1. Chapter 1 Journey into Self-awareness

2. Self-awareness
The capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals
Knowing one's motivations, preferences, and personality and understanding how they influence one's:
Judgment
Decisions
Interactions with other people

3. Importance of Self-awareness
Helps understand yourself in relation to others
Helps develop and implement a strong self-improvement program
Aids in setting meaningful life and career goals
Aids in developing relationships with others
Helps understand the value of diversity
Helps manage others effectively
Increases productivity
Increases one's ability to contribute to others

4. Importance to Managers
Managers who are self-aware:
Are superior performers
Have a greater understanding of others
Can relate to or empathize with co-workers
Are more trusted and perceived as being competent

5. Importance to Managers
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

6. Lack of Self-awareness
Leads to:
Poor decisions
Unrealistic notions of one’s competencies
Incompetence
Career derailment

7. Strategies for Gaining Self-awareness
Recognize your weaknesses, strengths, biases, attitudes, values, and perceptions
Analyze your own experiences
Look at yourself through the eyes of others
Self-disclosure
Acquire diverse experiences

8. Figure 1.1 - Means for Obtaining Self-awareness

9. Self-analysis
Stepping back and observing the factors that influence your behaviors, attitudes, thoughts, or interactions
Necessary to increase one's effectiveness personally and professionally
Begins with reflection and exploring your thoughts and feelings
Helps obtain new perspectives based on new insights

10. Behavior The way in which we conduct ourselves Influenced by:
Feelings
Judgments and beliefs
Motivations and needs
Experience and others’ opinion
Patterns develop through reactions to events and actions over a period of time

11. Components of Behavior
Motivation: Drive to pursue one action over another
Modes of thinking: Way one processes the various inputs received by the brain
Modes of acting: Course of action one applies in a given situation
Modes of interacting: Way in which one communicates ideas, opinions, and feelings with others

12. Personality
Relatively stable set of characteristics, tendencies, and temperaments formed by heredity and by social, cultural, and environmental factors
Determine how we interact with and react to various people and situations
Aspects of our personality are a result of nature and environment
Personality traits - Enduring characteristics that describe one's attitude and behavior

13. The Big Five Model
Organizes various concepts into five factors that are representative of the characteristics that can be linked with satisfaction and success
Components
Extroversion: Degree to which one is social or antisocial, outgoing or shy, assertive or passive, active or inactive, and talkative or quiet

14. The Big Five Model Agreeableness: Degree to which one is:
Friendly or reserved
Cooperative or guarded
Flexible or inflexible
Trusting or cautious
Good-natured or moody
Soft-hearted or tough
Tolerant or judgmental

15. The Big Five Model
Emotional stability: Degree to which one is consistent in how he/she:
Reacts to certain events
Weighs options before acting
Looks at a situation objectively

16. The Big Five Model Conscientiousness: Degree to which one:
Is dependable
Can be counted on
Follows through on commitments
Keeps promises
Openness to experience: Considers whether one is interested in broadening his/her horizons or limiting them

17. Big Five Locator Questionnaire
Answer all questions on page 19
Read and complete “Scoring” on page 20
Put scores on Conversion Sheet on page 21
Complete Big Five Locator Interpretation Sheet on page 22

18. Self-monitoring
Ability to regulate one's thinking before speaking or acting
Helps
Assess the needs of others or of a situation and adapt behavior and interactions accordingly
Assess one's own behaviors and attitudes and diagnose which elements one is satisfied with
Identify and develop plans for addressing aspects that one wants to change

19. Self-monitoring
Set personal standards in accordance with certain accepted norms
High self-monitors - Constantly adapt their true selves to conform to a situation or expectations
Low self-monitors - Display their feelings, attitudes, and behaviors in every situation
Understanding personality dimensions helps
Realize areas for personal and professional growth
In selecting a career

20. Complete Exercise 1-C
Self-Monitoring Questionnaire - Page 23

21. Attitudes
Evaluative statements or learned predispositions to respond to an object, person or idea in a favorable or unfavorable way
Determined by the emotions we choose to act on
Impact one’s professional and personal relationships

22. Perceptions
Process by which you select, evaluate, and organize information and make sense of it
Are person-specific
Individual perception is:
Not always consistent with reality
The perceiver’s interpretation of reality
Formed based on the perceiver’s biases

23. Figure 1.2 - Factors That Affect Perceptions

24. Perception Filters Stereotyping
Making assumptions about an individual or a group based on generalized judgments rather than on facts
Stereotyping
Interpreting information for meaning and accuracy, and discarding information that is threatening or not relevant
Selective perception
Attributing one’s own attitudes, characteristics, or shortcomings to others
Projection
Forming an opinion about how we would like an event to unfold, a situation to develop, or a person to act, think, or feel
Expectations
Basing our activities and inputs on things that are likeable or appealing to us
Interest

25. Attribution Theory (Weiner, 2000)
Demonstrates that individuals tend to decide that a behavior is caused by a particular characteristic or event
Attributions or judgments are based on our personal observation or evaluation of the situation
Future decisions and behaviors are based on our perception of why something happened
Attributing outcomes to controllable factors is a stronger indicator of future behavior

26. Attribution Theory
Self-serving bias: Overestimating internal factors for successes and blaming external factors for failures
Leads to an incorrect evaluation of one’s strengths and weaknesses
Fundamental attribution error: Overestimating the impact of internal factors and underestimating the influence of external factors when evaluating the behavior of others

27. Social Mirror
Gaining self-awareness by understanding how others view us and how we are shaped by others’ opinions of us
Learning to read accurately how others see us enhances our self-maps, images and judgments of ourselves
Can be wrong or only partially correct

28. Self-disclosure
Sharing one's thoughts, feelings, and ideas with others without self-deception or distortion
Key factor in improving self-awareness
Verbalizing our perceptions enables us to:
Verify our own beliefs
Affirm our self-concept
Validate data received from an objective source

29. Diverse Experiences
Self-awareness can be increased by acquiring multiple experiences
In diverse situations and with diverse others
That facilitate use of one’s existing skills and help acquire new skills
That help gain new information about oneself and increase one’s ability to interact with the world
That test one’s abilities, values, and goals

30. Complete Social Mirror (on your own)
Read The Social Mirror Exercise and complete on your own during the next few weeks
BREAK!