Self-Awareness and Personal Development

In a Nutshell
With our busy schedules it might be difficult to find time to think about who we are,
our strengths and weaknesses, our drives and personalities, our habits and values.
Besides, many of us just aren't inclined to spend much time on self-reflection. Even
when personal feedback is presented to us, we're not always open to it, because honest
feedback isn't always flattering. Consequently, many of us have a pretty low level of
self-awareness. That's unfortunate, because self-awareness is an essential first step
toward maximizing management skills. Self-awareness can improve our judgment and
help us identify opportunities for professional development and personal growth.

In This Issue

• Does Eisner Have CEO Disease?

• Key Areas for Self-Awareness
• How Self-Awareness Makes You More Effective
• Practicing This Management Skill
• About the Newsletter and Subscriptions
• Good, Clean Joke
• LeaderLetter Web Site

Does Eisner Have CEO Disease?

The board members who led the coup that brought current CEO Michael Eisner to
Disney in 1984 are poised to lead another coup. Earlier this month Roy Disney (nephew
of founder Walt Disney) and his ally on Disney's board, Stanley Gold, resigned. On their
way out the door, the duo wrote scathing critiques of Eisner's leadership and vowed to
lead stockholder and employee revolts against him. Specifically, Roy Disney and Gold
criticized Eisner's failure to develop a successor, empower the creative staff, and generate
marketable innovations and programs.1 For years press reports have suggested Eisner is a
politically minded manager who develops power bases better than he develops
executives.
Michael Eisner could very well be suffering from what Goleman, Boyatzis and
McKee refer to as "CEO disease" in their best-selling book, Primal Leadership. They
describe CEO disease as "the information vacuum around a leader created when people
withhold important (and usually unpleasant) information."2 Eisner is the prototypical
candidate for CEO disease. He is notorious for filling Disney's board of directors with
cronies and others who would be unlikely to be very critical of his decision-making and
performance. Consequently, he can act with virtual impunity and caprice. It would be
risky for an executive to criticize Eisner's actions or choices. Hence, Eisner is unlikely to
be offered much of the constructive criticism a CEO needs to improve his or her
performance.
Just as being able to see your reflection in the mirror helps you to fix your hair,
feedback on your characteristics and behaviors helps you to develop your management
skills and improve your judgment. Self-awareness--i.e., knowing your personal
characteristics and how your actions affect other people, business results, etc.--is an
essential first step toward maximizing your management skills. Self-awareness is the
antidote to CEO disease.

Key Areas for Self-Awareness

Human beings are complex and diverse. To become more self-aware, we should
develop an understanding of ourselves in many areas. Key areas for self-awareness
include our personality traits, personal values, habits, emotions, and the psychological
needs that drive our behaviors.
Personality. We don't normally change our personalities, values and needs based
on what we learn about ourselves. But, an understanding of our personalities can help us
find situations in which we will thrive, and help us avoid situations in which we will
experience too much stress. For instance, if you are a highly introverted person, you are
likely to experience more stress in a sales position than a highly extroverted person
would. So, if you are highly introverted, you should either learn skills to cope with the
demands of a sales position that requires extravert-type behavior patterns, or you should
find a position that is more compatible with your personality. Awareness of your
personality helps you analyze such a decision.
Roy Disney and Stanley Gold would say that Michael Eisner's personality is too
controlling. He has buffered himself from threats to his tenure as CEO by co-opting the
board of directors and by micro-managing the executives he should be developing and
empowering. As a result, his performance as CEO has suffered.
Values. It's important that we each know and focus on our personal values. For
instance, if your first priority is "being there for your children" or "your relationship with
God," it's very easy to lose sight of those priorities on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment
basis. During the workday, so many problems and opportunities arise that our lists of
"things to do" can easily exceed the time we have to do them. Since few (if any) of those
things pertain to what we value most, it's easy to spend too much time on lower priority
activities. When we focus on our values, we are more likely to accomplish what we
consider most important.
Habits. Our habits are the behaviors that we repeat routinely and often
automatically. Although we would like to possess the habits that help us interact
effectively with and manage others, we can probably all identify at least one of our habits
that decreases our effectiveness. For example, if you are a manager who never consults
your staff before making decisions, that habit may interfere with your ability to build
your staff members' commitment to the decisions and their decision-making skills as
well.
Needs. Maslow and other scholars have identified a variety of psychological needs
that drive our behaviors such as needs for esteem, affection, belongingness, achievement,
self-actualization, power and control. One of the advantages of knowing which needs
exert the strongest influence on our own behaviors is the ability to understand how they
affect our interpersonal relationships. For instance, most of us have probably known
people who have a high need for status. They're attracted to high status occupations, and
they seek high status positions within their organizations. Such people also want the
things that symbolize their status. They insist that they be shown respect, and they want
privileges and perks that people of lower status can't have. Sometimes these people fight
for things that others see as inconsequential--like a bigger office. Needs cause
motivation; and when needs aren't satisfied, they can cause frustration, conflict and stress.

