The Essay On Self-awareness And Effective Leadership Highlights Its Importance For Emotional Intelligence.

The Definition of Self-awareness

Self-awareness is when an individual begins to analyse their actions, feelings, or behaviour with their ideal inner self. It is a self-reflection which helps the person to be conscious about how others perceive them and how they really are. Self-awareness helps to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual (Rubens et al., 2018). A person who is high in self-awareness is likely to be confident, more accepting towards others, owns up to their mistakes, good at decision making, creative and less judgemental.

Self-awareness is perceiving oneself as an object and interpret their own actions and behaviour. It is necessary for the skill development on management or leadership as it brings effectiveness on the functioning part of the leader. A leader should be aware how his ideas, actions, habits are affective the people and the environment. It is the responsibility of the leaders for the smooth operations of the organization and team. Self aware leader knows their strengths and weaknesses (Hicks, 2017). They are always looking for the room for correction, seeking feedback to improve and grow. To run a management or be a leader, it is important to gain trusts of the co-workers. A self-aware leader will remain calm and poised even when there is a tension situation. This type of leaders is approachable, direct and transparent. Leaders high on self-awareness can take better decision. With every positive decision, there is a positive outcome which will help the management to be financial stable and to promote growth. They are realistic and maintain a balance between their goal and ability.  The three core skills required for development of self-awareness- Giving and receiving feedback, Learning to work in a team and Emotional Intelligence.

A self-aware leader will take feedbacks from others which will help to rectify his shortfalls and work for the betterment (Lumpkin & Achen, 2018). A person who is internally driven will set standards to meet, perform well and motivates others. An independent leader should be open to receiving and giving feedback to others which help in create an open environment. Feedback is a way of letting know the employees that their leader care (Dimitrov, 2015). A self-aware leader or manager will arrange meetings where everyone will provide feedbacks for each other. The leader will not be resilient towards his critics, rather accepting and encouraging towards each and every feedback received.

At a workplace, it is important for everyone to own up to their actions. Instead of taking responsibilities, team members end up blaming each other for ineffectiveness of the team. To work as a team, every team member must be aware of their responsibilities and mistakes. A team could be best operative when each team member has inner self awareness. Inner self-awareness helps to understand own’s ideas, beliefs, conflicts. A person should be involved in self-awareness for having an inner reflection of their strength and shortcoming. Team members with high self-awareness will readily accept their flaws to work on it, consider other team members view, have better interaction, resolves problems and conflicts easily (Runde & Armon, 2016). Team members with low self-awareness will not consider other teammates perspective, negative feelings, have blind spots for others. Encouraging self-awareness in teams will make them focused. Team members must be present because their absence at work and not staying focused might cost the organization a loss of hefty amount. Self-awareness is not only how one perceives about themselves; it is also about how others see them. Johari Window is a classic tool to help have an insight about what they do not know about themselves. High self-awareness team performs better and tend to be more productive. Every team member must contribute for the betterment of the progression of the team in a collective way. Self-awareness in individuals will make them more confident, active, and adaptive.

The Relationship Between Self-awareness and Leadership

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, evaluate, analyse and utilize one’s emotions. Emotional intelligence helps in channelising emotions, to be empathetic, communicative, and overcoming conflicts (Kanwal, Sohail & Mohammed, 2018). It improves social relationships and in excelling the various aspects of one’s life such as at school, university or at work. A person who can rationalize their feelings, control their actions from hurting others, acknowledge other’s feelings and its impact.  Inner emotions or intentions could be converted into actions, prioritizing what matters, bonding with feelings. It would have been difficult to live in a world where it was difficult to understand emotions of other people. Emotional intelligence has four different levels such as perceiving emotions, reasoning with emotions, understanding emotions, and managing emotions (Mayer, Caruso & Salovey, 2016). One should be able to perceive verbal and non-verbal emotions such as facial expressions, and body language. Reasoning with emotions is every emotion we encounter; we tend to reason it and respond accordingly. Emotions are labelled and the reasons behind it must be understood. The most important aspect of emotional intelligence is to manage emotions. Emotions must be regulated efficiently before reacting to a situation or action. An emotional intelligent person must have high self-awareness. Self-awareness is one of the key concepts of emotional intelligence (Mustafa et. Al., 2020).  Self-awareness is the potential to comprehend one’s inner self and recognize their weaknesses and strength. Self-aware person will think before acting up, take care of other’s emotion, and introspect. A self-aware person knows about the feelings, emotions, beliefs that could affect the outcome of their behaviour. Hence, emotional intelligence is associated in fostering self-awareness development in an individual.

