team and what their team can offer.

Julia Carden [00:30:30]:
Whereas the leader that's not self aware thinks they're beautifully polished and there's not a crack in sight.

Julia Carden [00:30:37]:
Well, Julia, it's been such a pleasure talking to you and reading your book. How can people be work with you and how can they get a hold of you?

Julia Carden [00:30:44]:
They can connect with me on LinkedIn. Julia Carden, I think in your show notes you've put a link to my website. That's probably the easiest way. And on there there's access to the book and all the other writing I've written several little short, much more accessible articles which will take you 5 minutes to read rather than a longer book.

Julia Carden [00:31:02]:
Brilliant. Well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your wisdom with us. And I think I need to get back into the journaling and do some more reflection myself. So that's going to be my action from this interview is to spend a little bit more time reflecting and journaling a little bit more formally.

Julia Carden [00:31:21]:
Thank you, Carla. It's been lovely to meet you and have a great and have a conversation about something I'm passionate about. I could talk about it all day, so thank you. Sam.