Emotions. Emotional self-awareness has become a hot topic of discussion recently

because it's one of the five facets of emotional intelligence. Understanding your own
feelings, what causes them, and how they impact your thoughts and actions is emotional
self-awareness. If you were once excited about your job but not excited now, can you get
excited again? To answer that question, it helps to understand the internal processes
associated with getting excited. That sounds simpler than it is. Here's an analogy: I think
I know how my car starts--I put gas in the tank, put the key in the ignition, and turn the
key. But, my mechanic knows a lot more about what's involved in getting my car started
than I do--he knows what happens under the hood. My mechanic is able to start my car
on the occasions when I'm not because he understands the internal processes. Similarly, a
person with high emotional self-awareness understands the internal process associated
with emotional experiences and, therefore, has greater control over them.

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How Self-Awareness Makes You More Effective

Self-awareness helps managers identify gaps in their management skills, which
promotes skill development. But self-awareness also helps managers find situations in
which they will be most effective, assists with intuitive decision making, and aids stress
management and motivation of oneself and others.
Skill development. Improvement projects should normally begin with an
assessment of the gap between the current situation and the desired future situation.
Having an accurate sense of who you are helps you decide what you should do to
improve. Often, self-awareness will reveal a skills gap that you want to work on.
Knowing your strengths and weaknesses. Self-awareness helps you exploit your
strengths and cope with your weaknesses. For instance, if you are someone who is good
at "seeing the big picture" that surrounds decisions, but not as good at focusing on the
details, you might want to consult colleagues and subordinates that are more detail-
oriented when making major decisions. Cooperation between big-picture-oriented
decision makers and detail-oriented decision makers can produce high quality decisions.
Developing intuitive decision-making skills. Leaders with well-developed
emotional self-awareness are more effective intuitive decision makers. In complex
situations, intuitive decision makers process large amounts of sometimes unstructured
and ambiguous data, and they choose a course of action based on a "gut feeling" or a
"sense" of what's best. This type of decision making is becoming more important for
managers as the rate of change and the levels of uncertainty and complexity in their
competitive environments increase. Managers who are highly emotionally self-aware are
better able to read their "gut feelings" and use them to guide decisions.
Stress. Jobs that don't suit your personality tend to give you more stress than jobs
that are more compatible. This is not to say that you should never take a job that
conflicts with your personality. However, be aware that you will need to work extra hard
to develop the skills for that job, and there are jobs that would be less stressful for you.
Motivation. It's very difficult to cope with poor results when you don't understand
what causes them. When you don't know what behaviors to change to improve your
performance, you just feel helpless. Self-awareness is empowering because it can reveal
where the performance problems are and indicate what can be done to improve
performance. In addition, awareness of your psychological needs can increase your
motivation by helping you understand and seek out the rewards that you really desire
such as a sense of accomplishment, additional responsibility, an opportunity to help
others, or a flexible work schedule.
Leadership. When we understand "what make us tick"--what gets us excited, why
we behave the way we do, etc.--we also have insight into what makes others tick. To the
extent that other people are like you (and, of course, there are limits to the similarity),
knowing how to motivate yourself is tantamount to knowing how to motivate others.

