Examples of Self-Awareness Archives – Page 37 of 45

Leadership and Self-Awareness

February 14, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Self-Aware, Work Environment and Self-Awareness

Leadership and self-awareness go hand in hand to build happy workplaces but many leaders have no clue how their actions affect the people around them and the well-being of their organizations. They stumble through their days working out their personal issues on people without realizing what they’re doing.

Leaders with self-awareness have the ability to manage their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors so that they treat themselves and others positively. Most leaders have little to no understanding of how they affect the people around them so they spend the day bossing everyone around instead of inspiring them. Here are five signs you’re practicing leadership with self-awareness:

You don’t bark orders.
You create a work environment where people motivate themselves from within.
You don’t picture yourself as a fearless leader steering a ship through turbulent waters.
You work collaboratively for the collective good.
Your staff genuinely likes you.
You appreciate feedback and do something positive with it.
You’re constantly growing.
You delegate often and well.
You don’t get into power struggles.
There is low turnover in your department or company.
There is very little conflict in your organization.
You communicate well because you’re an active listener.
You’re a balanced, likable person.
You don’t lead through fear but rather through kindness and compassion.
You have empathy.

Leaders who possess self-awareness get a lot more done with less effort. There’s no mystery to becoming more self-aware, you just have to work at it every day. Try picking one of the items on the list and practicing it until you get good at it, then move on to the next. Before you know it, you’ll be leading with self-awareness. What will you do to get the process going?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leaders Understand That Behavior Only Changes over Time

February 14, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Self-Aware

Self-aware leaders understand that behavior only changes over time, so they invest the energy and resources necessary to implement programs that will generate long-lasting, positive change in their organization.

I talk with a lot of well-meaning leaders and professionals who want to provide leadership, effective communication or team building workshops for their employees. They tell me what their workplaces are like, share a laundry list of difficult challenges and situations and then expect to fix everything in a two-hour workshop. What they don’t realize is that behavior only changes over time, here are some reasons why:

People get used to doing things a certain way.
People fall into habits.
People like order and predictability.
People will endure almost anything as long as it’s familiar.
People are uncomfortable with change.

Leaders who practice self-awareness understand that their thoughts and actions can encourage behavioral change in the workplace or stifle it. Change requires deliberate and continuous effort as well as a move from short-term thinking to long-term education. A single workshop might inspire someone to briefly adjust the way they do things but, for the most part, they’ll revert back to their old behaviors if ongoing support isn’t provided.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and change behavior over time?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and the Record of Your Actions

February 13, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness / A Self-Awareness, Examples of Self-Awareness, Self-Aware, Self-Awareness Meaning, Self-Knowledge

An important part of self-awareness is understanding how your behaviors affect not only you, but others as well. As you go through life, you create a record of your actions:

The way you treat yourself and others.
Whether you live authentically or not.
Whether you heal your hurts or run from them.
Whether you follow your true path in life.
The beneficial vibes you spread.
The good deeds you do.
The quality of your relationships.
Your inner health.
The depth of your understanding of yourself.
Your level of kindness, compassion and balance.

Each one of your actions reflects who you are at that particular moment. The pattern you establish throughout your life becomes the verifiable record of whom you chose to be. It’s up to you to consciously decide how you behave in life and whether you leave a positive imprint on the world around you. What will your actions say about you?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware People Know It’s Okay to Be Wrong

February 12, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / A Self-Awareness, Awareness Meaning, Examples of Self-Awareness, Self-Aware

Self-aware people know it’s okay to be wrong because it presents an opportunity for self-reflection, learning, and growth. Sadly, most individuals think it’s the end of the world if they’re incorrect about something. They’ll go through all kinds of contortions to not admit a mistake, even going as far as covering things up, blaming someone else or denying that it ever happened. The amazing thing is that being wrong is liberating. It gives you a chance to stop, be more self-aware, reevaluate, and move in a more beneficial direction.

Perhaps you avoid looking like you’re wrong because you don’t want to feel shame, weakness or inferiority. The key to getting better results in life is to have the self-awareness to understand that being wrong offers a unique opportunity to learn and grow, which helps you:

Get new information.
Learn new things.
Consider different ideas and points of view.
Be flexible and open to changing your mind.
Get different results.
Stop repeating patterns that don’t work.
Set a positive example of being able to grow.
Understanding yourself better.
Find areas for improvement.
Act like a grownup.
Live a happier life.

The ability to be wrong is a significant part of self-awareness because it indicates that you’re mature and healthy enough to admit a mistake, learn from it and move on. It’s the difference between an individual who stays stuck repeating the same error over and over because he never fixes the underlying cause and the person who is able to move past it. You get to choose whether being wrong holds you back or helps you grow and succeed.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and admit you’re wrong more often?

Cheers,

Guy

Communication Mistakes of Leaders Who Lack Self-Awareness

February 12, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Self-Aware

I rarely meet leaders who think they are poor communicators. Quite frequently one of these leaders will confide in me that his or her employees just aren’t getting it or that they have to repeat things a million times. The missing element in these heartfelt confessions is the role of the leader himself or herself, most of whom lack self-awareness and, by extension, communication skills.

Practicing effective communication begins with you. You decide whether you build a foundation for excellent communication or whether you keep getting the results you’ve always experienced. Many people honestly believe that they communicate well because they tell people what to do and then those people do it and seem happy. Others are certain that everything is going wonderfully because nobody ever speaks up or contradicts what they’re saying. Perhaps you’ve worked for someone who is proud of his (or her) ability to get his point across clearly and concisely and then prattles on at meetings until people fall asleep.

