Happy Book Launch Day! 'THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY' is go!!!!
The Guide to Charting Your Leadership Journey
I’m so thrilled, delighted and excited to announce the launch of my book THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY: CHARTING YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY’!
Let me tell you a little bit about it!
Well, this is it! The moment we’ve been talking about and waiting for is finally here. Today is the launch of my very first book! ‘THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY: CHARTING YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY’!
🟡 1. What sparked the idea for your book, and what personal stories or experiences influenced its creation?
When I started my doctorate, I always knew that whatever my discoveries and findings were, they had to be useful to other people. So, this book is a translation of my doctoral thesis, taking it from academia to the office.
I had two work experiences which sparked my interest in workplace relationships and behaviours. In the first, I experienced a number of people at different levels of an organisation behaving pretty badly and wondered, ‘do these people have a clue of the impact they have on others?!’. In the second, I had the privilege of working with people who were able to represent their colleagues and lead without having any line management responsibilities or the word ‘leader’ in their job title. I observed and experienced behaviour at two ends of the same spectrum, and the spectrum turned out to be self-aware leadership.
🟡 2. Can you give us a taste of what your book is all about in a nutshell?
It’s got 3 parts..
Part 1: ‘Why are you here traveller?’ is all about defining and describing self-awareness, leader effectiveness and leadership at all levels and setting out why it’s important to you, me and us.
Part 2: ‘Where are you going?’, sets out the 9 direction of the self-awareness compass. The 9 CHARTABLE points cover things like care, humility, authenticity and reflection. Part 2 also explores the signposts and directions that enable you and the roadblocks and trip hazards that obstruct you on your journey.
Part 3: ‘How will you get there?’, describes a variety of tools, techniques and methods you can use to develop your self-aware leadership skills. It covers things like mindfulness, journaling, coaching and 360 degree assessments.
🟡 3. How does your book offer a fresh perspective or new insights on its subject matter?
My definition of self-awareness has three layers
reflection of your hard and relational skills
recognition of your impact
regulation of your behaviour
I also connect it directly to leadership and provide you with a self-awareness compass and 9 clear directions in which to travel, to help you grow your self-aware leadership skills. The directions make up the mnemonic CHARTABLE (care, humility, authenticity, reflection etc).
The book also draws commentary from my podcast, focused on self-aware leadership, ‘The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast’. It was great to be able to give real life examples from people talking the talk and walking the walk, to exemplify my research.
🟡 4. Share a fascinating discovery from your research that readers will find intriguing.
All of the literature and academic research I read said that people in the most senior positions of organisations had greater self-awareness than anyone else in organisations. My research said exactly the opposite. People talked to me about this idea of ‘strategic level disconnect’: senior people seem to loose touch with the operational realities of their organisation and their ideas are disjointed from what’s actually possible in practice.
🟡 5. Who do you think will connect most with your book, and why?
I’ve dedicated this book to ‘those who want to care better for others and those who want to be better cared for by others’.
I think people who manage people and have a desire to improve their leadership and management practices will be interested in the book. I also think people who’ve been lead by poor leaders will want to know how they can in turn, be better and do better.
🟡 6. What's one key takeaway or lesson you hope readers will absorb after reading your book?
That self-awareness is an ongoing journey and you always have to be travelling the superhighway to keep your self-aware leadership skills honed and updated. Even people who are consciously carving out time to build their self-awareness are going to have days when they are more or less self-aware. So we need to keep talking about self-awareness to make reflection, recognition and regulation part of our ongoing practice and part of business as usual.
🟡 7. Any juicy sneak peeks or behind-the-scenes stories from the making of your book that you can share?
This launch hasn’t quite gone to plan! 4th April was always in my mind for launch day, but one of my distributors was really slow in reviewing my files and okaying my book for printing. After that, I ordered a printed proof using their ‘rush’ option, thinking that the date wasn’t finalised until I’d approved the hard copy. It took nearly a week for the paperback to arrive. In that time, I decided to push my launch date back to 22nd April in case something didn’t pan out. E-book go-live was duly changed. Then I’m sitting on the sofa on bank holiday Sunday, click on to Amazon and see that the paperback is there, for all to see, saying ‘it’s launching on 4th April’. So, I guess launch day is 4th April, after all!!
🟡 8. Tell us about the quiz related to your book—what inspired it and what can readers expect?
I wanted readers to have something practical to be able to help them chart their journey along their self-awareness superhighway. With a little help from friends, I’ve built a tool that allows you to assess yourself against the 9 self-awareness compass directions. You can then add up to 3 e-mail addresses for friends/colleagues to assess you. You’ll get a chart with two lines, the first being your scores and the second being the average of the scores of the (up to) 3 people who’ve assessed you. The difference in your line and your ‘others’ line gives you an indication of how different your view of your self is compared to others’ view of you. The differences and similarities help you understand what direction you need to travel in to further develop your self-awareness.
🟡 9. Lastly, could you shed some light on the companion journal for your book? What prompted its creation and how does it enhance the reader's experience?
Journaling is a powerful way of getting all of the busy thoughts from inside your head out onto a page. It facilitates the 3 essential components for developing your self-awareness. The journal also uses the nine pointed compass to facilitate your reflection. Every day, week or whenever it fits into your schedule, you can score yourself against the 9 compass points and reflect on your hard and relational skills, your impact on others and what changes you want to make to your behaviour to do things differently next time.
I’m excited to share the Book, the Journal and the Quiz with the world because we need to keep up the momentum to develop more self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation.
Thank you to the amazing
, Jessica Brown and associates, and Liam Beattie for being on my team and making this launch possible, as well as my husband for helping me build the Quiz and all of my podcast guests for their conversations, insights and wisdom.Please remember to leave a rate and review on Amazon for…
📒 THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY: CHARTING YOUR LEADERSHIP JOURNEY
📒THE SELF-AWARENESS SUPERHIGHWAY: REFLECTIONS JOURNAL
Looking forward to having you on my ongoing learning journey!
is an expert leader who talks the talk and walks the walk. She is an academically awarded thought leader in self-aware leadership and practices self-aware leadership every single day in her role as a Director in a Children’s Charity.
Congratulations on your book launch.
Congratulations! Look forward to reading it 😁