State awareness, meanwhile, is the recognition of what’s driving you
at the moment you take action. In common parlance, people use
the phrase “state of mind” to describe this, but we’re using “state” to
refer to more than the thoughts in your mind. State awareness
involves the real-time perception of a wide range of inner experiences
and their impact on your behavior. These include your current
mind-set and beliefs, fears and hopes, desires and defenses, and
impulses to take action.
State awareness is harder to master than profile awareness. While
many senior executives recognize their tendency to exhibit negative
behavior under pressure, they often don’t realize they’re exhibiting
that behavior until well after they’ve started to do so. At that point,
the damage is already done.
We believe that in the future, the best leaders will demonstrate both
profile awareness and state awareness. These capacities can develop
into the ability to shift one’s inner state in real time. That leads to
changing behavior when you can still affect the outcome, instead of
looking back later with regret. It also means not overreacting
to events because they are reminiscent of something in the past or
evocative of something that might occur in the future.