There is more to leadership success than academic or technical abilities. One of the most valuable and least recognized leadership competences is self-awareness. As a leader, if you really want to inspire or influence people, you need to first start by looking within-who you are, what are your values, beliefs and expectations, where you are going and how do you want to get there? As Stedman Graham wrote, ‘self awareness is where true success begins because its difficult to understand the world and how one will respond to certain stimuli without it’.