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Practicing This Management Skill

You can become more self-aware by seeking feedback from the people who know
you, completing self-assessment surveys, and hiring an expert like a professional
counselor or executive coach.
Ask somebody. If you have open, trusting relationships with the people who know
you, you can ask them for feedback about your personality, habits, needs and values.
Research shows that your coworkers, friends and family members CAN provide valid
assessments of your personality. But, they do NOT ALWAYS provide an accurate
assessment. For instance, I once asked my undergraduate students to describe my
personality on the four Myers-Briggs personality dimensions, and they described the
exact opposite of my actual personality. Their ratings described the personality that is
appropriate for a teacher, and they also rated me as an effective teacher. So, they saw me
act like a teacher in my role as a teacher, but those behaviors are not representative of my
behaviors in other roles. There are two lessons in that: (1) You can develop skills for a
role that doesn't match your personality. (2) People who only see you in one role can
only describe your behaviors in relation to that role. Analogously, if you mismanage
your time so that you spend too much time on things that don't matter much to you,
people will have a very different perception of your values than you do. For instance,
maybe you say that your family is important to you, but how do you spend your time?
Another limitation on the value of the feedback you get from family, friends and
especially coworkers is that they may not be completely candid with you. This is where
the trust factor looms large. Unflattering feedback is the type that has the most potential
for helping you develop your management skills, but it is also the most difficult to give
and to accept. People aren't very likely to give you unflattering feedback if there isn't a
high level of trust in your relationship with them ... unless they don't mind harming the
relationship. For this reason, many experts (e.g., Ed Eppley, Area Manager for Dale
Carnegie Training, and Ellen Van Velsor of the Center for Creative Leadership) suggest
that managers find a way to get anonymous feedback from staff members and co-
workers.
Questionnaires. One of the ways to improve the quality of the feedback that you
can receive from other people is by asking them to fill out a psychometrically sound
inventory of your personality, values, needs, or habits as they perceive them. Those
surveys are composed and structured in such a way as to maximize the accuracy of the
feedback they generate. With the help of a facilitator, the surveys can be completed
anonymously. You can also fill out surveys yourself as a means of self-assessment.
Seek professional help. Professional counselors and executive coaches can be a
great source of feedback to help you develop your self-awareness. Of course, not
everyone who calls herself a coach is qualified. You should evaluate the training and
certifications of counselors and coaches. Nevertheless, executive coaching is a great
resource, and it's a growing area of management consulting. Coaches not only help you
get a better picture of who you are; they also guide you through self-improvement. Often
coaches collect anonymous evaluations of their clients from their subordinates, superiors
or anyone else who is in a position to provide helpful feedback. Good coaches know how
to effectively collect and digest the feedback. Professional counselors, such as guidance
counselors and clinical psychologists, are also great resources. Guidance counselors can
provide inventories of your personality and interests. Clinical psychologists can help you
understand and work on aspects of your personality and habits that interfere with any
facet of your life, including work.

In Summary ...
To perfect your management skills, the best place to start is self-awareness. Self-
awareness means knowing your values, personality, needs, habits, emotions, strengths,
weaknesses, etc. With a sense of who you are and a vision of the person you want to
become, a plan for professional or personal development can be created. Moreover, self-
awareness allows you to motivate yourself and manage your stress better, helps you with
your intuitive decision making, and helps you to lead and motivate others more
effectively. Self-awareness is very useful.

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Photo Credit
AP Photo/Peter Cosgrove: e-mailed to me from Yahoo! News; news.yahoo.com.

Notes
 1. Grover, R. (2003). Stalking a wily prey at Disney. Business Week Online, Dec.
2. Retrieved December 11, 2003 from
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/dec2003/nf2003122_5238_db035
.htm.
2. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing
the power of emotional intelligence. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School
Press. (The definition of CEO disease appears on page 93.)

