10 / UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF
Developing self-awareness
Keeping moving
The best way to enhance your self-
awareness is to learn in a systematic
way from your own experiences. Start
by reflecting on situations in your
working life, your actions in response
to them, and the outcomes of these
events. Schedule a regular time to do
this, either at the beginning or end of a
workday, when you are not in the thick
of the action. Give yourself space to
reflect, and make sure you can be alone
and uninterrupted for a significant
period of time. Try to gain a better
understanding of what happened
and think about how you can learn
from each situation.
Analyzing your performance
Assessing your progress toward
your goals can help you gain a fuller
understanding of your strengths and
weaknesses. Whenever you make a key
decision or take a key action, write down
what you expect will happen. Then, every
three or four months, compare the actual
results with your expectations. If you
practice this method consistently, it will
help you discover what you are doing,
or failing to do, that deprives you of the
full benefits of your strengths, and will
demonstrate areas in which you are
not particularly competent and cannot
perform adequately.
Awareness of your emotions, personality, what you enjoy and dislike,
what motivates you, and what comes easily or poses challenges is a key
precursor to developing effective managerial ability. Quite simply, if
you can’t manage yourself, you will not be able to manage anyone else.
MAKE NOTES
Use your journal to “think on
paper” about what you have
read about management in
this or other books, or your
experiences in management
training programs.
Tip
Take time to reflect on
situations in your working
life, your actions in
response to them, and the
outcomes of these events
DEVELOPING SELFAWARENESS / 11
Keeping a journal
Keeping a journal is a good way to help you
learn from experience. Journals are similar to
diaries, but include entries that address critical
aspects of your managerial experiences and
reflect on interactions with bosses, employees,
and team-mates. If you want to solicit feedback,
post your journal as an online blog.
Journal entries could describe:
A good (or bad) way someone
handled a situation
A problem in the
making
The different ways people
react to situations
Comments about insightful
or interesting quotations
Anecdotes, newspaper articles,
or even humorous cartoons
Your thoughts on people in the
news, or in books or movies.
In focus
FEEDBACK
It is important to have a person
in your life who gives you honest,
gut-level feedback, to help
you gain perspective on your
experiences and learn from them.
This should be someone you trust
enough to go to when you have
real problems and ask, “Am I off
base here? Am I crazy?”
This person could be a partner, a
mentor, a best friend, a coworker,
a therapist, or a personal coach.
Today, many organizations
are providing their managers
with 360-degree feedback,
allowing them to receive
insights on their strengths
and weaknesses from other
members of staff.
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