Self-awareness
Self-awareness is a
subject studied and mentioned over that past millennia, as described by Whetten
and Cameron (2016). Understand oneself is the key to understand the world that
surrounds and consequently be able to lead anyone and anything.
The same authors list
Five Core Aspects of Self-Awareness. Core
self-evaluation which assist on identifying underlying personality
attributes, values that identifies
personal standards and moral judgement, cognitive
style which is an aspect that enable to identify information acquisition
and evaluation, attitudes towards change
relates to adaptability and responsibility, and emotional intelligence which in linked with emotional awareness and
control. (Whetten & Cameron, 2016).
With respect of
these five core aspects, I can easily say that my level of self-awareness
increased for the past month, since I started the MSLD (Master of Science in
Leadership) program. There main reason behind this progress is the self-value
in this course. While a lot of Master programs prepare the students with either
a professional (business) or scientific perspective, this program focus mainly
on self-leadership (so far). At the beginning I was surprised and wondering how
effective would be the course, however I realized along the way that
self-leadership, which is intrinsically related to self-awareness, is essential
towards any human interaction.
The group
discussions, the self-reflection blog and mainly my conscious daily interaction
with others, assisted me on evolving my self-sense. These activities helped me
understand how my personality affects my decisions, how my emotion is inherent
to my actions and reactions, how my values interfere on the way I see the world
around me, and how I act towards this point of view. On my personal and
professional environment, I keep evaluating myself, on a daily basis, trying to
understand what led me to, for and from a situation. It happened naturally in
my mind, but looking back, before I started the program, I did not have the
knowledge to evaluate myself. As my knowledge increases, my conscious
self-evaluation evolves.
It is interesting
how my co-workers react to my leadership skills, and my self-sense when dealing
with a situation. I work with a different team every day, or every three days,
and I rarely meet the previous co-workers ever again. Working with new people constantly
is challenging, however, as usually, it has its down and up sides. I get the opportunity to see directly and indirectly,
how people act and react to my blended personal and professional performance,
not based on any outside aspects but almost entirely to my skills, to the
self-awareness of my objective and subjective responsibilities.
My personal
relationships improved as well, since understanding myself allows me to take
conscious decisions, build conscious relationship and work constantly on my
weakness, which is always appreciated by the ones whose surround me. The most
amazing part of this program, is that it is applicable for any purpose, no
matter in which aspect oneself desire to apply the knowledge. Self-awareness
progress and self-leadership development is an open door to any way towards the
success.
References
Nosich, G. M.
(2012). Learning to think
things through: A guide to critical thinking
across the curriculum (4th edition). Boston, MA: Pearson
Whetten, D. A.
& Cameron, K. S. (2016). Developing management skills,
9th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.
