Work Environment and Self-Awareness

Business consulting based on self-awareness can help you improve yourself and your business by helping you focus your energy and talent on things that will help you take your business to the next level. I help executives, managers and companies develop self-awareness, improve staff morale, increase productivity, build stronger teams and practice excellent workplace communications. I help managers to help them delegate more effectively and give their staff the opportunity to grow and excel. I help business owners focus their vision and take action on their goals.

Successful business owners know that when their employees feel their skills and abilities are being recognized and utilized the business benefits from a more productive workforce. Skilled managers understand that a happy workforce reduces turnover and hiring costs. I enjoy working with businesses to help them identify their employees strengths and use their talents.

The consulting services I provide include:

Self-Awareness Consulting for Individuals: Targeted support for leaders and staff to help improve specific situations. Helping individuals clarify what is happening in the situation and develop strategies to meet the challenge. Individuals build on their own strengths and devise their own plans of action with the support and encouragement of a coach.

Self-Awareness Consulting for Groups: Working intensively with staff to build a shared culture and purpose. Building stronger interpersonal connections through ongoing skill building. Monitoring participant progress and promoting accountability by encouraging participants to meet their goals and plan for the present and future.

Self-Awareness Consulting to Increase Success: Supportive partnering to identify areas of interest, barriers to achievement and areas of strength. Building clearer goals and devising specific strategies to reach those goals. Developing a clearer vision of where you are going and how you will get there.

Businesses benefit from having an impartial outside person help leaders and staff individually and in small groups to build skills and achieve goals. My self-awareness consulting services are an ongoing process that helps the individual clarify what she wants to accomplish and helps her achieve it through strategic support and accountability. My consulting is individualized and focuses on promoting successful behaviors that create change over time.

What will you do to increase self-awareness in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Most of the consulting I do is with leaders who value self-awareness and are (or aspire to be) genuinely happy; not superficially jubilant or pretending to be joyful so as not to appear weak. Self-aware, happy leaders create positive workplaces where people feel great about themselves and the atmosphere is welcoming and supportive. They focus on encouraging and sharing joy.

Happy and leadership aren’t two words we see a lot in corporate culture. It’s almost heretical to suggest that someone who is deeply happy could do anything but sit around being all blissed out. So we settle for leaders who aren’t self-aware and don’t even like themselves, let alone their employees or workplaces, and it shows in countless organizations that hobble along dysfunctionally or produce robustly but unhappily.

The key is to merge happiness with effectiveness by building contented leaders who also get a lot done. One of the best ways to begin the process is by encouraging self-awareness, which is a deep understanding of who you are and how your thoughts and actions affect you and others. It guides how you treat yourself and others and what kind of leadership you practice. Let’s look at a real world example to illustrate this idea.

Leader A says he’s a happy-go-lucky person who always enjoys going to work. He has a lot of friends and describes himself as confident and an optimist. He has a work life that looks great to everyone around him but, if he’s forced to take a closer look, he’s only superficially happy. Just below the surface he carries unresolved issues that are so painful he does everything in his power to never look at them. He constantly struggles with voices inside his head that judge him and others and cast a negative shadow on everything he does. He constantly questions his self worth and doesn’t trust others. He thinks his employees are out to get him or make him look bad. He bristles if anyone questions his authority. Leader A smiles on the outside but is constantly battling the demons he harbors inside. Stubbornly self-reliant, he doesn’t seek help and is convinced nobody would be there for him anyway. This type of leader is not living a life of self-awareness because he won’t even begin the process of understanding who he is in order to move forward. He chooses instead to live a life of superficial happiness based on his outward appearance. He treats his employees accordingly.

Leader B also struggles with issues that hurt him deeply and threaten to create internal imbalance. He appears happy to his employees and co-workers but his happiness comes from a very different place. Leader B decided years ago to consciously examine the events that brought him pain. He worked actively to acknowledge and heal his past and created a plan to move beyond the hurt. Leader B feels consistently and genuinely happy because he has healed the wounds from his past. His happiness is real because it’s grounded in deep self-awareness that grew from healing himself. He effortlessly shares his joy with his employees and co-workers.

True self-awareness and happiness come from deep inside you. They are states of being that can only be achieved when you resolve the issues from your past. This doesn’t mean that you need to live in the past, the goal is to pay attention to the things that hurt you earlier in life and fix them so you can move in a positive direction.

Leaders who lead from a place of self-awareness, balance, and bliss not only create kinder workplaces, they also feel better about themselves. Once you leave the burdens of the past behind, it frees you up to experience the workplace in new ways. It’s like going to work without the giant boulder you used to carry around.

Self-aware leadership is not about being selfish or self-indulgent, it’s about understanding who you are and constantly working on becoming the best person you can be so you can lead better. As you become more comfortable with yourself you’ll find that work (and life) will be easier. What will you do to build self-awareness and be a genuinely happy leader?

Cheers,

Guy

Leaders who possess self-awareness are able to improve morale in their companies because they understand how their emotions, thoughts, and behaviors affect them and others.

I consult with leaders and organizations to help them improve morale by focusing on positive behaviors. It’s very normal for companies to experience flagging morale and there are some practical things they can do to improve the situation.

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The Example of Leadership

Leaders lead by example, a positive one. If they behave in stressed-out ways then employees pick up on it. Think about the difference if a leader is calm and balanced instead of panicking.

Knowledge Instead of Drive

Many leaders get caught up in the idea that they have to drive their employees like a team of horses. They push and push and push until the stagecoach goes careening down a gully. Try being there for employees when they ask for help and give them your knowledge only when they ask for it. Trust that they know how to do their jobs and drive them less.

Find Out What Your Employees Love Doing

People feel great when they are using their talents and are actually interested in what they’re doing. Identify what your employees love to do and have them do it.

Praise Constantly

Telling people they’re doing a great job makes them feel great. Praising also helps you focus on successes rather than always correcting perceived mistakes or offering the dreaded constructive criticism.

Offer Opportunities for Bonding

Give people a chance to interact in positive ways. Set up a regularly scheduled meeting time where people can talk with each other and share success stories.

Value Self-Awareness

Leaders who value self-awareness are able to mange their own and others emotions, thoughts, and actions to build a more cohesive, healthy, positive workplace.

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Try these six ideas and you’ll find that your employees are feeling better about themselves, each other and you. What will you do develop self-awareness and improve the morale in your company?

Cheers,

Guy