About the Newsletter and Subscriptions

LeaderLetter is written by Dr. Scott Williams, Department of Management, Raj Soin
College of Business, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio. It is a supplement to my
MBA 751 - Managing People in Organizations class. It is intended to reinforce the
course concepts and maintain communication among my former MBA 751 students, but
anyone is welcome to subscribe. In addition, subscribers are welcome to forward this
newsletter to anyone who they believe would have an interest in it. To subscribe, simply
send an e-mail message to me requesting subscription. Of course, subscriptions to the
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unsubscribe.
Learning & Development
Published August 2007
Leadership Development Through Self-Awareness

David Peck
Many organizations invest in some form of leadership development for their top
talent — they see it as a way to gain or maintain a competitive advantage.
Competency-based approaches to assess, mentor/coach, plan for succession
and even promote leaders are the most common mechanisms for expending
those training dollars.
These methods rely on company-selected or pre-established lists of the skills,
characteristics or attributes companies consider important in a particular leader.
When used wisely, such lists can help them assess, develop and deploy skills in
situational contexts, providing valuable feedback and learning experiences for
leaders.
Leadership experts are beginning to recognize, however, that competency-based
approaches are too static to help leaders master the complexity, speed and
turbulence of today's workplace.
In fact, many in the leadership field say we need new strategies to help the next
generation of leaders deal with the gale-force winds of change in the global
marketplace.
Traditional classes and seminars are giving way to multidimensional approaches
that incorporate executive education, nontraditional workshops, team activities,
and, most effectively, one-on-one approaches to developing leaders.
Factors Leading to the Demand for Self-Awareness
The role of the leader today — and even more so tomorrow — is to master
speed, turbulence and complexity. As baby boomers retire in massive numbers,
and organizations look at a potential leadership talent drain of 30 percent or more
in the next five years, steep learning curves will be the rule rather than the
exception.
Therefore, leaders must have tools that transcend static skills. That means
providing many levels of support to encourage them to gain the awareness
needed to change dynamically and quickly. Organizations must explicitly place
value on the process of maturation of consciousness, a complicated proposition
indeed.
Since the 1970s, large organizations have had success creating lists of the skills
or attributes they consider important to be a good leader, and there was certainly
nothing wrong with this model.
Organizations use (and sometimes misuse) such competency lists and the
underlying definitions to test, evaluate and assess leadership at many points,
including hiring, readiness for promotion, performance ratings, succession and
even overall effectiveness.
When used appropriately, most of the individual skills and competencies are
good, but they are no longer enough — they are static. Without a flexible, self-
aware operating system, the leader is able to manage only limited complexity,
speed and change.
For the few who can go beyond that on their skills alone, either the personal and
professional cost can be enormous, or they use tremendous mental resources,
and people with that type of pure brain power don't live on a bell curve.

What is self-awareness?

This is unknown territory for many. In school we are seldom taught to do

deep reflection. As we get older and become adults we get caught in the
cycle of productivity and consumption. As a result self reflection becomes
something to be avoided so as not to slow one down. Self-awareness
means knowing one’s self at a deep level. This includes as
Jung suggested the shadow side which is everything in us that is
unconscious, repressed, undeveloped, and denied.

Without this deep awareness of who we are these ignored feelings can
surface in actions later and cause conflicts. Deep awareness includes
understanding ourselves. No one is perfect and a deep understanding of
ourselves, our fears, the things which excite us can all help us to live in the
greater world and in harmony with others. Self-awareness also includes the
basics such as being clear about what we like to do and what we don’t like. It
can include feelings about events and how they impacted and changed us.
Self-awareness can just be understanding and feeling comfortable with one’s
self behavior.

What does self-awareness have to do with management?

A manager’s day is filled with lots of change and decision making. Many of
these decisions include people. Every behavior by a manager has the
potential to have a big impact on others. The self-aware manager
understands this and thinks through decisions and communications with
others before acting. The self-aware manager tends to be calmer, have more
empathy, and able to think through challenges much better. The self-aware
manager is able to think from the other’s perspective which helps in people
relationships, communications, and decision making.

The effect of a self-aware manager

First, they are more confident. The self-aware manager knows he is not
perfect and yet with self-awareness comes the confidence to make decisions
and communicate their intentions to others. For people who work for a self-
aware manager there is more joy at work. People feel listened to, treated
fair, and in general they have a role model of personal development. This is
important as teaching others how to develop and motivate themselves is a
critical responsibility of a manager.