The Profession I would like to take up is HR manager. The role of HR manager is to look after the well-being of employees, implementation and maintenance of rules and regulations, employee engagement programme, recruitment, training and development. HR functions are mainly relevant to the betterment of employees and employer which in return benefit the organization. HR mainly focuses in developing relationship within the organization which will promote organizational commitment and higher retention. As an HR manager, there is a constant need to acknowledge other people’s emotions and problems. HR manager are meant to be empathetic and open towards any query or suggestions coming in from the employees. Candidates are recruited and assigned job on the basis of their qualifications and characteristics. HR should be able to determine the qualities a person possesses and how to make the best use out of it. As an HR manager, I should be open to feedbacks, it will help me grow as a person and focus on aspects I am lacking in. Feedbacks are taken from others to understand the pitfall and to redefine the entire objective. A person cannot be entirely perfect and need to constantly upgrade. Giving feedbacks is a requisite to be filled as it will guide others to work on their weakness and send a message across that HR cares about their growth in the organization. It will help build a connection between the employees and HR. As an HR, for conducting training and development I need to be self-aware about the requirements of employees and how they will be considering it. HR are supposed to be the safe zone of the employees. HR looks after the entire employee strength hence it is required to promote team work. There should not be space for any blame game, instead employees should be responsible enough to commit mistakes and own it. HR manager should be able to create an environment of shared responsibility. A team with the same objective and understanding will be more productive. HR is responsible to consider employees needs and demands hence an HR should be emotionally intelligent. To be empathetic towards the requirement of an employee, HR has to analyse the actions, reason and understand it before coming to a conclusion.

The Benefits of Being Self-aware

Self-awareness is a clear reflection of oneself. Introspection is required to evaluate being aware about feelings, perception about oneself and others, how others perceive. Being coherent with personality, thoughts and ideas is important. Discrepancy can cause imbalance in character and the outcome would not be positive. I believe it is required to be self-aware about own’s weaknesses and strength. Instead of having a blind spot, we could look towards a better objective and converting the blind spot into bright spot. I try to understand how I am feeling at a given situation before reacting. It is easier to react than to act. Self-awareness provides scope to understand other people’s feeling towards us. I believe in keeping an open front for others where I am approachable enough to be understood by others. Self-awareness helps me to stay remain unaffected by other people’s opinion, as I discard negative feedbacks and work on to the positive side. My outlook towards self-awareness will help me in growing on my career prospect. As a manager, I would want my team to have the same view as of me and be opinionated. Unless I am open to feedbacks, I will not be able to form a cohesive team which will work for me. Self-awareness will help me be flexible at my career growth. Life does not go as planned, any change would not distract me and keep me focused. My weakness is that I am an emotional person and high in self-awareness makes me an empathetic person towards others as well. It will cause hindrance in my career prospect as I will be afraid to be bossy and hurt others feelings or opinion. At times, work place demands the manager to take charge of the plan and execute it. Due to my constant understanding about other team mates feeling, I would lack behind in operating smoothly.

