KEY SKILL THREE:
SELF-AWARENESS AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
"Self awareness allows you to self correct".
Bill Hybels
BECOMING SELF-AWARE
Although self awareness is one of the benefits of personal development, being self aware, in itself, is a key skill.
Self-awareness is the ability to recognise, understand and manage not only your own emotions but those of the people around you. It is an essential skill for releasing your potential as it allows you to identify and address your strengths, weaknesses and make positive changes in your life.
Here are a few ways to become more self-aware:
1. Mindfulness: Practicing mindfulness meditation can help you become more aware and present in the moment, and develop a non-judgmental and self-accepting attitude.
2. Journaling: Keeping a daily journal where you write down your thoughts, feelings, and experiences can help you process your emotions and gain insights into your behaviours and patterns.
3. Feedback: Asking for feedback from others can help you identify blind spots and gain a different perspective on your behaviour and its impact on others.
4. Personality Tests: Taking personality tests such as Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, or Big Five can help you understand your personality traits, strengths, and weaknesses, and how to leverage them for personal growth.
5. Reflection and Self-Evaluation: Regular reflection and self-evaluation can help you identify areas of improvement, set achievable goals, and track your progress over time.
By practicing these methods, you can develop a deeper understanding of yourself, your emotions, and behaviours, and become more self-aware in your personal and professional life.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI)
Self-awareness enables someone to have the capability to understand emotions and feelings. They can then evaluate and understand their effects, which can subsequently increase emotional intelligence in the process. Someone with a high degree of emotional intelligence knows how/what they're feeling and what these emotions mean. They also know how these emotions can affect the people around them. It is important to understand EI as it intertwines with self-awareness.
According to www.mindtools.com (Emotional Intelligence in Leadership - Learning How to Be More Aware), for leaders, “having emotional intelligence is essential for success. After all, who is more likely to succeed – a leader who shouts at his team when he's under stress, or a leader who stays in control, and calmly assesses the situation?”.
Someone who helped to popularise EI is Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, author and science journalist. According to Goleman, there are five key elements to being emotionally intelligent and the more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence:
Self-awareness.
Self-regulation.
Motivation.
Empathy.
Social skills.
Goleman, D (1996), Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More Than IQ
In his book, Goleman has wrote “People tend to become more emotionally intelligent as they age and mature”. This really struck a cord with me. I can honestly say that as a younger man I did not consider myself to have a high level of self-awareness or self-regulation, however, as I age and experience more in life this skill has improved enormously.
I wouldn’t say I had particularly good social skills in my early life either – though as I grew older this did develop as my experiences grew, as did the different types of people I chose to surround myself with. However, I would say I did recognise these elements in others, particularly motivation, in certain members of the many sports teams I was part of. When I was younger, I also saw empathy, as well as motivation, in the more mature people around me for example, family members, teachers, coaches and colleagues. I really feel that these skills rubbed off on me and am able to use these positive experiences now.
SKILLS INTO PRACTICE
I always keep Goleman's five elements in mind when interacting with others. One particular situation that springs to mind is back on the 17th May 2021 a colleague I managed, Gabriella asked to see me in private. Gabriella and I usually would communicate quite light heartedly, however, I could sense she seemed somewhat nervous and therefore adapted a more formal yet friendly tone. I suggested we go through to one of the vacant meeting rooms for some privacy. Once we sat down, Gabriella explained to me that she had been offered another job at an external organisation in London (current office was in Nottingham). In that immediate moment, I felt slightly disappointed that she was intending to leave, as she was an excellent colleague, whom I trusted and was also an excellent thinker (I also classed Gabriella as a friend). Overtime, I had also invested a lot of time in developing Gabriella into the colleague she was now. However, it was important that I set these thoughts aside and besides that, I was pleased for her (I have also experienced how difficult it is to tell former managers that you intend to leave and didn’t want this to be a negative experience for Gabriella). I was concentrating on what Gabriella was saying and understood how difficult it was for her. To break her nervousness, I offered my sincere congratulations and said how pleased I was for her – the relief in Gabriella was immediately obvious and she completely relaxed.
I wanted to acknowledge my interest in what Gabriella was saying and conveyed this to her by using both verbal and non-verbal messages such as maintaining eye contact, nodding my head and smiling, agreeing by saying "Yes" or "Mmm hmm" to encourage her to continue. I also leant forward too – I find this body posture really shows I’m engaged in the conversation. By providing this 'feedback' to Gabriella I felt it put her at ease and therefore she communicated more easily, openly and honestly with me. Gabriella explained that she had decided to relocate to London to be with her partner, otherwise she wouldn’t be leaving. I asked Gabriella what her new employer was like, what they did and where she was going to live, therefore showing genuine interest. We discussed her departure further and I reinforced that she should not feel guilty and there was no ill feeling on my part. I concluded the meeting by going over the salient points and telling her that I would instigate the leaving process. Later that day I spoke to my own manager and we discussed an idea of how to retain Gabriella by offering her the ability to work from our North London branch, which I knew was close to where she was relocating to in London. I subsequently put this offer to Gabriella and asked her to consider it over the weekend. We would then discuss this further on the 20th May.
On Monday the 20th Gabriella and I had another meeting where we discussed the relocation offer I had made. Gabriella said that although the offer was tempting, she preferred a clean break and was looking forward to working in the London and all the new experiences that would bring. I graciously accepted the decision and reiterated that I was really pleased for her and that I was sure she’d be a success at her new employer.
I felt the whole scenario went really well and I hope that if Gabriella ever looked back on this situation she would consider it a positive experience.
BRILLIANT COLOURS PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE
To be better self-aware, I decided to retake the Brilliant Colours personality test. This questionnaire roughly works out which personality type you are likely to lean towards out of Enquire, Action, Empathy and Order. I quite predominantly lean towards Order, which means I like to ensure policies and procedures are followed, whilst being on time and prepared. My secondary type is Enquire, which means I like to be logical, factual and clear. It also means I like to discuss theories and models. I had taken the Brilliant Colours questionnaire previously and found it reassuring that the results came back identical to the first time.
I had also used the Brilliant Colours questionnaire in the recruitment process for a team member. After each interview I asked each candidate to complete a Brilliant Colours questionnaire. This enabled me to roughly understand what made the applicant ‘tick’ and how, potentially they may handle certain situations or the thought processes they may have. It was interesting that the successful candidate turned out to have an Enquire ‘Brilliant Colour’. This was just what I had hoped for, as this meant it was likely that this candidate had an analytical nature.
I also feel that knowing more about someone can really enhance and develop your relationship with them. Different managers will have different preferences for approaches or ‘styles’ of management. Depending on the culture of the type of organisation, some managers will have a preference for a task or production-focused management style. Due to the type of environment my current employment falls into, I tend to use a employee focused approach, which concentrates on the manager/employee relationship. This requires the me to know each member of staff and how they tend to behave or react in certain situations. The Brilliant Colours questionnaire helps to do this.
Though I find that this tool is very helpful, for me time and the experience of working with someone is really the best way to get to know someone.
BRILLIANT COLOURS SCORECARD
