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Know Thyself

16 July 2024

Inscribed on the Greek Temple of Apollo is the famous Delphic maxim "Know Thyself."  Plato believed true wisdom came from understanding one's character and true nature. Jean Gomes’ sense of self framework from his book, Leading in a Non-Linear World: Building Wellbeing, Strategic and Innovation Mindsets for the Future introduces such a tool for self-reflection.

Tags: geof read, mindset

In his book, Leading in a Non-Linear World: Building Wellbeing, Strategic and Innovation Mindsets for the Future, author Jean Gomes introduced four mindsets to empower leaders to not only operate in an increasingly complex environment but to welcome it.

“As work becomes more chaotic, our ability to remain composed and engaged depends not only on the resources the more human mindset can rally but also on growing a deeper and more positive relationship to the exposure we feel as things constantly change. This allows us to see how our mindset interacts with others, promoting the conditions to feel safe and open to listen and argue together more effectively...”

Briefly, Gomes' four leadership mindsets are:

• Wellbeing Mindset: Prioritizing mental and physical health as foundational to effective leadership.
• Strategic Mindset: Developing an understanding of the bigger picture, anticipating trends, and making informed decisions.
• Innovation Mindset: Embracing change, fostering creativity, and adapting to new realities.
• Open Mindset: Cultivating curiosity, flexibility, and openness to diverse perspectives.

Most interesting for me was Gomes' framework to explore the leader’s sense of self, the foundation for building the four leadership mindsets. “At the core of mindset building is a new, deeper form of self-awareness: being able to pay attention to multiple dimensions of your interior world and observe how they influence one another.”

Gomes introduced eight progressively more “sophisticated” (my choice of words) layers of self-awareness. Leaders can cultivate a thorough understanding of themselves by reflecting on these layers. “As we do so, we gain the power to see and close the knowing-doing gaps in our lives,” according to Gomes.

The most fundamental layer is consciousness, our internal and external awareness of the world around us (sensations) and how well our brain predicts the sensation. Gomes introduced Karl Friston’s “free energy theory,” which describes the moments of surprise when our brain fails to make the right prediction. Think about the times you’re on autopilot and accidentally “push” the “pull” door. Your brain made an incorrect prediction, and you experienced a moment of consciousness.

The next layer is affect, which describes our physical and emotional state. Affects can be positive or negative and experienced at different degrees of arousal. “The state of our affect profoundly influences the brain's predictions and therefore judgment,” Gomes explained. Being aware of how physically and mentally resourced they are, leaders can be more mindful of the impact their affect has on their ability to lead. How are your interactions different when you are in a “good mood” versus a “bad mood?”

Layers three and four include emotions and meta-emotions. Gomes introduced new research about emotions, shifting perceptions of emotions as “undermining logic and rational thinking” to the role of emotions as “part of our brain’s sense-making system.” When we encounter a situation, our brains subconsciously recall past experiences to predict what the data means. Part of this prediction includes the emotions we will feel. Instead of experiencing emotions, our brains are instead constructing emotions to make sense of our sensory input.

Meta-emotions are our emotions about emotions and involve reflecting on our emotional experiences. Contemplating our emotional responses to situations allows us to better understand and regulate our emotional responses. “Understanding meta-emotions allows us to feel strategically, to see more clearly the layers of feeling and emotion and their influence on our assumptions,” explained Gomes.

Assumptions and beliefs are the seventh and eighth dimensions of Gomes' sense of self framework. Assumptions are underlying notions or ideas we hold without necessarily questioning them. They shape our worldview, influence our behavior, and affect how we perceive and interpret events. “The consequence of our brain's predictive nature is that it produces a powerful sense of what we ‘know’ in any given moment fueled by assumptions. It can be hard, therefore, to distinguish between an assumption and an objective truth. Our inner world of unspoken truths is our reality. This often leads us to set our frame of reference for what we believe we can control or do, far too tightly.”

Assumptions and what we think is true evolve into beliefs. “We could substitute think for believe. This is important because our mindset isn't driven by rationality as we might like to sometimes believe. We assume our assumptions are true because they feel true. If our sensory data doesn't provide us with sufficient error signals, our assumptions coalesce into a sense of rightness or certainty.”

Questioning our deeply held beliefs and interrogating their objective truth can be uncomfortable. It means questioning our past decisions, actions, and behaviors. Gomes suggested making a list of our core beliefs, citing a client, Bill, that he coached. Gomes had the client create a list of his central beliefs. “One of the conclusions Bill came to was that the ‘mental box’ in which he operated, and many of the unspoken goals that were shaping his life, were based on values and beliefs he had when he was 20. Now, he's 46.”

Perception, the seventh layer, is how we interpret sensory information from the environment and predict actions and outcomes. Our perceptions are shaped and influenced by the previous layers and our beliefs, assumptions, and emotions. Our perceptions act as filters, creating a subjective interpretation of reality. “What we're seeing (perception) is a representation of those objects after we process the information, not the information itself. It's not reality but a construction that our brain pieces together based on our experiences, biases, and assumptions,” Gomes expanded.

The eighth layer of the sense of self framework is meta-cognition or thinking about our own thinking. When we think about our thinking, we increase awareness of how our decisions are shaped and influenced. Building this deeper understanding allows leaders to regulate problem-solving and adjust their thinking patterns and strategies.

As I mentioned earlier, this self-reflection and deeper understanding of one’s own affect, emotions, assumptions, beliefs, and perceptions become the foundation for cultivating Gomes' four leadership mindsets. The self-reflection, through the eight dimensions of Gomes' framework, was for me, the most useful exercise. I encourage you to evaluate yourself through the eight dimensions.

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