How Can Self-Awareness Support the Work of Managers and of Leaders in Organisations - Literature review Example

HOW CAN SELF-AWARENESS SUPPORT THE WORK OF MANGERS AND OF LEADERS IN ORGANISATIONS? Student’s Name Course Tutor Date HOW CAN SELF-AWARENESS SUPPORT THE WORK OF MANGERS AND OF LEADERS IN ORGANISATIONS? Introduction In the first contribution, self awareness is understood as the ability of a person to know himself or herself as a human being. Ignorance is cited as being a major problem that has limited human beings throughout history. While ignorance may take different forms, the most dangerous form is ignorance about the human being himself. It therefore becomes important to inquire whether it is right or wrong for people to know the weaknesses and strengths that they have. It is advisable to have self awareness. This is because in its absence, relationships with other people become turbulent, might break down and generally fail to attain their potential which is eventually not exploited and the challenges that limit them can not be adequately faced. Every individual possesses a strong point. In case such strengths are discovered early and made the areas of focus for activities that are studied, trained, learned and put practice , it will be possible to accomplish much more for the individual, the community around him and the nation in general. In case one as an emotional reaction such as frustration or anger, there is the rise of many of the triggers and thoughts that result in the emotions. One will also notice moments during which he is able to change the mind’s interpretations or even fail to believe in what he is thinking. During such times, it becomes easy to quickly change to better choices in the thought process even before a destructive behaviour or emotional reaction takes place. In a culture which tends to be highly competitive, self-awareness might seem to be counterintuitive. Most people believe that they need to seem like they know everything throughout otherwise people will doubt their abilities and therefore diminishing leadership’s effectiveness. However, the truth is actually the opposite of that. If one is honest with himself, he admits it. This is because whether the weakness is acknowledged or not, some other people see them still. For this reason, instead of trying to hide them, a person ends up actually highlighting them and therefore creating the image of deficiency in self-awareness and integrity It is not difficult to see the effect of a leader pretending to have knowledge of everything. At the same time, when a person takes responsibility for something that he does not know, it ends up benefiting the organization. At the interpersonal level, having self-awareness about one’s weaknesses and strengths can help to earn other people’s trust and raise the level of credibility, and these increase the effectiveness of leadership. At the organizational level, there are even greater possible benefits. When someone acknowledges what he does not know, he models a trend in the organization, according to which everyone will feel free to admit lack of answers, occasionally make mistakes and seek help whenever in need. Such are the characteristics of a firm which constantly learns and promotes agility and innovation. These are by extension features of a high performing organization. The idea that is put forward in this posting is true. Human beings indeed have strengths and weaknesses and having a weakness does not mean that failure has to occur. As long as a person works on his weaknesses and avoids its negative impacts, then there is no problem. The first step in working on the weakness is accepting that it exists. Any person is likely not to accept this and instead prefer to highlight what he is good at. According to Rothstein (2009), self-awareness involves having a clear understanding about one’s own personality. This includes weaknesses, strengths, motivation, beliefs, thoughts and emotions. Self-awareness will enable a person to understand others, the way they perceive him, his attitude and the kind of responses that he gives them at any given time. It is possible to assume that everybody is self aware. However, there is need to have a relative scale in gauging awareness. When a person develops self awareness, he becomes able to change the kinds of interpretations and thoughts that his mind makes. Such changes in the mind make it possible to adjust one’s emotions. According to Armstrong & Stephens (2005), self awareness is indeed among the attributes that an emotionally intelligent person has and is very important as a factor in the achievement of success. Self-awareness makes up the first step whenever a person wants to create what he wants and master himself. The direction that a person takes in life will most likely be determined by the place where he focuses his emotions, attention, behaviour, reactions and personality. The possession of self awareness will allow a person to see the direction that his emotions and thoughts are drawing him. It also allows the individual to see his control over his thinking in order to make wanted changes. Until the time when this is done, it is usually difficult to make changes in ones life path. The development of self-awareness can be done by means of practices that will focus one’s attention on details of his behaviour and personality. It is a trait which is not learnt through reading books. When attention is fixed on a book, attention is drawn away from one’s own emotions, behaviour and personality (Barman, 2009). An organization is likely to benefit from a leader who will take responsibility for not knowing things more than it would from one who will pretend to know everything. While it might be among the most overlooked leadership competencies, possession of self-awareness is among the most valuable ones. It relates to being conscious of the things that one is good at while at the same time acknowledging the issues that he has not learnt yet. This includes being able to admit whenever he does not have answers and accepting his mistakes (Lantieri & Goleman, 2008). In the second post, the contributor agrees with the suggestion by Bulut that it is up to the leader to have self-consciousness. In this opinion, a self-conscious a key feature of leadership as well as possession of Emotional Intelligence (EI). This is made up of five characteristics derived from a model by Goleman. According to this