Why Self-Awareness Sets Great Leaders Apart
Maxwell Leadership Podcast
John Maxwell
4.8 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What sets great leaders apart in times of crisis and change? In this week's episode, John shares a powerful insight he gained from Chick-fil-A chairman Dan Cathy on the importance of self-awareness and situational awareness for leaders — especially in tough times!
After his lesson, Mark Cole and Chris Goede discuss practical ways to cultivate these awarenesses as a leader. They explore how seeking honest feedback, asking thoughtful questions, and learning from role models can expand your leadership capacity.
Key takeaways:
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Self-awareness doesn't happen in isolation—it requires the courage to invite feedback from others and the humility to receive it.
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Before you can lead yourself effectively, you must first know yourself authentically. Self-awareness precedes situational awareness.
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Situational awareness grows through experience, but you can accelerate it by asking "What would a leader I admire do in this situation?" and seeking input from trusted mentors.
Our BONUS resource for this episode is the Why Self-Awareness Sets Great Leaders Apart Worksheet, which includes fill-in-the-blank notes from John's teaching. You can download the worksheet by visiting MaxwellPodcast.com/SelfAware and clicking "Download the Bonus Resource."
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References:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Maxwell Leadership Podcast. |
| 0:10.6 | If you're listening live today, I hope that 2025 has been a great year, and I hope that |
| 0:17.0 | tomorrow you start the best year of your life in 2026. Hey, I'm in studio today with Chris |
| 0:23.7 | Godi and we're going to talk about self-aware leader. I don't want to get into that yet. |
| 0:27.8 | But man, has it been going to go to 20-25 year for you? Where did it go? Exactly. You know, |
| 0:32.6 | I mean, I remember my parents always saying it gets faster the older you get. I seriously do |
| 0:37.3 | not know where 2025 went. But it's the older you get. I seriously do not know where |
| 0:37.8 | 2025 went, but it's been an incredible year. I think personally and professionally here at Maxwell |
| 0:43.5 | leadership, some of the things that we've been able to grow through, accomplish, people we've |
| 0:48.6 | added to the team, people we've impacted around the world. So it's been a great year, yeah. |
| 0:52.3 | Yeah, for sure. You know, boy, I felt incredibly blessed. We've talked a lot about Thanksgiving through the holidays. But man, I'm ready. I'm ready for 2026. It was too fast. I blinked and I'm a year older and my kids are older and what is going on. But man, I am excited about this coming. |
| 1:10.0 | When you, if you think, Mac, if you think Mark gets passionate, you just come to a state of the culture. Yeah. Come to connecting with Mark, leading with Mark, outside of his year-end reviews and ready to go, because you better put your seatbelt on. Yeah, it's a special time. And by the way, the year's not quite over again if you're listening live, but you only got a few hours left if you're listening live. But yeah, this concept of closing the chapter |
| 1:34.6 | on a year so that you can get fresh and excited about the next year is super important, very |
| 1:39.3 | passionate to be. Hey, speaking of passion, John is going to talk today. Recently, he was with Dan Kathy, a friend of ours. |
| 1:46.3 | He's the chairman of Chick-fil-A organization that we really respect a lot here in Atlanta. |
| 1:53.9 | And they talked about the concept of self-aware and situational-aware leadership. |
| 2:00.0 | And so we're going to listen in to John sharing today. It's going to be a |
| 2:05.2 | great day for us. And then Chris and I will come back and we'll talk through what John is sharing |
| 2:11.6 | and how we're applying it here at Maxwell Leadership. By the way, we do every bit of this so that it adds value to you |
| 2:18.9 | with the expectation that you'll go multiply that value to someone else. That's why we do it. |
| 2:24.6 | That's what we do. You'll be able to find tools, resources at our Maxwell podcast website |
| 2:31.4 | that will help you continue to do that. Let's intend on taking a journey |
... |
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