So what can you do to build self-awareness and enjoy great communication in your workplace rather than pretending it’s happening? It starts with looking at where you might need to make some small adjustments. Here are ten of the most common, and avoidable, communication mistakes that occur in workplaces worldwide:

One-way communication where the leader says something and it can’t be questioned.
Absence of listening to what employees have to say.
Interrupting what other people say or cutting them off in some way.
Inserting your “helpful” questions or opinions into what someone is saying.
Reacting immediately and negatively to what people say.
Pretending there’s an open door of communication.
Correcting what people say instead of valuing their ideas.
Assuming you know what the other person means.
Multitasking while someone is trying to talk with you.
Lack of deeper communication and interpersonal connections.

Imagine a workplace where all these ten things occur habitually and you’ve probably described most workplaces that currently exist. Everyone says they value communication but few actually have the self-awareness to practice it in a way that encourages people to share meaningfully. Luckily, you can change this pattern at any time by doing the opposite of each one. If you don’t listen often, do it a little more. If you don’t really have an open door, start inviting people to talk with you at a time of their choosing and simply listen to what they have to say with no interruptions or repercussions.

It’s these small steps that eventually help leaders build workplaces where effective communication is highly prized and practiced. What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote healthier communication in your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Consulting Produces Long-Term Results

February 11, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / Awareness Meaning, Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness, Self-Aware, Self-Knowledge, Work Environment and Self-Awareness

Many leaders hire a self-awareness consultant for a session or two only to find that they produce little or no long-term results. Most leaders and their employees are highly motivated and conscientious professionals who genuinely want their training programs to succeed but who habitually focus on short-term patches instead of long-term programs that benefit their organizations over time.

Short-term thinking permeates many of our workplaces. I’ve had more than a few leaders who lack self-awareness ask me to transform their workplaces and employees in a single, three-hour session, and they actually believe it can be done. It takes considerably more time and effort for consulting to take hold in any organization. As with any behavior, it takes time to shift our thinking and replace it with new actions. Here are ten ideas that will help you make the most of your work with a self-awareness consultant and create long-term results:

1. Self-awareness consulting works best when it’s ongoing. A one-time session might be mildly effective if you’re teaching people a specific workplace task but it doesn’t create long-term changes in thinking and behavior. Learning any new skill (such as how to communicate well, manage effectively or build teams) takes deliberate practice over time.

2. Help your employees keep practicing the new skills. Your staff members benefit from your support to keep the consulting going. Try to set people up for success by giving them opportunities to practice the material instead of expecting them to be perfect immediately after one or two sessions.

3. Self-awareness consulting starts with leadership. No initiative succeeds in an organization if leaders aren’t fully committed to participating actively in the program. If you’re not involved on an ongoing basis, then your staff members will think the program doesn’t really matter.

4. Don’t hire a self-awareness consultant on the cheap. You don’t have to spend excessive amounts on trendy experts just show your employees that you’re willing to invest in their growth and development. It’s more productive to pay more for an ongoing, quality consulting program than many inexpensive and ineffective ones.

5. Focus on specific workplace behaviors. You either practice positive behaviors in the workplace or go down some other path. Focus on hiring a self-awareness consultant that helps leaders and employees behave in positive ways and build a more productive work environment.

6. Don’t punish employees with a consultant. Your program will lose all credibility if you force employees to attend as a corrective measure or because you think they did something wrong. Self-awareness consulting is about ongoing educational opportunity and growth, not about disciplining employees.

7. Attendance is highly encouraged. No one is allowed to schedule meetings or be called out from sessions, especially leadership. Make time during the workday so that people can see that the consulting program is worth their time. Leadership attends consistently and sets the example for the rest of the staff.

8. Set specific goals and measure results as you go. Identify one or two areas you want your consulting program to affect and measure what’s happening before and after the training as well as at intervals in the future. Keep practicing what works and make modifications to strengthen areas that need extra attention.

9. Have the self-awareness consultant train you and your staff to keep things going. Design your consulting programs so that key employees gain the expertise necessary to train other staff members. When your staff can train itself you can keep the knowledge spreading indefinitely and continue making refinements.

10. Make the consulting program part of your culture. You decide how important the program is in your organization. If everyone from your leadership down is highly invested in and actively involved in the program, then it will become a natural element in your workplace.

Try these ideas and you’ll enjoy the benefits of self-awareness consulting that creates lasting change in your organization. All it takes is your commitment and the energy to keep it going. What will you do to develop self-awareness and promote long-term self-awareness consulting in your workplace?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Leaders Delegate Well

February 10, 2023 / The Self-Awareness Guy / Self-Awareness in Leadership / Examples of Self-Awareness, Leadership Self-Awareness

I’ll often hear leaders who lack self-awareness talk about the importance of delegating and in the next breath describe how they micromanage things and check up on everything their employees do. There’s a big difference between saying you delegate and being self-aware and actually doing it. Here are 10 signs that you might need to delegate a little more.

1. Your employees keep giving you hints they’d like to take on more responsibility.

2. Your employees keep reminding you that they’re able to do certain things without supervision.

3. You notice conflict or dissatisfaction arising when you give orders or assign tasks.

4. People don’t tell you key things or avoid consulting with you on important matters.

5. Your employees don’t seem all that happy or motivated.

6. There’s not a whole lot of creativity going on in your workplace.

7. Things are always done your way.

8. People aren’t encouraged to come up with new ways of doing things.

9. Employees seem dependent or can’t get things right when you’re not there.

10. People you supervise keep leaving the company.

How many of these occurrences do you recognize? If you do then you might want to make some small changes to create a more balanced workplace where people can think and act independently. An additional benefit is that your employees will feel more valued and you won’t have to be on top of them all the time.

What will you do to develop self-awareness and delegate more?

Cheers,

Guy