On the Distinctive Ladies Alliance, we allow high-level ladies to mentor one another to attain private {and professional} happiness by way of sisterhood. Because the nonprofit group’s founder, chair, and CEO, I’m honored to interview and share insights from thought leaders who’re a part of our peer-to-peer mentoring.
This month, I introduce you to Malika Start, the CEO and founding father of Start Improvement, a corporation improvement agency based mostly in Malibu, California. Identified for her signature strategy to constructing heart-centered, high-performing cultures, Malika companions with main organizations to strengthen government groups, design transformational management packages, construct cross-functional belief, and create techniques the place folks and efficiency thrive collectively.
Malika believes the simplest leaders of the longer term is not going to solely embrace know-how however may even deepen their humanity. In her phrases, “Self-awareness isn’t tender—it’s strategic.”
Q: Everybody’s speaking about AI, productiveness, and innovation. Why speak about self-awareness proper now?
Malika Start: As a result of the extra the world automates, the extra human management issues. AI can replicate expertise, however it may well’t replicate self. When every thing is shifting round you, realizing who you’re—your values, your patterns, and your affect—turns into your anchor. You need to be clear in your motivators, the way you have interaction with others, and the way you distinctly transfer by way of the world.
AI can replicate expertise, however it may well’t replicate self.
Brené Brown usually says that management was about muscle, then brains, and now it’s about coronary heart. I couldn’t agree extra. The guts of management is self-awareness. It’s empathy. It’s the braveness to indicate up as you’re. The leaders who know themselves and are dedicated to continued progress and improvement make higher selections, construct stronger groups, and create workplaces the place folks really need to keep and make investments.
Q: You’ve mentioned that skilled assessments are “mirrors, not bins.” How does that match into this concept of human and heart-centered management?
Malika: Instruments like CliftonStrengths, DiSC, Strengths Deployment Stock, or Enneagram don’t outline you; they describe you. They provide you language for what you already sense about your self. The purpose isn’t to label folks however to know patterns: the way you lead, the way you talk, the way you react underneath stress.
That perception is gold proper now. When you’ll be able to identify your wiring, you too can acknowledge it in others. That’s what builds belief, belonging, and compassion, every thing that makes a workforce really feel human and valued once more. The worth isn’t within the label, it’s within the perception.
Q: So, self-awareness can be about connection?
Malika: Utterly. Self-awareness is the gateway to empathy, and empathy is the gateway to efficiency. Gallup discovered that groups that concentrate on their strengths on daily basis are six instances extra engaged and 12% extra productive. However that’s solely a part of the story. Leaders who perceive their very own fashion and the kinds round them create psychological security, clearer communication, and sooner belief, which straight interprets to decrease turnover, larger collaboration, and stronger outcomes.
Folks don’t simply work higher; they work collectively higher. In a enterprise surroundings the place retention, engagement, and innovation drive revenue, that type of relational intelligence has actual ROI. You’ll be able to’t automate belief. You need to construct it—and self-awareness is the place it begins.
If AI is scaling knowledge, then self-awareness is how we scale connection.
We speak lots about psychological security, but it surely begins with emotional honesty. You’ll be able to’t create a way of belonging in case you’re disconnected from your self.
Q: You inform leaders, “Cease auditioning for roles that had been by no means meant for you.” What do you imply by that?
Malika: It’s freedom. When you recognize who you’re, you cease losing power attempting to be every thing to everybody. You make selections that align along with your values. You construct relationships that align along with your strengths.
In a world that’s always shifting, self-awareness is your aggressive edge. Creator Tasha Eurich informed the Harvard Business Review in a podcast that self-awareness is the “meta-skill of the twenty first century.” The very best leaders aren’t outlined by certainty; they’re outlined by readability.
Q: What’s one sensible solution to begin growing this talent?
Malika: Write your superpower assertion. It’s one or two sentences that seize you at your finest—the way you present up and the worth you convey. One thing like: “I’m at my finest once I’m centered on potentialities and relationships. My positivity helps others really feel seen and assured in their very own strengths.”
It’s not bragging. It’s readability. And readability builds confidence. Readability is contagious in your group, and it’s the factor organizations want now greater than ever.
Q: If you happen to needed to summarize your philosophy of management in a single line?
Malika: When you recognize your self, you cease performing and begin connecting. The long run belongs to leaders who lead with coronary heart, who pair self-awareness with empathy, braveness, and authenticity. Machines may construct effectivity, however people construct which means and connection. The which means and connection are every thing.
Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Distinctive Ladies Alliance.