The danger of managers who avoid self-reflection

We can see this daily in many organizations. Decisions made without

consulting others, autocratic leadership, policies aimed to catch people doing
the wrong thing, and other related aspects of theory x managers (assuming
if left alone people will do bad things). The result is a culture of poor morale,
limited creative thinking, and risk taking. All of the above can bring down an
organization and impact the bottom line.

The self-aware organization

When managers are role modeling self-awareness the whole organization

takes on a similar behavior. People invest more time to get to know
themselves. The organization offers personal development education and
encourages growth and development. Customers get better service with
employees who are more confident, calmer, and clearer about who they are
and what they do.
Self-Awareness and the impact on groups

When the organization supports personal growth and self-awareness the

overall group tends to help each other out more. People tend to show more
care towards others, conflict at work is decreased and overall people get
along better.

First steps towards becoming more self-aware

Ask yourself these questions: Who am I? What do I love to do? Which fears
do I have about my life and what can I do about it? Who do I love in my life
and why? Which things give me the most joy? Which activities cause me the
most anxiety and what can I do about it? What is most important to me and
how do I follow what is most important? Lastly, which goals can I put in
motion to align to what is most important?

The payback to better decision making

Self-aware managers make better decisions. Why? They tend to be more

reflective, taking more time to think through implications of their actions.
Self-aware managers think more from a systems view. They understand how
their decisions and behavior impact the whole system and others.

The payback to society

The self-aware manager contributes more to society through actions and role
modeling. Society over time benefits the most. Programs and strategies for
building society take into account human factors and implications. There is
more emphasis on understanding all the parts and how they make up the
whole system. This type of thinking impacts decisions, strategies, and where
we place our focus and effort.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/leadership-articles/the-importance-

of-selfawareness-1578496.html#ixzz1HiBtdeeG
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution
Are We Ready for Self-Management?
Published: September 1, 2006
Author: James Heskett
Forum CLOSED — 94 Comments — View Original Article
Executive Summary:
On its face, self-management looks like a "win-win" answer to the scarcity of good managers and the
predominance of low-involvement entry-level jobs. But are sufficient numbers of entry-level employees
ready for self-management? And is management ready?

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About Faculty in this Article:

James Heskett is a Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.

• More Working Knowledge from James Heskett

 • James Heskett - Faculty Research Page

Summing Up
Predominant reactions to notions of self-management explored in this month's column could perhaps be
described best by two words, "enthusiasm" and "skepticism." Many respondents felt that the concepts
should be implemented by a broader range of organizations. But just as many cited obstacles to its
implementation, chief among them management itself.

Many respondents were enthusiastic. For example, Leeor Geva characterized self-management as a "win-
win strategy." In Jonathan Narducci's words, "Any method that gets all company employees interested in
how their jobs affect the customer … in how their jobs can be improved … in getting work done more
effectively is most definitely welcome." Birgi Martin said, "I think self-management is needed at all levels
of staff." Lavinia Weissman characterized self-management as "a leadership decision that invites initiative
and not followership." But John Inman's comments suggested a concern that was more strongly voiced by
others, when he commented that "if you are a command and control manager … keep away from self-
management …. However, if you can ask and not tell, engage people in learning conversations, coach,
develop, and create a clear picture of the result, you probably will be thrilled with the result …."

Others, while attracted to the idea in theory, characterized these views as too inclusive and optimistic.
Gaurav Goel suggested that "Self-management may work well when team sizes are small and there are
limited personality conflicts." Ashutosh Tiwari, while questioning whether self-management could "prove
its effectiveness in the long run," concluded that it might work "where skilled employees get together to
accomplish a specific task within a certain time frame."

Self-management is perhaps an extreme case of what we have found, in our research, to be one of the
features of high-performance work places that are most attractive to the people who work there: latitude
to deliver results for customers, whether external or internal to the organization. However, the path to
greater latitude on the job is not short. It involves, as Pradipta Saha commented, "Selecting the right
entry-level employee …." We have found, for example, that high performance organizations give at least
as much attention to attitude as to skills in selecting people. Next, as Debbie Lee suggests, "… there has
to be a great deal of training." Again, high-performance organizations train for skills, not attitude. Nari
Kannan points out two other critical components of a self-management initiative: "Proper structuring of
work and responsibilities … incentives, advancement and promotions." Must all of these steps be achieved
before latitude is expanded to deliver results, perhaps through self-management?

