How To Introspect Without Chasing Your Tail: A Radical Inside-Out Leadership Methodology

We know the value of inside-out leadership, but we don't have a reliable methodology for achieving it.

There is a consensus in the literature that self-awareness is a necessary starting point for truly effective leadership. Despite the numerous books and articles about inside-out leadership, there appears to be little guidance on how to introspect effectively. At Highrise Vista, we believe that building cultural intelligence is a radical, comprehensive, and effective approach to building self-awareness as it relates to one’s ability to lead others.

As Dr. Short indicated in his seminal work Learning in Relationships, to be out of touch with your internal experience is to be vulnerable to false assumptions.  Dr. Short is one of many authors who have touted an “inside-out” approach to effective leadership over the past 20 years. His work stands out for its practical applications, which I draw on heavily in this article with profound gratitude.

From the book Learning in Relationships (1998, Learning in Technologie).

Happily, many authors provide ample evidence backing up the link between self-awareness and leadership effectiveness, as well as some guidance as to what types of questions leaders might ask themselves. Still, there is no clear inside-out methodology, and the pathway to self-awareness as a leader is far from clear. As McKinsey researchers noted in 2024, the inside out leadership journey is “often traveled without much help or guidance.” The successful leaders they spoke with believed that self-awareness was either an inborn trait or one acquired by virtue of having been lucky enough to have had the right teacher. “No one,” they said, “could point to a clear road map to becoming a more human and authentic leader” (see Dana Maor, Hans-Werner Kaas, Kurt Strovink, and Ramesh Srinivasan, “The ‘inside out’ leadership journey: How personal growth creates the path to success,” McKinsey, June 17, 2024).

Without guidance and methodology, we are left with the simple yet opaque process of questioning our assumptions. This is problematic since humans are fairly notorious for overestimating their ability to be objective about themselves. Emily Pronin and her colleagues provide compelling research on what they call a human “meta-bias,” which is a tendency to see ourselves as less biased than everyone around us. Without a method for accounting for this “bias blind spot” we have for ourselves, our efforts at introspection are akin to a dog chasing its tail (see Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. 2002. “The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(3), 369-381.)

Effective introspection starts with a framework for asking the right questions and for contending with blind spot bias when considering responses. Unstructured self-reflection with no outside reference point can be a useful practice in certain contexts, but leadership development requires a more targeted approach.

How do we get around the meta-bias? There is no perfect approach, however we have found that using culture as a framework provides a theoretical and practical framework for guiding introspection to effective outcomes. We recommend building cultural intelligence as a core leadership skill.

A Radical Approach to Beat the ‘Bias Blind Spot’ Blues

Building cultural intelligence (CQ) is a radical approach because it takes us to the root of what it means to be human. Cultural intelligence is a core capacity - it is like a garden into which multiple leadership attributes can be planted and cultivated. In this way, focusing on cultural intelligence is an efficient way to boost leadership effectiveness across multiple dimensions in the short-term. CQ will also continue to impact the organization positively over the long term as leaders integrate insights and information from doing the work of CQ development, including structured introspection, building relationship infrastructure on teams, and nurturing specific relationships as needed.

A strategic framework for self-analysis is critical for leaders who wish to make sense of today’s climate of "list leadership models": 10 styles of effective leadership, 12 attributes of inclusive leaders, 15 attributes of strong leaders, 14 weaknesses that hold leaders back, 17 personality traits of effective leaders, and so on (these are real headlines from just last week). The listed characteristics are described typically as if they have universal value (e.g., “curiosity,” “courage,” “integrity”). What does it mean to be curious, though? Does everyone you know demonstrate curiosity the same way? How do we know what the right way is for the right context? After all, in some contexts, curiosity will kill the cat, right? When is curiosity appropriate for leaders? These questions demonstrate the limitations associated with adopting generic lists of traits as leadership gospel.

Further, the leadership lists often include self-awareness as an outcome to achieve, not necessarily a skill to keep practicing. Hence the reason for continued confusion over the practical steps for building self-awareness.  Leaders are left with long lists of lofty-sounding attributes in hand wondering, what do I actually do to know myself better and thus be more authentic and better able to understand others?

