At the end of 2020, Jason P. Carroll signed a DocuSign and sold the company he had run for seven years. One day, he was the president of a 2,500-person security business, traveling to branches and writing handwritten letters to his people. After signing, he had nothing to do for the rest of the day.
The sale sat inside a hard two-year stretch. He left a community he had belonged to for a decade. He spent the 2020 lockdown in deep introspection. His first marriage also ended. Jason used that time to rebuild. He came out with a clear view of self-awareness in leadership. Then he built a company, Aptive Index, to measure it with data.
On this episode of the ProductiviTree podcast, Jason walked me through what he learned. His argument is simple. Before you fix your habits, your calendar, or your leadership style, you need to understand what drives your behavior.
What self-awareness in leadership actually requires
Leaders tend to rate themselves well on this. Research reported in Harvard Business Review found that about 95% of people believe they are self-aware. When the researchers measured it, only 10 to 15% actually were.
Jason thought he understood people. Around 2015 or 2016, he kept making bad hires and bad promotions at Champion National Security. He trusted his intuition about people, but it kept failing. In his words, some of the company’s growth happened “in spite of me.”
So he went looking for objective data about people. He started using psychometric tools to hire better. The first thing those tools changed was his view of himself.
He realized he could list his behaviors, but he could not explain them. A list of things you do is a record. Self-awareness in leadership starts when you understand the needs underneath that record.
That shift is what later pushed him toward behavioral science as a second career. It also changed how he ran the business before the sale.
How conative drives differ from personality tests
Jason’s company measures something called conative traits. The word is rare enough that your spell checker will underline it. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines conation as the part of mental Life that covers drive, striving, living, and volition.
Jason puts it more plainly. A conative trait answers one question: What needs are driving my behavior?
Personality tests measure something that moves. Personality is context-dependent. Plenty of people act like extroverts at a party and then go home wanting a small, dark room. They are putting on a personality for the setting. Your personality also shifts when you sleep badly, have a hard day, or go through a rough season of Life.
Conative drives are far more stable. According to Jason, they are largely set by the time you reach your preteens. Nobody knows the exact mix of nature and nurture behind it. The show is that they keep driving you in the same direction for decades.
That stability is what makes a conative assessment useful in the workplace. You can build a role, a team, or a development plan on something that will still be true next year. That is where team productivity gains start to last.
The eight attributthe es Aptive Index measures
The Aptive Index assessment measures eight attributes. Four of them are influence, sociability, consistency, and precision. The other four are emotional resonance, prosociality, intensity, and abstraction.
None of them has a clear beginning or a bad end. A low score is simply a different wiring. Jason also shared a finding that surprises his clients: the data shows no correlation between these traits and sex, age, or ethnicity.
Emotional resonance is a good example. It measures how much space a new feeling takes up and how much time you need to process it. Some people assume one gender feels more. The distribution is completely even.
How one hardwired drive turned into steamrolling
Jason scores very high on a trait called influence. It is a drive to shape outcomes, people, events, and direction.
“Basically,cally that means I want to be in charge,” he told me. He was quick to add that it is not about ego. If he does not get his fingerprint on an idea, he checks out. The work stops energizing him.
More than half the population sits at the opposite end. They would rather support and serve the team and let someone else lead. Neither end is better. They need different environments to stay engaged.
At Champion, Jasstrong’s strong influence had a cost. When he was in an unhealthy place, he steamrolled his executive team in meetings. He knew he did it. He could have written it in a spreadsheet.
That knowledge helped nobody. What changed him was seeing the impact: his team did not feel he valued their input. That realization stung, and it was the point where real work could begin.
Why asking “why” backfires
Coaches and therapists often start with why. Jason steers leaders away from it, and his reasoning is specific.
When you face the damage your behavior caused, shame shows up fast. In that state, “Why do I do this?” tends to produce identity statements. I am a bad leader. I am a jerk. Those answers feel honest, but they give you nothing to change.
Jason is careful here. The word why can work fine. The trouble is how often we answer it with a label. The HBR research cited above points in the right direction. It found that “what” questions keep people more open and future-focused than “why” questions.
Jason asks a different question: What is driving this behavior?
That question moves you into objective data. The behavior still needs fixing, but now you can see what is happening beneath the surface, and that gives you options.
The four-step path from data point to new behavior
Here is the sequence Jason described, using his own steamrolling example:
- Name the behavior. I steamroll my team in meetings.
- See the impact. My team does not feel I value their input.
- Find the driver. The need for influence is very high, and I am meeting it by acting as the boss who decides everything.
- Choose a better behavior for the same need. Steamrolling is one way to meet a need for influence, and a poor one at that. Other behaviors can meet that need with a far better outcome.
Notice what step four does. Jason keeps the need. He changes how he meets it. He never has to decide whether he is a good or bad leader, so shame has nowhere to land.
You can run this sequence on any behavior that hurts team productivity. Late replies, missed deadlines,s and constant interruptions all have a driver worth finding.
Sociability, prosocia,l and the myth of the alpha team
I asked Jason about leaders who say they want “alphas” around them. They picture confident, courageous people who take charge. Everyone else fades into the background.
