Developing self-awareness essay samples

Summary of the critical incident

During a recent holiday that I had a residential weekend in Newcastle. I took part in a small group and completed many tasks together. My leader told me that I am needed to integrate into the other people’s culture and enjoy it. The reasons for informing me that I need to share ideas during the teamwork. The teamwork has had playing of a major role in the social life and activities I associate with regularly. During the task such as” building the bridges with a span measured over 3 meters, “ different country have different ways of doing things. I was unconsciously denying myself the chance to learn a new culture and get used to the new activity. It had problems when I am dealing with different cultures and different language. However, it presented a major obstacle to my acquisition of knowledge and survival skills. Sometimes I want to give them my opinion, but I also afraid of making mistakes. At the end of the task, my team members give me some feedback that I am shy also inhibited me, as I was unable to approach people from another culture and ask questions in a cheery way. I believe, I can participate in the group work and do my best in next time.

Reflections on the chosen self-analysis toolkit

Belbin is a method which you can find the most of effective role when you working with teams or groups of people. My Belbin profile shows that my first preferred roles are team worker. Overall, that helped to me from a comprehensive aspect of what I needed to change when communicating with a diverse group. And I have learned a lot from tasks, firstly, teamwork was critical in the group that I need to adopt a face-to-face communication approach and enjoy listening to other people talk about their opinions. Team worker should observe the leadership; have the strong organizational and coordination ability, communication skills, and implementation capacities. I also needed to stop talking in colloquial terms that were confusing to people from other cultures. And then the English language is a new language for me, it is difficult for me to understand all of their opinions. Sometimes I had no experience and knowledge of these tasks, hence no constructive arguments could have presentation from me. These problems may affect my ability in the teamwork. My lessons in these experiences informed I need to learn official use of language with clarity and simplicity in communication. It would ensure better and interesting non-constraining information sharing. At last, apart from having friends who were mainly from my culture, I was unable to form new friendships with people from a different culture. It would have helped me to be able to enjoy the different cultural activities that they enjoy and learn about their study skills. Through these practices and better performance, things would meet the basic requirements, ensuring survival in the society comfortably.

Identifying the key strengths

During these activities, I have learned a lot from tasks, I have learned the importance of the APEL models to overcome the problems in the future. The key weakness of this critical incident is that I had problems with making contact and communicating with people from different cultures and different languages, I also realized that I was a very good listener. It helped me to absorb more information when other people were speaking and thus make more sober decisions. It also appeared that my reluctance to form friendships with people from other cultures came from my experience being too new and with time inhibitions and shyness would come off (SELF-AWARENESS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE, 2006).. It would make me a better communicator since I could adapt quickly to different cultures. In the future, I would look for opportunities to interact with people from a different culture and listen to their views. I will also try to think out of the box, not remain in the cocoon of my culture, and instead seek new experiences. Socializing and sharing ideas with individuals from various cultures makes me accessible to differing knowledge banks. The friends and fellow students provide me with a clear way of learning and sharing fundamental information for development (Geddens, 2013).

My chosen toolkit is: Emotional Intelligence self-analysis toolkit

Summary of Critical Incident
As a Chinese student pursuing higher studies in the UK, I feel often that I am not yet suited to the new environment. In China, the student always good at kinds of exams. They have excellent skills for reading and writing. But the listening and speaking skill is much poorer than other international’ student. A few months ago, my arrival in the country, I had to meet my friends at a particular location, but did not know the route. I was forced to ask for help from some foreigner, who was coming that way. I went up to them and asked for directions. They shook their heads and smiled in amusement. I realized that I had mispronounced the location name. After I repeated my question many times, they gave me the route and went off laughing. Walking to the station, I tried to imagine a foreign student in a Chinese University asking something in broken language. I thought I would also laugh if the student said something that was wrong and sounded funny (Hunter, 2011).

How does this reflect the findings of your chosen self-analysis toolkit?

I had done a self-analysis using Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence model. The model has five domains—Self-awareness, Self-management, Motivation, Empathy, and Relationship Management. After the self-analysis, I realized I had a good deal of Self-awareness. I could explain my actions, understand what others thought of me, and understand my feelings and others’ feedback. But, I did not think about these often. Under the Self-management domain, I found that I had scored well again. I am almost calm, and never get angry or shout. Even if I feel sad about something, I can come out of it quickly. In the Motivation domain, the analysis revealed I am clear about my goals, and pursue my chosen career path. But, when I come across a hurdle, my enthusiasm becomes low, and I avoid it. I work hard for my goals, but take the easy way out when there is some block. The analysis further showed me having moderate Empathy levels. I can communicate my thoughts easily and understand others’ points of view. But, I rarely take the first step towards communicating with people. The Relationship Management analysis pointed out that I find new environments that are very different from what I am accustomed to uncomfortable. In short, my EI levels in Relationship Management are higher when I am in a familiar environment, but low in new ones (Giddens, 2013).
I think the ‘ route enquiry incident’ reflects the results from my self-analysis quite well. For instance, I understood my feelings as well as other foreigner’ behavior towards me quite easily after the episode. I stayed calm when they laughed almost in my face. I was aware of myself and could manage myself well. However, I was not self-motivated enough to learn spoken English and postponed making friends with other students who were foreigners. I believe I do have at least moderate levels of Empathy and Relationship Management skills, because I could see from my classmates’ perspective and understand what they said. If I have some new chance, I would not mind being friends with them (Hunter, 2011).

