True, authentic leadership begins with self awareness. Until we understand who we are as a human being, we can't understand who we are as a leader. The following passage offers a great description of coming to know who we are.

Peeling Back the Onion from True North by Bill George

Knowing yourself can be compared to peeling back the layers of an onion as you search for your true self. The outer layers of the onion are the only visible ways you present yourself to the world - how you look, your facial expressions, your body language, your attire, and the way you express yourself. Often these layers are rough and hardened in order to protect you from the assaults of the world around you.

Understanding your outer layers is a necessary first step to going deeper into what lies beneath, because the provide access to your inner core. Beneath those outer layers resides your understanding of your strengths and weaknesses and what you need and desire from the world around you.

Peeling the onion further, you gain an understanding of your values and the ways in which experiences often put you in conflict with your values. Digging still deeper, you learn what is driving and motivating you. Underneath these layers of your proverbial onion lies your understanding of your life story and of the way in your experiences build your story and create a mosaic of your life. As you approach the deepest layers surrounding your inner, you find the blind spots and your vulnerabilities. At the core of your being is what you believe and how you envision your place on earth.

As you explore who you are, you peel back one layer only to discover a deeper and often more interesting layer underneath it. As you get nearer to your core, you find that the inner layers feel quite tender and vulnerable because they have not been exposed to the assaults of the outside world. When you do not feel in a safe place, you cover your core to protect it from exposure and harm, and you develop a false self. At the same time you are continually growing, adding new layers of complexity, as you develop ways of interfacing effectively with the world while preserving the integrity of your core self.