In the numerical test, I have shown 100 % speed with 30% accuracy rate. Out of 20 questions, I was able to answer 6 questions correctly. I lack accuracy in my tasks and poor at mathematical calculations. Due to my high conscientiousness, I tend to finish my task promptly on time which could be the reason behind my speed rate. By Belbin’s Team Role, it could be seen that I have a tendency to not put mental effort for resolving problems. I lose interest quickly, and lack in enthusiasm. Scoring 95% as a completer finisher provides me an edge to finish off the task but I worry unnecessarily hence making mistakes in numerical which needs immense focus and attention. In inductive test, I have attempted all the 20 questions with a speed rate of 100% but accuracy rate is only 20%. Only 3 of the answers were right in 15 questions. My conscientiousness pushes me to complete the task, stretching it to its optimum as in speed- based task, I commit mistakes leading to low slow in inductive test.  My weaknesses are I am reluctant to trade speed over accuracy. It is important to slow down and serve as per the requirement laid off. Sometimes it is required to focus on prepare for accuracy and providing correct answers. I will have to brush off on the inductive and numerical skills. From Big Five Personality test, it has been found that I have scored high in extraversion. It makes me a sociable person. I can easily bond with others, high on energy, enjoy spending time with people. Being an extrovert, it will help me make others comfortable while giving feedback and allowing others to provide feedback for my work or behaviour. I will be able to be aware about the needs and demands of others from me. It will help me from having a transparency with others. As I enjoy being with others, I will like working with team member and concentrate on developing healthy relationships within the team members. High on agreeableness also portrays that I am more comfortable in teams which is high in harmony. Opportunities should be provided to others to be opinionated and their opinions to be respected and valued. Feedbacks are valued opinion of team mates or others which needs to be accepted and addressed. I will be lacking in handling a disputed situation due to my agreeableness. It is not always possible to maintain peace in team, sometimes the leader has to step up and settle dispute with others. Scoring mid-range in emotional stability helps to work under pressure without hampering work. Work stress could disrupt the mental peace and anyone might get agitated. Due to a balance in emotional stability, a certain amount of pressure could be handled efficiently. Emotional stability and emotional intelligence are a pre-requisite to work effectively (Drigas & Papoutsi, 2020). Emotional intelligence helps in developing social relation and it is interlinked with extraversion and agreeableness (DiFabio et. Al., 2020). I am an agreeable and extrovert person with a emotional stability. To work with others, it is evident to understand the emotions, feelings or believes of others so that one can analyse and interpret the behaviour of others. Emotional stability makes me aware of my feelings and of others as of emotional intelligence. Emotion needs to be controlled and channelled. My personality has stable emotion which would help evolve my emotional intelligence. My emotional stability is not at its highest and hence any extra pressure could be overwhelming and can break me down. High in conscientiousness scale makes me an alert, prompt, clean and arranged person. My strength is to complete the task in hand firstly. Jobs which would require discipline, rules, regulations, time management are best suited for me. Dealing with deadlines and delivering efficient tasks are my forte as per conscientiousness, delaying in which could bring in agitation in me. My weaknesses are to feel frustrated with delay in task which might the working as team with other team mates. Team mates need not to be high in conscientiousness. Everyone has their pace to do the task and as a team member I should be respecting it instead of getting agitated. Scoring high on Openness gives me he strength of being open to new experiences and ideas. Ideas to bring positive changes will be highly appreciated. An environment which is constantly developing and not stagnant shall be beneficial. Feedbacks would be a way to bring in improvement at a workplace. Any new introduction of ideas should bring positive outcomes to the organization. Weaknesses are not to constantly keep on changing just the sake for it, getting bored easily, failing to create a balance between routine task and different tasks. From Belbin’s Team Role, I am a completer finisher, a team worker and Co-ordinator. As a completer finisher, I already identified my strength of the need to meet the deadlines and finishing off. I am constantly anxious about tasks to be completed and seeking perfection at it. Team worker makes me flexible to work in teams, co-operative, avoiding friction in team. I am confident about work, high in intuition, mature enough to make a call and identifies problem. All these relate to being working in a team, emotionally intelligent and valuing feedbacks. Weak at taking decisions at odd hours, Manipulative, incessant worry. I have scored average as Resource Investigator, and Specialist. I am dedicated worker, extrovert, communicative, looking for new opportunities. As I have already been established as an extroverted person, I will be socially sound, love gatherings, team work. This reflects my openness to experience like exploring new opportunities where constancy is neglected. My weaknesses are being uninterested after a point, talkative, believing others quickly, judgemental towards other. Speaking more than required and not understanding own worth could be difficult in tackling situations. Emotional stability should be established to work productively as a work place should be free of judgements and biases, trying to make opportunities for ourselves and others (Denhardt et. Al., 2018). To work as a team, everyone’s emotions and feelings should be valued.