Consider this example of introspection advice from Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr., from his 2011 book From Values to Action: “When you couple the practice of self-reflection with the discipline of balance by seeking input from many people, your leadership is elevated." I agree that a simultaneous focus on inside-out and outside-in can be extremely helpful in upgrading one’s leadership approach. However, the author falls into circular reasoning in his description of the detailed “practice of self-reflection.” To engage in this practice, you simply:

“…ask yourself the questions that are the most relevant to you. […] Personally, I find it helpful to write things down so that I can tell when I'm really being self-reflective, instead of just daydreaming."

The question of relevance is key - how does one know what questions are the most relevant? Without a framework for determining relevance, we are like contestants on Jeopardy! who are not allowed to choose a category but are made to decode the mystery statement with no context. The statement could literally be anything, making the task all the more daunting. Similarly, if any question can be deemed relevant to the self, the field of questioning is too large to be useful.

I liken using culture -- the system that makes us human -- as a framework for introspection to being allowed to choose a category on your own personal Jeopardy show. Even better, because the category is culture, it's almost as if we are saying: "I'll take the meta-category that helps us understand all other categories for $200, Alex."

Indeed, culture helps us frame the questioning of the self in a model that not only covers all aspects of ourselves as leaders but also applies to every other human on earth. This gives us powerful context for understanding ourselves in relationships with the people we work with. Next, culture helps us interpret the responses we give ourselves. Specifically, building the skill of intercultural competence helps us overcome the built-in blind-spot bias that we are all subject to on a daily basis.

In the absence of such criteria for relevance and interpretation, we are wandering directionless in our own minds. The McKinsey research cited earlier recommends that leaders:

“…Examine their inner selves and overcome their own barriers and biases. What is it you really want to accomplish? What behaviors do you want to model? What assumptions are you making—including about yourself—that stand in the way? This introspection requires leaders to assess situations in an unbiased manner, which will mean listening deeply to a network of stakeholders, including coaches, who can reflect the leader’s own needs back to them and offer advice." (emphasis added)

While we praise the emphasis on creating a balance between introspection and feedback, we are struck by the absence of detail on the process of self-examination. Precisely due to the blind spot bias, how does one examine one’s own assumptions about oneself? 

At Highrise Vista, we contend that building cultural intelligence is a systematic and effective approach for self-inquiry that enhances both understanding of one’s individual identity and one’s interaction with others.

What is Cultural Intelligence?

Since the foundations of our identities are necessarily cultural, our avenues for self-understanding must also be cultural. This is especially true when we are seeking self-understanding for the purpose of leading other people.

Cultural intelligence is the capacity to navigate and influence any cultural system for the mutual benefit of all people touched by the system. 

Cultural intelligence or CQ helps us ensure that we are thorough and relevant when we undertake self-reflection to be a more authentic, self-aware leader. CQ helps us first understand who we are as individuals, then it helps us navigate our relationships with other individuals and groups.

As individuals, each of us is a unique and complex intersection of historically specific identities. Examining our unique mix of backgrounds, influences, and identities is an effective way to identify our core values, beliefs, and norms. Where did our ideas about ourselves originate? Once we unpack who we are, we can measure and improve our ability to bridge differences when we encounter them in other people.

A note on the term cultural intelligence: cultural intelligence differs from cultural competence. Cultural (or intercultural) competence measures a person’s ability to shift perspective and adapt behavior when confronted with cultural differences. Cultural intelligence includes cultural competence along with an active, continuous engagement with one’s own cultural roots AND a lifelong commitment to understanding (and shifting) the dynamic between one’s cultural roots and how one navigates common human relationship dynamics such as sharing information and giving feedback.

To understand why CQ is the foundation of all self-knowledge, let’s take a step back and explore what culture is and how it makes us who we are. Practice slowing down to speed up with me…let’s pause and consider this powerful, ubiquitous, yet nebulous term “culture.”

Culture is not a material thing one can observe in the world, but rather a system that describes how humans interact with the world and each other. Cultural systems are learned (not inherited) and they intersect and change over time.

According to the American Anthropological Association:

“No human is born with a built-in culture or language. Our temperaments, dispositions, and personalities, regardless of genetic propensities, are developed within sets of meanings and values that we call “culture.” Studies of infant and early childhood learning and behavior attest to the reality of our cultures in forming who we are.” - AAA Statement on Race - The American Anthropological Association

The triangle shown is adapted from the work of a well-known theorist of organizational culture, Geert Hofstede.

