Like one professor at Babson College, I have researched leadership for more than two decades. I've partnered with more than 50 companies to help their employees grow, and I've asked hundreds of leaders how they define mindfulness. Almost everyone talks about how well they know their strengths, weaknesses, values ​​and goals. This kind of inner awareness is critical to our professional growth and development.

But there is another component to it awareness this is equally essential to entrepreneurial success. External awareness is the ability to anticipate how others experience our leadership, including how they see us, our actions, and our choices. This allows us to better collaborate, lead and motivate our teams – and yet my research and that of others explorative shows that only about 10-15% of leaders, including entrepreneurs, embody it.

The good news is that, with practice, any leader can become more externally aware. Here's why external awareness is so important and how you can start building it.

Related: How to develop awareness and become a more conscious and effective leader

Most of us are not as outwardly aware as we think

When my wife and I took our four children to Disneyland for the first time, I used the trip to test my outdoor awareness. I would watch my kids all week. In the end, I would predict each child's favorite moment given the choices we as parents made about what to do with them at Disney. This is easy, I remember thinking. My oldest son raved about Space Mountain. My daughter couldn't get enough of the Carousel.

I got all four of my predictions wrong. When I asked my kids one by one, they all said their high point was swimming at the hotel at the end of the day. Apparently, we didn't need to spend thousands of dollars on a hotel, park pass, and food: All we needed was a pool!

In my experience, many leaders are equally clueless about how their team members experience their decisions and actions. Years ago, I worked with a Fortune 500 company known for its innovation. When I asked 40 VPs and SVPs to predict their direct reports' high points over the past year—a proxy for how employees viewed leadership choices—and then tested their guesses, almost all of them came back surprised.

One VP had felt bad about sending an employee abroad to live apart from his family for a few months, only to discover the opportunity for exploration and autonomy made it the employee's favorite project. They feared that the employee might see them as a harsh boss, but the employee was grateful to be trusted and challenged.

Related: How to avoid 'CEO disease' and become a more self-aware entrepreneur

Why is external awareness so important?

Leadership is relational. If you are negotiating with an outside vendor or have one one by one with an employee, great leaders respond to other people's cues. An outwardly aware leader may let their direct, informal communication style come through when talking to someone just a rung or two down the ladder, but take a different tone with an entry-level employee. In either case, knowing how the other person will react to you allows you to choose the right tool at the right time.

External self-awareness also provides us with valuable information. Disney vacations taught me that my kids no longer look favorably on me when I take them to nicer places. What they care about is spending time together in a relaxed environment. This discovery made us make sure we always have a pool nearby when we go on vacation and worry less about the expensive activities we do. THINK they will like it.

Similarly, when the VP found that his employees enjoyed challenging, high-risk tasks that relied on the trust and confidence of the leader, he sought to give more of those types of tasks. Previously, he had been held back due to a mistaken assumption that his decision burdened his direct report.

How you can build external awareness

The best way to build external awareness as an entrepreneur is to chat with your team members and test your assumptions about what they think of you and your leadership.

I like to start with the positives. Ask your employee to reflect on a high point in their time at the organization—a day when they went out and said, “I love this place”—and tell you a story about their experience. Before they answer, predict what you think they will say. Then, consider their challenges and low points, which can also reveal their perspectives on the decisions you've made.

There are three important elements to this exercise.

The first is prediction. OWN explorative in 360-degree feedback shows that when you rate yourself and then ask your peers to rate you, you create a narrative of why they are wrong. Anticipating other people's responses in advance lowers defensiveness and fosters curiosity: How does their perspective of me compare to mine?

The second is the story. When you ask people what kinds of tasks they like, they may jump to tried-and-true answers. Asking them to tell you a story allows you to work together to unpack what made them so motivated or frustrated by the situation. These insights, in turn, can help you understand the choices you made as a leader and how they contributed to the employee experience. You can then align your actions with what makes them motivated.

The third is ONGOING. This practice should be continuous without overdoing it. The point is not to know exactly how your employees are thinking at any moment, but to see things from your perspective. Always leave room for humility and the idea that you can learn more.

Related: How entrepreneurs can unlock their hidden potential for success

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Great leaders know their strengths and weaknesses and keep their finger on the pulse of how colleagues, investors and customers view them. Building external awareness goes hand in hand with building the relationships necessary to make your business successful. Your employees will appreciate you taking the time to search. And your bottom line will benefit as the information you gather helps you unlock your potential, the potential of your employees, and the potential of your company.