Jason separated two traits that people tend to blur together.
Sociability covers being warm, animated,d and gregarious. It describes the charismatic extrovert.
Prosocial describes something else. Jason described it as a drive toward group consensus, gathering the best ideas from everyone and creating harmony. Adam Grant uses the term often in his book Think Again.
The confusion matters because the loudest voice usually wins the room. Leaders see that person as the one taking initiative. The data does not support that. Jason found no correlation between being gregarious and charismatic and being productive or contributing more.
Now picture a team made up only of people who want to be in charge. Who wins when they disagree? How does the work get done? Jason’s answer was blunt: it does not work. You need a blended team so that different perspectives enter the project from the first idea.
This directly affects team productivity. When the quiet contributors stop being invisible, you get more of the thinking you are already paying for.
When your wiring does not match your role
I gave Jason a football example. Imagine the coach tells him he is playing defense today instead of running the play.
He took it further with Messi in goal. Jason thinks Messi would probably succeed, since he is phenomenal at almost everything he touches. It would still waste his talent and his wiring.
People can succeed in roles that fight their wiring. Values, determination,n and skill carry them a long way. The cost shows up later. According to Jason, people who stretch their wiring too far for too long burn out far more quickly.
That gives leaders a different way to look at burnout. Long hours are one cause. A role that constantly pulls someone away from their natural drives is another, and it rarely shows up in a timesheet.
Jason rules out one use of this data completely: firing someone because they look like a bad fit on paper. He uses it to see where people are straining and to adjust before the damage builds.
Sometimes the adjustment is a new position on the team. Often,n it is smaller. Jason sees a frequent gap between what employees believe is expected of them and what the leader actually expects. When the leader resets those expectations to match the person’s strengths, the strain drops without anyone having to change jobs.
For the retention side of the same pattern, read the guide on why high performers quit.
Culture decides how much of each person you get
Jason’s first career job was a 100% commission sales role. The CEO berated and insulted people and did the opposite of what every leadership book recommends. Jason stayed seven years and thought it was normal.
Then he moved to Dell and worked under a leader named Nicole Collins. She had built an empowering meritocracy. By his estimate, her segment alone matches the revenue of a Fortune 100 company.
The contrast opened his eyes. She got more out of every single person on the team. That experience shaped how he later ran Champion. It convinced him that culture decides how much of each person’s wiring a company uses.
This connects back to the data. A conative assessment tells you how people are built. Culture determines whether they can bring that wiring to work or have to hide it.
Your strengths need a volume knob
At the end of the episode, I asked Jason for one sentence to his 30-year-old self about his wiring.
His answer: weakness was not what derailed him. His strengths were. He had them cranked up too loud.
The advice that follows is practical. Find your strengths and dial them in. Then learn when to dial them back so other people’s strengths can shine.
For Jason, the intensity attribute is a clear case. He scores a 10 out of 10 on activation and urgency. Put him with someone who scores a two or three,e and they misfire constantly. One person sees a marathon. The other sees everything on fire. Jason said this is the attribute to watch first when a pairing is not working.
Where hardwired drives fit in the 4 Productivity Vectors
This conversation falls under the Ownership vector of the 4 Productivity Vectors methodology, specifically under Motivation and Drive. You cannot sustain motivation in a role that drains the drives you were born with. You also cannot hold yourself accountable for a behavior you only describe with labels.
To me, Jason’s work reads like the data-driven evolution of strengths-based development. It asks you to find what you are good at. It also asks you to know when to leave the stage and let others take the spot.
A good next step is to measure where you stand today. Take the free Productivity Assessment to see which of the four vectors is holding you back. If you want a faster check, the productivity quiz takes a few minutes. You can find more tools in the Productivity Hub.
Aptive Index does not offer the assessment to individuals. If you lead a team and want to take it out, Jason suggests reaching out to schedule a team strategy session. The best place to find him is LinkedIn.
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Self-Awareness in Leadership FAQs
What does self-awareness in leadership mean?
Self-awareness in leadership means understanding what drives your behavior and how it affects the people around you. Listing your habits is not enough. Jason P. Carroll describes it as moving from a data point to its impact on the team. From there, you find the causes of using it.
What is the difference between a conative assessment and personality tests?
Personality tests measure traits that shift with context, mood, and Life circumstances. A conative assessment measures innate drives, meaning the needs that push your behavior. Those drives remain largely stable from your preteens onward, making them more reliable for decisions about roles, hiring, and team design.
Why is asking “why” bad for self-awareness?
Ask why “why do I do this?” often produces identity statements such as “I am a bad leader.” This is strongest when you feel shame about a mistake. Those labels do not point to a fix. Asking “What is driving this behavior?” keeps the focus on a need you can meet in a healthier way.
Can a bad role fit cause burnout?
Yes. People can succeed in roles that do not match their wiring. Stretching beyond their natural drive for a time leads to faster burnout. Leaders can reduce that strain by adjusting the role or by resetting expectations to match the person’s strengths.