 The figure depicts how our identities are composed, with culture making the link between universal human characteristics (like the suckling instinct or our social needs for connection and love) and unique personality traits (like being a “morning person” or being “outgoing”). In other words, culture gives us both the foundation upon which our personalities develop, and context for understanding our particular stories in a broader human context.

Culture is the link between our unique, individual personality and the common humanity we share with every other person; through culture each person becomes a singular mosaic of group identities. Cultural competence is our ability to navigate differences. Cultural intelligence is our ability to build new cultural systems that work for everyone involved.

What does culture look like and how do we study it? When most of us think of culture, we think of nationality, language, food, music, or art, but there is so much more to a person’s identity. There is no one “correct” way to describe all the components of culture as a living, changing system. Nonetheless, anthropologists and organizational psychologists have certainly tried! From Edward B. Tylor’s 1871 definition of culture as a “complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities and habits,” to Clifford Geertz’s characterization of “a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life" just a century later in 1973, the attempts to define culture were almost too numerous to count Today, theorists -- including myself -- continue to propose models to describe the complex system that governs human behavior.

One such model – an extremely one that is often used in discussions about organizational culture -- is Edward T. Hall’s Iceberg Model of Culture, which illustrates that while some aspects of culture (behaviors) are easily seen above the surface, the bulk of what shapes behavior lies hidden beneath: values, beliefs, communication norms, and unspoken expectations. Like an iceberg, the invisible parts are vast, powerful, and often more influential than what we can see, reminding us that understanding culture requires deep inquiry below the surface. This is useful because it is a principle that can be applied across the vast range of human cultural diversity. Your unique cultural background is at the intersection of a unique mix of communities of origin and adoption. However, no matter who you are, your identity follows this pattern of visible behaviors influenced by invisible values.

At Highrise Vista, we recognize that no definition of culture is perfect. We honor the research that has gone into understanding what culture is and how it works, recognizing some basic truths about culture that this work has revealed: culture influences absolutely everything about human existence, relatively distinct groups of people form relatively distinct cultures, the human sense of self comes from complex intersecting cultural identities, everything to do with culture is contextual and can change.

Given culture’s simultaneous complexity and ubiquity, we have no choice but to simply choose one. The model we use at Highrise Vista is derived from the work of French archaeologists Pierre-Yves Balut and Philippe Bruneau, whom I studied under at the University of Paris-Sorbonne IV in the 1990s.

According to this model, humans are the only animals that engage in four types of behavior simultaneously: inventing and codifying beliefs and norms, creating elaborate symbolic systems called language, forming social connections like nations or companies, and making physical objects with the use of other objects (“tools”). Primates and other mammals may exhibit the capacity for one or more of these (think dolphin language or primate relationships), but only humans engage in all four at the same time.

1.      Values: We have value systems that differ by community, and we make rules about how we live and work together.

2.      Language: We have elaborate systems whereby one thing is made be a symbol of another, such as the word “blue” to designate the color of the sky.

3.      Community: We are social animals, we live in groups. We have created many different kinds of groups: families, schools, companies, nations, and more.

4.      Tools: We make things that make our lives easier and more fun. Axes to chop wood. Buckets to carry water. Computers to think. Whatever product your company is selling 😊.

Adapted from Bruneau ,P. & P.-Y. Balut. 1982. Positions. Revue d’Archéologie Moderne et d’Archéologie Générale Paris 1: 3–33.

Of course, human life doesn’t always break down neatly into these four categories. When it comes to human behavior, such models and systems are merely heuristics for helping us think, never absolute and final depictions. This model is particularly useful for thinking about human culture in four basic categories of norms, language, relationships, and tools.

Of these four, let’s focus on relationships for a moment, because these are so closely linked to our current topic of understanding who we are as leaders. Relationships form the communities that give us the demographic groups that shape us: nations, regions, ethnic groups, religions, educational philosophies, family structures, and the like. Each of us are defined by distinct sets of norms, languages, relationships, and tools that we learn and share in the various communities that we are a part of throughout our lives. From where we are born, who our parents are, the circumstances of our youth and growing up, our education, our life experiences, our profession, our religion, etc., the communities we are a part of are a primary force that shape our identities.