The Role of Self-awareness in Team Cooperation

Career Development requires necessary skills and characteristics. Adaptability in career helps to counter the unknown constraints and unforeseeable circumstances. Career adaptability is directly proportional to the betterment of job involvement and job commitment. However, I have almost developed the skills required to establish myself as an HR Manager. Human Resource Manager is known to deal with employee problems, challenges faced at work pace and to make organization a better place to work. Communication skill is one of the primary requirements to be a good HR Manager (Ganesh, 2018). I am as an extrovert and high on openness to experience shall be open to new views or ideas from co-workers. Employees should be able to communicate verbally about their emotions and hesitation free to share problems. HR manager is responsible for each and everyone’s welfare in the organization (Dastmalchian et. al., 2015). An organization is comprised of people from different race, gender and culture hence it should be biasfree and safe. I can be judgemental for certain people. I might be feeling hostile towards people of out-group or have stereotypical thought process. I must be working on this characteristic which might be a hindrance in the journey of becoming an HR manager. HR identifies the nature of a person and provides a job which suits the personality best. My intuitive skills would help me being aware of a person’s attributes and characteristics. Decision making should be prompt at adverse situation. I believe in working with teams and growing together. An organization where there is uniformity in team, productivity is high. Employee engagement is the key area of work for HR (Matthews,2018). Being sociable gives me an added advantage to know my employees and employer and develop an employee engagement and welfare management program. I give importance to self-awareness which will guide me through emotions, feelings and believes of my employees and understand my own emotions. High emotional stability provides me an opportunity to develop high conscience for respecting other people’s emotions. HR is Human Resource; dealing with man power of an industry and leading an organization towards a better future. I am at good at extracting task out of the best in a stipulated time period. Delivering task and meeting up the deadlines is my forte. I tend to resolve conflicting situation and negate my feelings. My zeal to perform as a leader, to lead a team or an organization is high. Feedbacks or voicing out for the right is mandatory to keep the people tied up together. Job crafting allows to employees to redesign their designated work type (Le Blanc, Demerouti & Bakker, 2017). With adaptability, there should be rooms for employees to develop and grow at their work place. It contributes in adapting new challenges. I am prosocial in nature. I hold a firm belief in picking up others at their worst. As an Hr, I look forward to develop a person-fit environment. A need for discipline, organising, neat and efficiency at task will be appreciated and I will promote it at its maximum ability. A workplace is like an extended family where I would like to make remarkable contribution as HR Manager.

Emotional Intelligence: The Link Between Self-awareness and Success

I have come out as a person who believes in working together as a team, friendly, sociable, and delivering task of high excellence. I preferable like to work in team of high cohesiveness and mutual understanding. I will readily help others when required. Uncomfortable working with co-workers who do not own up to their tasks and ill mannered. I will be well suited to work with employees who are intelligent but difficult to work with but bringing out the most of them will bear me with satisfaction. Each person working for the organization is a valuable asset and as a manger, I would be considerable towards everyone’s view point. Despite having all these qualities, the three areas that I would like to develop to grow in the career development are: Emotional Intelligence, Accuracy in Verbal and Inductive Reasoning and Openness to new experiences.

Emotional intelligence is soft skill which encourages high production and efficiency in people.  I tend to get swayed by my emotions instead of rationalization at work. Due to much of empathy for others, my decision-making skill will suffer from biasness. To improve emotional intelligence, I would use communication as a key source. Assertive communication develops a fine line between being aggressive and passive. It holds a ground to dictate your opinions or views without hurting anyone’s feeling or demeaning. During a period of conflict, reacting in emotional manner is normal. However, instead of reacting, resolution of the conflict is essential. A manager must be making a practical decision which is not influenced by emotion. A vital skill to regulate emotional intelligence is to listen. Listening is a powerful skill to open doorways of communication. An effective manager listens to verbal and non-verbal messages with full attention. Listening helps in removal of miscommunication and judgements. Self-Awareness should be present to detect my feelings and others to enhance the connectivity among team members. Mindfulness also helps in improving emotional intelligence.

The area which needs immediate development is numerical ability for which I need to focus on the minute details. Numerical inability is associated with illiteracy, low employment, salary and job. Numerical ability is required in our daily activities whether is money saving or negotiation for deals. In the functioning of HR manager, a prime responsibility is recruitment and negotiating salaries with the prospective candidates. Poor in numerical ability will be disadvantageous if not being able to understand the budget of an organization and the investment on employees. To improve numerical ability, practice is required, thorough preparation and analysis should be done before working on any numerical problems. To improve in inductive reasoning, one should be highly adaptive to new circumstances or situations. To improve inductive reasoning, emotional intelligence needs to be improved as well. Inductive reasoning is based on previous experiences of current scenarios. Memory play a great role in inducing inductive reasoning.

A versatile person at work is liked by many. Not everyone likes changes and being open to new experiences will always compel me to be on my toes. Work environment is different in different places with different work culture. At a work place, new innovative ideas or changes are not regular and needs time to be implemented. To understand the concept of the organization, I will have to be adaptive and understanding towards the values of people attached to the organization before bringing in any new change. Changes are meant to bring in positivity and involves immense amount of human resource and capitalization. Misuse of resources should be checked before creating changes which will be ineffective and underappreciated. Jobs are routine based hence before entering into a job, I will identify my strengths and weaknesses which will be addressed in the organization.

These are the areas of skill that needs attention and development. Hard work always pays off hence polishing of the skills would take me to new heights of my career choice promoting growth and establishment.

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