1-1. 1-2 McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. Journey Into Self-Awareness “Know Thyself.” ~ Socrates.

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1-2McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2009 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Journey Into Self-Awareness

“Know Thyself.”

~ Socrates

ChapterChapter

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Chapter Objectives

• Determine your strengths and understand how they can guide you in personal and professional choices.

• Figure out what motivates you in order to find personal and professional success.

• Assess your limitations and develop a plan for improving those areas.

• Gain understanding and insight into your personality, attitudes, and behaviors.

• Identify the biases you have the preclude your understanding and appreciating others.

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What is Self-awareness?

• Knowing your:– Motivations– Preferences– Personality

• Understanding how these factors influence your:– Judgment– Decisions– Interactions with other people

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Benefits of Self-awareness

• Understanding yourself in relation to others.• Developing and implementing a sound self-

improvement program.• Setting appropriate life and career goals.• Developing relationships with others.• Understanding the value of diversity.• Managing others effectively.• Increasing productivity.• Increasing your ability to contribute to

organizations, your community, and family.

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Importance to Managers

• Managers who are self-aware:– Tend to be superior performers.– Have a greater understanding of others.– Can relate to or empathize with co-workers. – Tend to be more trusted.– Tend to be perceived as being competent.– Are able to reduce the potential for conflict.– Are more likely to be open to feedback.– Are able to create trusting and productive

work environments.

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• Lack of self-awareness can lead to:– Poor decisions– Unrealistic notions of

one’s competencies– Career derailment

“The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.”

Thomas Carlyle -Scottish author,

essayist, and historian (1795–1881)

Lack of Self-awareness

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How to Gain Self-awareness

• Recognize your weaknesses, strengths, biases, attitudes, values, and perceptions

• Enhance your self-awareness:– Analyze your own experiences

– Look at yourself through the eyes of others

– Self-disclosure

– Acquire diverse experiences

– Increase your emotional intelligence

“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”Benjamin Franklin

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Means for Obtaining Self-awareness

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Self-analysis

• Examine yourself as an object in an experience or event.

• Step back and observe the positive or negative impact.

• Not always an easy process.

• Begins with reflection on and exploration of thoughts and feelings associated with affective events.

• Become more effective by implementing new behavioral and cognitive changes.

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Behavior

• Influenced by our:

– Feelings

– Judgments

– Beliefs

– Motivations

– Needs

– Experience

– Opinions of others

• Patterns develop through:

– Reactions to events

– Actions over a period of time

Behavior is the way in which we conduct ourselves–the way in which we act.

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Behavior (continued)

• Behavior consists of four components:– Motivation– Modes of thinking – Modes of acting – Modes of interacting

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Personality

• The “Big Five” Model

– Extroversion

– Agreeableness

– Emotional stability

– Conscientiousness

– Openness to experience

Personality describes the relatively stable set of characteristics, tendencies, and temperaments that have been formed by heredity and by social, cultural, and environmental factors.

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• It is many times studied in conjunction with the five broad factors of personality.

• By being aware of the role of self-monitoring you can:– Assess your own behaviors and

attitudes.– Diagnose which elements you are

satisfied with.– Identify and develop plans for

addressing those aspects you want to change.

Self-monitoring is the tendency to adjust our behavior relative to the changingdemands of social situations.

Self-monitoring

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Attitudes

• Determined by the emotions we choose to act on.

• Vary from situation to situation.• Derived from parents, teachers,

peers, society, and our own experiences.

• Easier to influence and change than our behaviors or values.

• Can have an impact on our professional and personal relationships.

Attitudes are evaluative statements or “learned predispositions to respond to an object, person or idea in a favorable or unfavorable way.”

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Perceptions

• Person-specific• May not always be

consistent with reality• Important to be aware of

ours and others• Influenced by many factors• Tend to be formed based on

our biases

Perception describes the process by which individuals gather sensory information and assign meaning to it.

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Perceptions Diagram

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Perception Filters

• Stereotyping• Selective perception• Projection• Expectations• Interest

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Attribution Theory

• Attributions or judgments are based on our personal observation or evaluation of the situation.

• Future decisions and behaviors are based more on our perception of why something happened rather than on the actual outcome.

• Attribution to controllable factors tends to be a stronger indicator of future behavior than on uncontrollable factors.

• Greatly affected by personal biases:

– Self-serving bias

– Fundamental attribution error

The attribution theory demonstrates that individuals tend to determine that behavior is caused by a particular characteristic or event.

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Others’ Perceptions

• “Social mirror” – understanding how others view us, and also understanding how we are shaped by others’ opinions of us.– Based on our memory of how others have

reacted toward us or treated us.

• Learning to read accurately how others see us enhances our “self-maps,” our images and judgments of ourselves.

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Self-disclosure

• Sharing your thoughts, feelings, and ideas with others

• Key factor in improving self-awareness• Clarifies your perceptions

– Verify your own beliefs– Affirm your self-concept– Validate data received from an objective

source

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Diverse Experiences

• Living or studying in a foreign country• Learning a new language• Traveling• Reading books on new subjects• Acquiring broad work experience• Facing a life-threatening illness• Experiencing divorce• Overcoming a personal problem

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Summary

• Self-awareness is an essential skill for developing personally and professionally.

• A high degree of self-awareness allows you to capitalize on your strengths and develop plans for improving or compensating for your limitations.

• Part of being self-aware is being able to monitor and change your behavior.

• Concentrating on self-improvement demonstrates to others your willingness to learn and grow, increasing the likelihood of being able to develop close relationships and success in a profession.