Cultures, thus, are sets of historically specific beliefs, relationships, practices, and objects adopted and shared by somewhat distinct groups of people. 

How do we use this knowledge of what culture is and how it functions to become better leaders?

Building Cultural Intelligence, the Highrise Vista Way

Our methodology combines a structured peeling away of the onion of the self with a straightforward, systematic visioning process and gap analysis. First, we peel back the layers of the cultural self, then we identify attributes that we want to embody, describe their ideal manifestation in cultural context, conduct a gap analysis, and develop a plan for closing that gap.

The initial introspection will identify characteristics that define us as a leader, starting in the mirror and expanding out to institutional and social contexts. We don’t rely on pre-defined lists of what makes a good leader, we unpack what “good leadership” means to you and your organization.  Do you want to be a more collaborative leader, for example?  We will need to conduct a thorough cultural analysis of the adjective “collaborative.” What does it mean, precisely? What behaviors demonstrate collaboration? Where did you learn that these behaviors were the “right” way to collaborate? Are there other ways to collaborate?  Could any of these alternatives improve your own approach to collaboration, particularly in the current context in which you lead? Finally, given this analysis, do you have a new “ideal” of collaboration? Next we move to the gap analysis: how do you measure up to that ideal, and if there is a gap, how will you close it? This line of questioning constitutes the practice of cultural unpacking.

There is no “right” way to introspect, but with this cultural lens we have developed a methodology to guide introspection on your leadership identity – both who you are (identity awareness) and how you relate to others (identity understanding).  The two-step approach involves first a discovery phase during which we gather data through brainstorming, assessment, and feedback. What makes our approach unique is that the assessment provides a framework (culture) for interpreting all the other data. In step two, we introduce a second layer of cultural analysis that is personal to you.

The discovery starts by looking in the mirror at the norms, language, relationships, and tools that we associate with our own identity as a leader. We first address your particular journey to leadership, the outside influences in that journey, and how you define leadership. Then, we examine your impact as a leader and your relationships with those you lead. The result is a preliminary portrait of yourself as a leader: who are you as a leader? Where did you learn the “right” way to lead?

Next, we leverage the Intercultural Development Inventory® for reliable data on your level of intercultural competence. This psychometrically valid assessment measures your place along a developmental spectrum of increasingly intercultural mindsets. Importantly, the assessment is also designed to identify the gap between your self-assessment and how others experience you. This offers a rare opportunity to obtain an assessment of what your bias blind spot looks like along with a tailored set of instructions for reducing it. We also consider any other personality data you would like us to incorporate (e.g., Myers-Briggs, Disc, or the like).

The third layer of discovery comes from feedback, either formal or informal. We invite you to comb through the archives of performance reviews or any other feedback received. This is hard data on how you are perceived, What labels have you had bestowed upon you via feedback?  For example, a colleague of mine once gave me feedback that my approach to group facilitation was very “teacher-like.” This struck me because both my parents were teachers, as were many of their siblings. My great-grandfather, Henry B. Froning, was a chemistry professor at Notre Dame university in the mid-20th century, leaving a larger-than-life legacy in our family. It’s not surprising that I have “teacher” attributes that emerge spontaneously when I lead other people -- this is how I was trained as a child. There is indeed a specific set of values embodied in specific behaviors by American public-school teachers between 1970-1990 (arguably given more specificity by State, region, and school district) that I learned and demonstrate in my professional life. While these values and behaviors may seem “normal” and “right” to me (so much so that I didn’t even notice them) they can come across as inappropriate in certain contexts, without me realizing it (come back to this space for more on that story later)!

As we progress through the discovery -- describing your leadership journey, assessing your intercultural competence, and considering feedback you’ve received -- we gather our own list of attributes. Not a generic list, however, but one tailor made to who you are. Additional discovery can be done by looking at who you are in professional and historical contexts. For example, look at your professional standards and norms. How do you measure up? At this stage, it’s appropriate to trot out those lists and models that we mentioned earlier. Is there a leadership model you particularly ascribe to? What are some of the attributes of it? How do you measure up to those? Add them to your list.

We introspect according to a custom-made list of attributes that speaks to your unique cultural identity.