The major obstacle to self-management, as one might suspect, was thought to be people, especially
managers. C. J. Cullinane identified the most important requirement for self-management success as
"conviction and commitment of top management." As Peter Johnson put it, "True and genuine self-
management cannot happen if there are bosses or supervisors around." Barry Frank commented, "You've
got to choose carefully who wants to self-manage and who doesn't." Margie Parikh concluded, "Self-
managed teams happen only if readiness is there on both sides." What do you think?

Original Article

In the early 1990s, Taco Bell's management was faced with a dilemma. It wanted to create thousands of
new locations, including stores and kiosks, at which its line of Mexican-themed products could be sold. At

the same time, it was experiencing a shortage of capable managers in a fast-food industry known for low-

paying management jobs. One part of the solution was to create fewer, higher-paying management

positions. The other was to train thousands of entry-level workers at its stores to manage themselves.

This enabled Taco Bell to assign one manager to several stores and to increase the "span of control" for

area managers from ten or so units to several times that many.

Under the "self-management" initiative, employees were trained and given new technology to enable

them to hire, train, and supervise their new colleagues; manage the day-to-day inventory of the store;

handle the resulting receipts; and deal with personnel problems themselves under the supervision of a

"floating" manager responsible for several such stores. They received above-market pay, partially in the

form of performance incentives. The result? More highly energized workers, better cost control, higher

customer satisfaction, and new ideas for organizing work. One self-managed team, for example,

developed a program called "aces in your places," in which team members assumed jobs they wanted to

learn during slack business hours, then took their "battle stations" to achieve maximum capacity (up to 50

percent higher) during rush hours.

This is an extreme example of the creation of "work teams" that has provided an answer to the "assembly

line" philosophy of work. Such teams are designed to provide greater variety and responsibility for

frontline workers given the responsibility to assemble and deliver a complete product, sub-assembly, or

service. It characterizes what James O'Toole and Edward E. Lawler III in their new book, The New

American Workplace, would regard as a "high involvement" workplace in which employees are treated as

assets rather than just expenses. They contrast, for example, the high wage, high benefits, and high

involvement policies of Costco with those of Wal-Mart. Both organizations, of course, have been highly

successful. (One might argue that Wal-Mart has achieved high involvement through less expensive

methods including the creation of a strong culture.) But the authors maintain that the Costco model not

only is more attractive for workers but also creates fewer social costs for such things as medical expenses.

What would seem to be a "win-win" answer to the scarcity of good managers and the predominance of

low-involvement entry-level jobs nevertheless raises some questions. Are sufficient numbers of entry-level

employees ready for self-management, especially if it requires the application of new technologies to help

them perform jobs such as interviewing and hiring new team members or ordering supplies and managing

inventories? More important, is management ready for this? After all, it flies in the face of traditional

command and control management practices. And in many cases it will require the development and use

of new management information systems in which many organizations may be unwilling or unable to

invest. What do you think?

To read more:
James O'Toole and Edward E. Lawler III, The New American Workplace (New York: Palgrave Macmillan,

2006).

Self-management: Key to Success as a Manager

McConnell, Charles R. MBA, CM

Abstract

Self-management for the working manager must begin with a brutally honest self-
evaluation followed by a stubbornly determined effort to change. In the process, it is
necessary to put oneself in perspective relative to the management role and put
management itself into perspective for what it really is and what its requirements demand
of the individual manager. It is necessary to examine one's capabilities and one's likes and
dislikes as they relate to the management role and do something about these as
circumstances demand. Self-management also requires recognizing the essential balance
between the individual as a manager and as a knowledgeable specialist in some
occupation or profession. Improvement in self-management requires dramatic change in
some habits and involves self-assessment of one's initiative, personal organization, and
management of time. Lasting improvement in self-management is never absolutely
complete; it will be a continuing part of day-to-day existence for as long as the individual
remains a manager.