How Self-Awareness at Work Fosters Connection
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Have you ever experienced that one person in the workplace who is just blissfully unaware of how they operate? Whether it’s passive-aggressive commentary, unclear communication, or task unloading, they continuously rub people the wrong way.
But what if it’s not intentional? Or, even worse, what if that person is you? Do you have the level of self-awareness to recognize this behavior within yourself? In this article, we’re going to explain what self-awareness is, why it’s important in the workplace, and how you can practice it to make you more pleasant to be around.
What is self-awareness?
Simply put, self-awareness is being conscious of the feelings, behaviors, and habits that you do. They can be positive or negative, but being conscious of them is how we change and grow as human beings. This growth and changing of negative behaviors make us nicer to be around. This kind of self-awareness is specifically internal self-awareness.
Think about someone who has no self-awareness: they could have an ego issue and it makes everyone walk on eggshells around them - but still, they would not think they were the problem. This lack of self-awareness isolates them from the rest of their peers and then they wonder why no one talks to them and everyone avoids them like the plague. Newsflash: it’s you, Henry. You’re the problem. Unfortunately, Henry thinks he’s self-aware (much like most people). However, only 10-15% of people actually fit into the criteria of being self-aware according to a study done by Eurich.
Self-awareness & connection
Now that we know what self-awareness is, we can dive deeper into how it affects our connection with other people. Let’s take Henry who lacks self-awareness. He may unconsciously notice the similarities between one of his employees and his brother who he doesn’t particularly get along with. This has led Henry to just dislike the guy and therefore act more passive-aggressive and nitpick his work.
Now, if Henry was self-aware he may recognize this feeling of dislike and explore where it’s coming from… but he’s not, so he didn’t. Instead, he has a terrible relationship with this co-worker and the poor guy has no idea what he did wrong! Even worse, who’s to say that guy is the only one? Henry has slowly alienated everyone in the office because people are on his bad side (for no reason at all) and now no one talks to him - and he has no idea why.
Now Henry is socially isolated at work and has terrible communication with the rest of the team. This means collaboration is difficult & projects are delivered more slowly and with misunderstandings attached.
How to become more self-aware
Recognize your values, beliefs & goals - Write down your values in life that drive you at work and home. Think about your beliefs in the world, universe, and God and how it affects your life and your opinions of others. Write down your short-term and long-term goals so that you know where you want to be in the next few years and how they will influence your decision-making.
Be present - Recognize the emotions that come up when you do different things and explore where they come from. This can take a lot of practice and you can start with meditation or mindfulness exercises. This would’ve helped Henry recognize the dislike he felt for his co-worker and would’ve prevented the destruction of that relationship.
Ask others about their perception of you - This could be a scary one. It can be very difficult to ask someone what their perception is of you as you might not hear what you want to hear. Nonetheless, this is a very important exercise for self-awareness especially relating to connection. This will also help you identify ways in which your relationship may be strained or misunderstood and how you can fix it. Compare how you see yourself vs how the other person sees you. Congratulations, you now have a list of things you can work on.
So now that Henry has become more self-aware through these three tips, he can now work on his relationship with his co-workers and create a working environment that is open and transparent and creates happy employees. Communication has improved tremendously and so has the potential for collaboration. Projects are going out before deadlines and turnover has decreased. That gave Henry a sense of pride (and he knows that because he’s present with his emotions).