Identify the key strengths and weaknesses identified within this critical incident

The critical incident brought out some of my strengths and weaknesses. It was plain that I had high Emotional Intelligence in areas such as self-awareness, self-management, and at least a reasonable amount of some areas such as Motivation, Empathy and Relationship Management. The chief weakness that was exposed was my ‘ escapist’ attitude towards challenges, and my preference to stay in a comfort zone instead of taking situations head-on. In the future, I plan to continue working on my strengths, because the ability to be aware of and manage oneself is valuable in any career (Cella et al, 2014). I would also like to explore myself more, by thinking about my feelings and about what others might think of me. But the most important thing for me is to improve my motivation to take on some new challenges. With that in view, I want to increase my self-confidence. I would like to face setbacks with greater motivation, and learn from them. I plan to step out of my comfort zone, and become more sociable even with new people. As a first step for the immediate future, I want to improve my spoken English skills, and communicate with everyone, regardless of who they are (Giddens, 2013).

Conclusion

The art of self-awareness and continued self-development has been explored for quite some time by various scholars. As per my 2nd section of the paper, attributes self-awareness to having a clear perception of one’s personality as well as strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Asendorpf (2002) articulates that, self-awareness allows one to understand other people. It enables one to know how people perceive you, your attitude towards them and your responses to them in general to a particular subject.
Giddens, 2013, on the other hand, attributes self-development to an act of committing oneself to improve your knowledge and understanding throughout your career. Realizing personal awareness in a managerial position is quite critical in an organization. Their decisions carry much weight and can steer the organization forward. So it is imperative for a manager to be conscious and self-aware of his decisions and actions of the organization. Giddens (2013) provides that, though the qualities of a successful manager may vary according to different circumstances, managers should not overlook the importance of self-awareness. He believes that this is an essential factor to attaining success not only by the manager but to the entire company. According to Fonagy, Gergely & Jurist (2004), the need for self-awareness and continuous self-development results to excellent management.
Varied documentary records indicate that an effective manager must be conscious of his/her strengths and weaknesses as well as of others in the organization to actively take other’s strengths and compensate for their weaknesses. He additionally affirmed that an effective manager is self-aware of their responsibilities and always knows how to manage organizations. Self-awareness helps people understand what motivates them and their passion for something. It points us to what is the work, which we want, and we work more enthusiastically and more efficiently. That will lead to their self-development to more complete. In this view, Luthans & Peterson (2002, argued that the success of continuous self- development relies on self-awareness and an accurate appraisal of one‟ strengths and weaknesses.
Subsequently, studies reveal that, majority of managers’ fall short of been successful due to poor relationships with their peers and lack of been aware that their results are influenced by their ability to motivate others. Suffice to say, been mandated with the responsibility to deal with situations requiring critical decisions, managers often feel stressed and frustrated whereby these emotions affect how the managers and colleagues respond to each another.
Cella et al, 2014 in their work points out that, awareness of such emotions allows managers to improve emotional awareness. Self-awareness will enable managers to recognize and control their emotions in order to avoid being overly harsh in conversations and alienating their employees. Thus, emotional awareness mainly compasses one`s ability to manage his relationships with others. Therefore, grasping its functions makes it become one of the core fundamental factors of being a successful manager.
Research studies further indicate that, sometimes managers often find themselves in caught up in circumstances that compromise their personal values in order to meet company goals. However, managers who are self-aware of their values, have a well-developed set of principles that enable them to perform better and be more successful. This self-awareness of one’s moral principles helps managers in making decisions that do not compromise their morality and put the company objectives in jeopardy.
Economic research provides that, a manager who is not aware of his/her blind spots is a disaster in the workplace. According to Luthans & Peterson (2002), self-development is achieved by seeking feedback from relevant individuals and using it positively. For managers, this feedback can be obtained through colleagues. The reference to the feedbacks helps managers have a solid understanding of them. It would also in return aid them in setting clear goals that would improve the company’s performance. Self-development leads to an exploration of self-knowledge, identity, and development of our full potential with a view to fulfilling the criteria for a successful manager (Hunter, 2011).
It is necessary for any manager who wants to be successful to incorporate the art of self-awareness and self-development to climb high up the success ladder. When you have self-awareness the manager can control his/her emotions, know what is expected of him/her and much more make decisions that are self-conscious and helpful to the company.

References

Asendorpf, J. B. (2002). Self-awareness, other-awareness, and secondary representation. The imitative mind: Development, evolution, and brain bases, 63-7
Cella, M., Swan, S., Medin, E., Reeder, C., & Wykes, T. (2014). Metacognitive awareness of cognitive problems in schizophrenia: Exploring the role of symptoms and self-esteem.
Giddens, A. (2013). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. John Wiley & Sons.
Hunter, M. (2011). PERPETUAL SELF CONFLICT: SELF AWARENESS AS A KEY TO OUR ETHICAL DRIVE, PERSONAL MASTERY, AND PERCEPTION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL OPPORTUNITIES. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, 3(2), 96-137.
Luthans, F., & Avolio, B. (2003). Authentic leadership development. Positive organizational scholarship, 241, 258.
Luthans, F., & Peterson, S. (2002). Employee engagement and manager self‐efficacy. Management Development Journal, 21(5), 376-387.
SELF-AWARENESS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVE. (2006). Monographs Of The Society For Research In Child Development, 71(2), 1-28.