Personal Awareness

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Giving Your Employees a Voice - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Giving Your Employees a Voice

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

Self-awareness can help you build a strong team building program and give your employees a voice. In our fast-paced workplaces, we tend to forget that everyone has valuable ideas and talents that they can share with the team.  When your employees don’t have a voice you may be missing out on vital ideas that could help you run your organization more smoothly and profitably. Self-aware leaders understand that everyone has their own areas of expertise that can help the organization function better.

Here are some practical ideas so you can give everyone voice.

  • Listen to your employees so you can learn from their wisdom and varied perspectives.
  • Stop talking. If you’re the only person talking then no one else is able to his or her voice.
  • Show people you value their voice. Invite participation and the exchange of ideas. Be open to comments and suggestions. Use people’s ideas and give them the opportunity to come up with more.
  • Create a culture of respect. All ideas are valid and nobody gets belittled because their idea seems unorthodox.
  • Encourage autonomy and personal leadership. Allow your employees to use their voices to do their jobs better and become leaders in their own niche.
  • Let people do things they enjoy. People are more likely to express their views and use their voices when they are doing work that is meaningful to them.
  • Encourage collaboration. Build teams where everyone’s voice is equally valid and each person’s input is highly valued.

How many of these ideas do you currently use in your workplace? If you use them all you will create a workplace where your employees feel like valuable members of your team. What will you do to practice self-awareness and give your employees a voice?

Cheers,

Guy

When You Feel Like Giving up, Use Self-Awareness to Keep Moving Forward - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

When You Feel Like Giving up, Use Self-Awareness to Keep Moving Forward

/ / Self and Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , ,

It’s natural to sometimes feel like giving up. When it happens, you can use self-awareness to keep moving forward. Self-awareness helps you stay positive because, when you understand who you are deep inside, including your strengths and areas for improvement, you’re better able to keep striving to succeed.

One of the most important elements of getting to know yourself is the idea of not giving up. A lot of people embark on a self-awareness journey only to find that it’s more difficult than they anticipated. It’s hard to create change in your life because modifying your behavior requires long-term commitment and practice. It’s not a quick fix.

The key to gradually building self-awareness is to keep trying even when you think it’s not making a difference.

There will be plenty of times when you feel you’re treading water but you’ll actually be making progress. Stick with it, don’t give up, and you’ll eventually see the results. You’re worth it.

What will you do to not give up and use self-awareness to keep moving forward?

Cheers,

Guy

Business Retreats Based on Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Business Retreats Based on Self-Awareness

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , , ,

Leaders and organizations plan retreats to help bring employees together or conduct some planning but, too often, they endure events where everyone means well but nothing really gets done and people leave more confused than they were before. It happens all the time because we tend to overlook self-awareness, a key building block that helps us grow and succeed on a more meaningful level.

Successful retreats help the participants use self-awareness to accomplish what they want without creating more confusion or acting as a band-aid that doesn’t actually fix anything. Here are some practical ideas based on self-awareness for you to consider before your next retreat:

  • What do you want to accomplish? Think of what your top priority is rather than trying to jam a million things into the agenda.
  • Make sure all key players are present, attendance is not optional. I recommend that all top managers, including owners be present.
  • Do you have a plan for the event. What will be happening and who will make it happen?
  • Do you have an outside facilitator with no vested interest or personal connections with the company to facilitate the event.
  • Have you scheduled enough time and secured a venue that allows interruption-free participation?
  • Is the location easy to access and is the venue comfortable and conducive to positive interaction?
  • Does everyone have a clear understanding of what will be happening at the retreat and who is expected to be there?
  • Have you thought of ways to encourage participation and make the event an enjoyable experience?

A carefully planned retreat can help your organization be more self-aware, move forward, clarify your vision and focus your efforts. The key is to plan an event that leaves people wanting to succeed rather than feeling confused. What are your thoughts on building self-awareness to create a positive retreat?

Regards,

Guy

Self-Aware Organizations Benefit from Diversity - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Organizations Benefit from Diversity

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , ,

Leaders frequently ask me why they should pay attention to diversity at all in their organization. The answer is simply so they can bring people together to get more done. While this might sound obvious on the surface, it’s a principle that’s frequently overlooked by leaders who lack the self-awareness necessary to realize that their organization would benefit from people getting along well.

The whole point of making sure everyone is included in idea development, decision making, and workplace operations is so that your entire organization can benefit from the varied talents and abilities your employees bring to the table. It’s counterproductive when leaders lack self-awareness and pretend diversity doesn’t exist when they could be using it to succeed at higher levels. Here are some of the benefits of diversity:

  • Reduced conflict.
  • Improved morale.
  • Stronger teams.
  • Less mistrust.
  • Greater collaboration.
  • More buy-in from employees.
  • Increased employee motivation.

