Six questions every leader should ask to manage themselves better

Executive overview

Most leadership development skips the foundational step: understanding yourself. Without it, you can't manage your own behaviour, and you lose credibility to ask others to grow.

Margaret Andrews distils self-understanding into six questions — designed to be revisited over time, not answered in one sitting. Answering the first well tends to unlock the rest.

Great leadership is built on interpersonal skills, not IQ or technical ability — and those skills begin with self-knowledge.

Why interpersonal skills outweigh IQ and technical ability

• In the "best boss" exercise, 85% of Post-it notes land on the interpersonal skills board
• The remaining 15% splits evenly between IQ and technical/functional skills
• Daniel Goleman found the same: 90% of what separates star senior leaders from average ones is emotional intelligence
• A 1918 study of engineers reached the same conclusion — interpersonal skills drove career success
• Technical skills get people promoted; interpersonal skills make them great once there

The six questions

1. Who and whose thinking has shaped you? Parents, teachers, friends, enemies, co-workers — and ideas from books, films, classes, even childhood stories. Both those who helped and those who hurt have shaped your thinking. Revisit periodically; some things you were told about yourself in childhood are no longer true.

2. What situations and events have shaped your perspective? Includes lucky and unlucky accidents. You can't change the beginning (C.S. Lewis), but knowing your starting point is what makes a path forward possible — like entering a destination into GPS without knowing where you are.

3. What does success look like for you? Push past the surface answer (money, title, house) to the why behind it. Society's definition of success often isn't yours. Understanding what you actually want helps you stop chasing things that aren't serving you.

4. What are your core values, and how have they changed? Two fast entry points: (a) what does your calendar reveal about what you actually value vs. what you say you value? (b) what makes you angry? Anger often signals a value being violated.

5. To what extent are you aware of and allow yourself to feel your emotions? Ask: when you're angry, who's the first to know — you or the person you're with? Emotions drive behaviour. If you can't name what you're feeling, you can't manage it.

6. What feedback have you received about how your actions impact others? Look for themes across teachers, friends, partners, and performance reviews. Don't filter only to people you respect — you may miss something important. Don't dismiss positive feedback; it's why you're invited to the table.

How to work through the questions

• Write freely first — don't edit, just get it down
• Return in a day, a week, a month, and annually
• The first question is the biggest; answering it well helps with the rest
• These are for your eyes only — share only what you're comfortable with
• A trusted person who knows you well can offer a useful outside perspective