understanding, it is essentially a combination of competencies. These jointly contribute to the person's ability of managing and controlling his or her private emotions, measure the others’ emotional state accurately and to influence opinions. In Goleman’s model, there are five principal dimensions and each has a given set of behavioral characteristics. The first of these is self-awareness. This is the ability of a leader to recognize the feeling as it happens, accurately carry out self-assessments and gain self-confidence. It is the foundation of Emotional Intelligence. Second is self-learning or self-management. This is an ability to keep impulses and emotions in check, especially if they are potentially disruptive (restraint), maintaining set and commonly held standards and obligations (trustworthiness), taking responsibility for the performance of the individual (awareness), change prompting (adaptation) and raising of new ideas and innovations (creativity). Third is the stimulus. This refers to an emotional tendency to facilitate and guide objectives. It comprises of motivating people so as to attain achievement for instance through standards of excellence and interview criteria, commitment through pledging allegiance and agreeing with goals set by a group or organization, having initiative to act basing on available opportunities and optimism which leads to insistence on reaching targets even in the face of obstacles. The fourth component is empathy. This relates to understanding others through understanding their views, needs, fears, feelings and developmental needs. The last are social skills. These are essential in emotional intelligence and include an ability to get rid of responses which are unwanted through the effective use of diplomacy in persuading hence influencing, listening openly and offering convincing information, promotion and guidance of groups and individuals through leadership, the cultivation of relationships with clear roles through building of close relationships and working together with others in seeking common goals hence cooperation. The five will facilitate a leader’s ability to reach effective decisions. Usually, even having a little power will tend to create carelessness in a person, especially with regard to what other people feel or think. A leader may think that rules do not apply to them and so he pursues his own wishes. When many people gain some power, the individual controls which usually make them to behave nicely start going away. Fortunately it is not everyone who undergoes such a change, and the ones who do not change end up leading organizations which are more effective. However, due to the commonness of the phenomenon, it becomes important to understand the idea of self-consciousness. According to Lantieri & Goleman (2008), the idea of EI is quite recent as a behavioural model. However, it is becoming increasingly relevant in the context of people and organizational development because its principles offer a new way of assessing and understanding people's management styles, behaviours, potential, interpersonal skills and attitudes. It is therefore an important aspect in the management of human resources. According to it, success requires that a person should have an effective control, management and awareness of his emotions and those of others. It covers two aspects; the leader and the other people. Emotional Intelligence entails having knowledge about one’s emotions, managing the emotions, motivating oneself , trying to understand and recognize the emotions of other people and managing relationships and emotions of other people. Self consciousness appears to be a factor which gains importance as one goes up the organizational hierarchy. Rothstein (2009) argues that raising one’s consciousness involves three main ways. These are accepting other people’s feedback, devoting some time to reflection and making self-assessments. It is important to seek others’ feedback. This will require more than just asking. A leader should create a reputation of being capable of gracefully handling compliments through gracefully saying ‘thanks’ rather than discounting them and also accepting negative feedback without becoming defensive. One should also inquire for specifics whenever appropriate. This implies not believing all the feedback being provided. Feedback might at times be more about the source than the leader, making it important to think, listen, consult others about it and reject it in case most people feel it is not justified. Reflection involves being used to looking back on past events, noting things that happened and lesson learned from them. Making a journal is one way. Others include discussing it with trusted persons for instance a mentor or spouse. A retreat away from the usual daily life in order to reflect and think is a powerful tool of reflection. Having an increased consciousness of the self is likely to lead to more mindfulness or awareness when one makes a certain actions, in addition to the mental state of both the leader and other people (Barman, 2009). Conclusion Goleman’s EI model definitely offers a comprehensive collection of attributes that a leader should have. This is especially in the case of an organization in which there are stated goals and groups trying to attain them. However, the indication that they are all that is required may not be entirely true as any trait that promotes team working and discipline is still applicable. A leader always needs to be able to work effectively as a member of the team. Mindfulness will help the leader to see what really takes place in every interaction and subsequently react less to it. It helps to slow instant responses and instead promotes thought-out and planned responses. Self-consciousness will be critical for a leader because it is very difficult to understand other people without first having a deep knowledge about oneself. A continuous and ever-growing awareness of the self and other people will mark the beginning of leadership. Bibliography Armstrong, M and Stephens, T, 2005, A Handbook of Management and Leadership: a Guide to Managing for Results, Kogan Page: London Barman, K, 2009, Leadership Management: Achieving Breakthroughs, Prentice Hall, London Lantieri, L and Goleman, D, 2008, Building Emotional Intelligence, Sounds True Publications: Boulder Rothstein, M, 2009, Self-Management and Leadership Development, Edward Elgar: Cheltenham Read More