At the end of the initial discovery process, you will have a list of about ten attributes uniquely curated to who you are as a leader. Now what? You’ve only just begun.

Your Leadership Persona in Context

If we were in the kitchen, we would say, now put that list aside for the moment while you get out another mixing bowl and set of ingredients, those that make up your baseline performance matrix. By that we mean, the purpose, vision, strategy, and values that you operate under in a given organizational context. Without these basic parameters, you’re not leading or even operating, you’re bouncing around at the mercy of external events.

The baseline performance matrix answers the basic questions of why, where, what, and how. Since the 1990s, it has been increasingly commonplace for corporations to prioritize the articulation and communication of a purpose beyond profit (see Victoria Hurth, Charles Ebert & Jaideep Prabhu, “Organizational Purpose: The Construct and its Antecedents and Consequences.” Cambridge Judge Business School Working Paper No. 02/2018).  Since the early 2000s, purpose has also become an inescapable component of effectiveness for individual leaders (see Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook, “From Purpose to Impact,” Harvard Business Review, May 2014). Simon Sinek has made purpose famous with 2009 book and TED Talk “Start with Why,” which introduced the concept of the golden circle.

The company’s “why” or reason for existing, along with its future vision, present-day strategy, and values, are the foundation for its existence. The company culture- the norms, symbols, relationships, and tools - deliberately shaped and embodied by its leaders, renders that foundation palpable for its employees and encourages each employee to contribute to the foundation with their authentic talents that drive performance. This is how purpose, strategy, and culture all work together to drive company success (see Hubert Joly, “Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy and Purpose?, Harvard Business Review, June 10, 2022).  

Our next step consists of a guided process for uncovering one’s purpose as a leader, followed by structured reflections for identifying vision, values, and strategies. When the discovery process is complete, we have two matrices.

The first is the custom list of leadership attributes from the journey of self-discovery: how you became a leader, your aspirations for leadership, how you were taught to be a leader, and how you’ve been described as a leader. Here is also included lists of attributes from assessments, models, frameworks, and paradigms as they apply to you.

The second is your personal performance matrix that describes your purpose (why you lead), your vision (where you are leading people towards), your values (the beliefs you live by), and your strategies (your go-to approaches for leading).

We record our discoveries in a tracking sheet that is also designed to walk you through the analytic process, which we call cultural unpacking.

Cultural Unpacking: Uncovering the Roots

Both the leadership persona and the performance matrix will be subject to a cultural unpacking process that involves uncovering the hidden assumptions and value judgments in your leadership persona and opening the door for considering alternatives. This is where cultural intelligence is fostered in real time. For each of the attributes in your matrices, there are three sets of questions we ask, in this order:

1.      Ideal – what is the ideal behavioral manifestation of this value? In other words, how do you do it “right,” and where did you learn the “right” way? Are there alternative ways you can begin to incorporate into a new ideal?

2.      Real – how do YOU manifest this value via behavior on a daily basis?

3.      Opportunity – what are some real, practical situations in which you can develop this value?

This process takes time and energy, as leaders typically start with a list of at least 10 attributes to unpack. A final, refining step is to reduce the number of attributes to five, creating a more targeted action plan for the future. Decisions about which attributes to prioritize are facilitated by focusing on alignment with the performance matrix. Often, we can identify attributes that have been bestowed upon us by others or that we grew up believing were "right," but that today do not align with our purpose, vision, values, or strategy. We may be able to eliminate some attributes or combine them with others.

At the end of the cultural unpacking process, you will have succeeded in applying cultural intelligence to the introspection process. Congratulations! You now have fodder for a deeper, more radical understanding of who you are as a leader and how you relate to the people you lead. Through the cultural unpacking process, you create a map to guide you from the present state to future desired state.

This summer, we are launching a leadership sprint for a handful of leaders who want to experience the cultural unpacking process along with the clarity and renewed focus it brings. It’s time to get radical about the system that governs everything we do, but that we never even think about: culture.

Get a taste of the experience here when you sign up for (infrequent, non-spammy) emails: https://www.highrisevistaconsulting.com/mirror-assessment-download

Sign up for the Inside-Out Leadership Development Sprint here: https://tinyurl.com/hrvc-inside-out