These are outcomes that leaders say they aspire to in their organizations but somehow, when they are associated with diversity, they get nervous. There’s really no reason to be apprehensive, it’s actually an opportunity to invite everyone to the table and prosper from their input. You and your organization will benefit in many ways. How will you increase your self-awareness and welcome diversity into your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness and Your Amazing Beauty - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness and Your Amazing Beauty

/ / Self-Awareness / , , , , , , , ,

You possess an amazing beauty that is unique to you. Self-awareness can help you celebrate it and live a deeply meaningful and joyous life. Here’s how beautiful you are:

  • There is no one else like you in the world.
  • You have a combination of talents and abilities that is exclusively yours.
  • You have a unique perspective of the world.
  • You possess unlimited potential.
  • You have deep reservoirs of resilience.
  • You have the ability to continuously learn and grow.
  • You can make the world a better place.
  • You can live authentically.
  • You have the potential to share your amazing beauty with the world.

The more you work on building your self-awareness, the more you’ll come to realize that you’re a true gift to the world. What will you do to share your amazing beauty?

Cheers,

Guy

10 Practical Team Building Tips for Self-Aware Leaders - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

10 Practical Team Building Tips for Self-Aware Leaders

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership, Self-Consciousness / , , ,

Many leaders and organizations try to implement team building in one or two sessions only to find that their employees quickly revert to old behaviors. It takes self-awareness, time, and commitment for team building to take root and grow in any organization. It’s nearly impossible to move away from the behaviors you’ve built up over time and replace them with new, more effective ones without sustained effort. Here are ten practical tips to help you demonstrate and model self-awareness as a leader and implement a successful team building program.

  1. Make sure leadership is fully involved and sets a positive tone.
  2. Team building is offered to employees at every level.
  3. A one-hour time block per week is set aside for team building activities.
  4. Refrain from changing the team building schedule or combining it with other meetings.
  5. No interruptions during sessions, including people using phones, texting or being called out of the activities.
  6. Leave egos and agendas at the door, everyone is treated equally.
  7. Use an experienced, positive and neutral facilitator for activities.
  8. Focus on activities that build deeper interactions and relationships.
  9. Practice new behaviors over time.
  10. Evaluate how you’re doing after six months and make adjustments if necessary.

The key to successful team building is to have the self-awareness to model behavior and participate in activities that bring people together on a deeper level and help them acquire skills to keep moving forward. Practice team building over time so that everyone gets used to doing it. Once people are comfortable with your new approach, it will become second nature and your workplace will shift to one where collaboration and shared purpose are the norm. How will you practice self-awareness and promote long-term team building in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Awareness Helped Me Become the Person I Am Now - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness Helped Me Become the Person I Am Now

/ / Self-Awareness, Self-Consciousness / , , , , ,

I wasn’t always into self-awareness. The person I am now is very different from the one I was years ago. I used to be driven by the need to feel superior, obsessed with what others thought about me; the kind of person who would put other people down to feel better about himself. At the same time, I stuffed my feelings deep inside, tried to ignore them and, consequently, felt horribly unbalanced and unhappy most of the time.

I grew up in a competitive family where you had to fight to be seen and heard. I was not encouraged to acknowledge or work out any of my inner conflicts, I simply had to hold them in and try to appear invincible. My family was ill-equipped to deal with anything emotional. Sure, we knew how to be angry, or sad, or fake happy, but not how to really deal with the core issues that were troubling us. The only way I got any attention was to be dramatic or clown-like because everyone else was so busy sucking all the energy out of everything they touched. This environment taught me to keep things to myself.

When was in my teens, I was an insecure mess who didn’t know how to deal with himself or others. I was hurting constantly but was not allowed to talk about it. I didn’t know how to build positive relationships. In my twenties I had no idea who I was and treated myself poorly because of it. People on the outside would probably say that I was affable and outgoing, but inside I was a mess. I hurt a lot of people in my teens, twenties, and thirties because I didn’t know who I was.

Somewhere along the way I realized that I felt uneasy and disjointed because I wasn’t living life as myself. I had learned to conform to the wishes of my family or friends but I hadn’t learned to listen to my own inner voice. As soon as I discovered I could be myself, I started shedding all the garbage that had piled up on me and became a kinder, more empathic, more whole person. I pursued my own goals in life and worked hard to live genuinely. Gradually, I began building my self-awareness and healing the hurts from my past.

The person I am now barely resembles the one I used to be. I love being this person and hope it helps build a better world instead of one filed with strife and sadness. What kind of person are you right now?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy