If you’re a leader who possesses self-awareness, then you know how important team building and promoting positive workplace relationships are to creating a healthy, high-functioning organization.
The leaders and employees I consult with frequently talk to me about not feeling like they connect with certain people in the workplace. It’s almost as if they lack self-awareness and expect the other person to behave a certain way or read their mind. This is a very common experience in workplace relationships: One person expects a certain kind of interaction while the other seems oblivious. This dynamic leads to a lot of frustrated people and poorly functioning teams.
The difficulty arises when people hold on to their expectations even when they see repeated evidence that they will never get what they want. They hang on to their hopes for a long time waiting for something to magically change. Their expectations can easily become an obstacle to building positive workplace relationships because they expect things to go a certain way rather than working on improving their own self-awareness and dealing with what’s actually happening.
No amount of hope can change the course of your work relationships and you can’t wish your way out of a negative situation. The only way you can introduce positive energy into your relationships is by having the self-awareness to do things that change the patterns you’ve established.
Changing the way you do things is the only way to affect your situation. No amount of hope or expectations can take the place of being self-aware and applying effective behaviors such as excellent communication, team building or problem solving skills. The great news is that you can do things to change the course of your work relationships, it just requires some courage and taking action to move in a different direction.
What will you do to use self-awareness to promote team building and positive workplace relationships?
Cheers,
Guy