KNOW → FEEL → ACT

The Self-Awareness Framework for Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

🎯 What it’s for:

This framework helps leaders build emotional self-awareness, the foundation for clear, calm, and principled leadership.

By understanding your emotional triggers, identifying unhelpful belief systems, and choosing your responses instead of reacting impulsively, you lead yourself before leading others.

✅ When to use it:

• You find yourself getting defensive in meetings
• You regret how you handled a difficult moment
• You feel overwhelmed, overstimulated, or under pressure
• You’re unsure why a particular situation keeps repeating emotionally

🔁 The 3-Step Self-Awareness Loop

KNOW – Identify Your Triggers, Patterns, and Beliefs

Begin by noticing what consistently disrupts your calm or causes misalignment.

Ask yourself:

• What situation triggered me just now?
• What belief or story surfaced?
• Is this pattern familiar?

Examples:

“I get tense when I’m challenged without warning.”
“When someone misses a deadline, I feel like I failed as a manager.”
“I believe if I show uncertainty, I’ll lose respect.”

FEEL – Let the Emotion Exist Without Acting from It

Don’t suppress emotion, but don’t act from it either.

This is your pause.
Let the emotion move through without reacting from fear, ego, or habit.

Practices:

• Take 3 deep breaths before replying
• Say: “I notice I’m feeling reactive... I’ll revisit this in 10 minutes”
• Sit with the discomfort, name it, and tolerate it

This builds resilience and inner clarity.

ACT – Respond from Principle, Not Emotion

Once grounded, ask:

• What values do I want to lead from right now?
• What response aligns with the kind of leader I want to be?

Then act, not from impulse, but from intention.

Examples:

“Instead of defending myself, I’ll get curious about their feedback.”
“Rather than control the situation, I’ll trust the team and ask how they want to move forward.”
“I’ll set a boundary without aggression, grounded in respect.”

This is where emotional awareness becomes leadership in action.

💡 Why this matters:

Your emotions don’t need to be suppressed.
They need to be understood, so they don’t hijack your leadership.

The best leaders know what they’re feeling, why they’re feeling it, and what kind of response aligns with their principles.

KNOW → FEEL → ACT gives you a repeatable model to grow that awareness.

📥 Download the Framework

Get a printable version of the framework here: