Self-Awareness in Controlling Diversity in the Workplace - Personal Statement Example

Self-Awareness Name Institution Affiliation Self-Awareness Understanding ourselves is the driving force towards realizing and achieving our dreams in life. Failure to realize what truly make us complete results to us as individuals doing things that slowly reduces our chances of success in life. Self-awareness does not only relate to creating and making an individual complete, but it also ensure that an individual becomes a good manager for different functions in an organization. This paper analyses self-awareness and its implications towards management as well as addressing my action plan towards self-awareness. Self-awareness is the act that an individual possess when he/she shows clear perception of his/her personality which includes the elements of strengths, weakness, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. The action allows an individual not forget managers to fully understand other people; workers within the organization on how they perceive you as an individual, your actions as well as your attitudes and response to them at the moment (Heine, 2015). Developing self-awareness enables an individual to create changes in thoughts and interpretations within his/her mind to realize the objectives for whatever thing he/she wants to achieve. Realizing our positions and interpretations ensures that we change our emotions, as we will realize what is good for execution from the reactions of our minds. It is from this awareness that an individual can realize self-improvement in the society as it enables one to easily fit in any society without any fear. The awareness enables us to have good communication style as we will communicate with already realized weaknesses and shaped behavior. Through this, the individual realizes the ways through which he/she can change the perceptions of others as well as be able to manage others effectively (Heine, 2015). In management, managers use self-awareness to understand the employees and tune to the needs of the workers through greater understanding of the concerns of others (Liao et. all, 2015). Proper expression of awareness ensures that the employees develop competence in the manager as well as create trust with different stakeholders within the organization. It helps the management to reduce conflicts within the organizations as well as receive quick feedback from the employees since he/she will easily understand the employees. The understanding of yourself as a manager ensures that a good productive environment is created to ensure maximum output within the organization. Developing self-awareness Developing self-awareness does not require an individual to find a book or article to be well aware of his/herself, since reading will only result to an individual having theoretical perception but not the real self-awareness. In order to develop self-awareness, (Tzu, 2014) the following steps are necessary to be followed and put into practice by an individual. First, individuals need to meditate up on their lives as well as actions/practices that they have taken in life. The meditation process will ensure that the individual has enhanced his/her strengths, weaknesses, attitude, and values to identify situations that did not work good or worked good in the individual’s life. Meditation process is easily attained through self-disclosure which involves telling people about yourself and whatever you felt in different situations. The individual also needs to experiment with different people and situations as it helps one to develop emotional intelligence. Secondly, an individual needs to write down key plans and priorities as it will help in evaluating him/herself basing on the ways through which he/she is achieving his/her plans. Lastly, the individual needs to evaluate their success in attaining their aim of being self-aware. In this stage, the individual uses the measurement means such looking at their emotional reactions, core beliefs, communication style and the level; of happiness that you currently possess in the society. If the individual realizes a positive change on the above mentioned elements then it implies that he/she is receiving a positive move towards a better self-awareness (Tzu, 2014). Means of obtaining self-awareness Despite the stages in developing self-awareness, it is important to understand that there is need to understand the means of obtaining self-awareness. The following are some of the means through which self-awareness can be realized; self-disclosure, diverse experience, and through self-analysis (Pugacheva et. all, 2016) and (Tzu, 2014). Starting with self-analysis as a means of obtaining self-awareness, an individual is expected to begin by meditation where he or she ensures that he/she makes thorough reflection on thoughts as well as exploration of the same thoughts in the process of reflecting and exploring. The individual take a reflection on an activity that he or she took part in and learn whatever worked out for him/her as he becomes effective on implementing behavioral and cognitive changes. The individual looks at the influence that feelings, judgments, beliefs and motivations have on his/her behavior as well as the behavioral patterns that are develop through the actions. According to Vassev & Hinchey (2015) the individual looks at his/her personality which takes into account stable set of characteristics, tendencies, and temperaments that have been developed within the society. The perception that an individual has forms the ground upon which the individual develop self-awareness. The perceptions like stereotyping, selective perception, and expectations for different events make an individual to develop a given kind of awareness in different fields. The perception that people have is affected by biasness and errors that people have in mind causing pressure for one to improve their self-awareness. The behavior of others should influence and make us challenge different issues within our mind to ensure that we develop good behavior by learning from others as explained by the attribution theory (Tanner et. all, 201). The relationship that is brought by both external and internal factors within an individual should facilitate the good management process for human success. The second means is by self-disclosure which involves sharing of thoughts and feelings to those whom you truly trust. The practice ensures that an individual fully improve self-awareness by clarifying the perceptions and use of the known beliefs. Developing the concept ensures that one fully understand whatever is happening within the body and mind making him/her to come up with an idea that do not need further coaching (Tzu, 2014). Lastly, the experience that an individual have ensure good self-awareness through constant interactions. The experience that can be achieved through travelling, learning new language, and working in an unfamiliar environment makes one to develop a strategy that will ensure a better success. Implications of self-awareness to management Self-awareness has its own implications in the entire management process and the management benefits from realizing these benefits and demerits of self-awareness. First, according to Van Dierendonck & Patterson, (2015) as an effective manager, you need to identify the gaps within the management and work towards ensuring that the gaps are corrected or filled in the organization. The management also needs to evaluate any gap that might be realized in a society and find a way to bring up the project that will help fill that gap. In order to realize that gap and to develop the skill for whatever activity to be taken, the manager requires a better self-awareness. Secondly, management requires that a manger only takes the managerial role in the areas where he/she is comfortable with (Fernandez et.all, 2015). Actually a good manager is one that manages projects or people that he/she fully understands and has the best knowledge of guiding such principles. To realize the best group for one to manage, the manager must fully understand himself or herself with the complications that the diversity in management brings which is only achieved through self-awareness. Thirdly, self-awareness ensures that a manger fully understands his/her emotions which enable him/her to run the organization without expressing any negative emotions in the presence of the employees. The action enables the managers to easily deal with stress within the organization as they understand their stress level as well as factors that may result to them developing stress within the organization. Fourthly, self-awareness gives you an opportunity as a manager to seek feedback from the junior staffs as it enables you to know specifically where you belong as well as your position within an organization. Indicating the highest level of self-understanding even among the employees ensures that the employees knows their jurisdiction within the organization and gives convincing feedback to the organization without fear of any consequences within the company. It allows an individual especially a manager to motivate his or herself within the organization during decision making process as well as in creating of the new ideas. As a manager, you need to be involved in risk taking which is mostly possible to take when you fully understand yourself. When you have good self-awareness, you will also feel motivated even if the decision you made did not have any profitable gain to the company creating the spirit of always trying out the best alternative for the company or organization (Tzu, 2014). Lastly, self-awareness can create fear in instant correction of mistakes within the organization or business by a manger. This is possible especially if the manager knows that his/her anger increases with the increase in mistake correction, hence the manager will prefer not to correct the mistakes instantly for fear of exposing his/her wrong side. The idea may even make some employees to intentionally do mistake with the knowledge that instant action will not be taken due to the manager’s self-awareness (Fernandez et.all, 2015). Addressing my action plan In addressing my action plan, I will give my outcomes on both pre and post measures through explanation of the actions that I took. At the start of the plan, I formulated the goals for my work which was specific, manageable, accurate, realistic, and timely with reference to the requirement for management skill of self-awareness. With my goal smart goals, I decided to look at different aspect on which I would improve on self-awareness as I realized it was the best way to be a good manager. At the begging of my study, I did not understand the way of my actions towards my emotions and other people’s culture. There were points that I could harshly respond to the questions from my colleges, especially when their questions concerned my life. I had a wrong perception for other cultures, as I believed they do not deserve to even own or work in some organizations within the country. At some point during class work as well as during leisure time, I had a very wrong understanding of my colleges, as I could not easily recognize their emotions and attitudes towards me at any time. Having realized that I was always a bother to the friends as I could not understand what I actually wanted as well as not realize the qualities that are necessary to be a good manager, I formulated smart goals to evaluate myself and help me change different understandings of the situations. I loved the actions and the behavior that some of my colleges were expressing despite the fact that I did not realize whatever their behavior really meant. After setting up the goals for my plans I went out to different friends consulting on the various ways to realize what myself truly possess. In dealing with different people I went and collected the information regarding different cultures as well as different ways on which individuals from different cultures have been managed. I read about the current organizations and realized there is diversity in organizations and managers needs to realize the importance of diversity management (Ashikali & Groeneveld, 2015). Different people could not understand what I really wanted as I changed my perceptions and most of the time I was doing self-reflections and meditations on my behaviors. I extended my friendship beyond the class limit and I always wanted my friends to share with me every part of the activity that was taking place within the institutions. The practice enabled me to find more information and feedback concerning different issues as they started to be open and ready to share with me on different occasions. I read books which were guiding me on controlling emotions and understanding the best ways through which I could relate to my fellows regardless of the background, race, and level of study. The most encouraging thing that I realized from the behaviors I show was that when I read something and tried to put it into practice, it was working better than I thought of it when I read it. After weeks of study, the following were the outcomes that I could see in myself in relation to working with my colleges as well as towards realizing myself. First, I could freely communicate with every individual within the institutions as well as share most part of time in making arguments. At this moment I realized that everybody was important towards achieving a goal in life as well as in making corrections towards the view of life (Koekoek, & Knoppers, 2015). In the discussions and sharing, I could take a stand and have a convincing argument towards developing the topic of discussion without merely disagreeing with individuals without proper reasons like I used to do. The position that I took showed me some improvements as I could listen to people‘s arguments and change my position on condition that I was convince since I was fully understanding myself and my position in the group. Secondly, I managed to control the emotions of the group members as well as control my emotions in the entire business of our operation within the institution. I was happy to realize that all cultures were important for a specific reasons and their diversity is what creates the innovation and creative ideas that we use for our development. I could easily mingle with other cultures and learn from them, these actions cleared the perceptions that I had towards different people and cultures and made me value each and every culture. Being able to mingle showed that I was developing into an individual who understands what I am made of an indicator that I was already becoming a good manager. Thirdly, I was capable of realizing problems within my colleague’s behavior. I did not only notice the behavior that my friends were showing which I did not like but I used their mistakes to correct the challenges that I had towards having self-awareness. I could see a behavior, reflect on it, copy it when good and in cases where I considered it wrong used my own understanding and replaced it with a behavior that I considered good in replacing it. Despite the positive changes that I realized, I still found out that there were some areas which I needed to improve to have a better self-understanding and they included. I still failed to understand some parts of behavior by few individuals and I could not learn from them to change myself. Secondly, sometimes my emotions could be provoked especially when I saw a mistake or wrong behavior being repeated. My understandings of the skills have been broadened through the friends’ motivation and support as well as through the course work that has been presented to me by the lectures. The exposure to different environments as well as setting out the targets as broadened my skills as I was struggling to meet the goals even through research work from the books and journals. From my success and failures in achieving the target of being self-aware, I learnt that everything is possible and every individual has the capability to understand him/herself on condition that he/she has made the choice. I have also learnt that despite the success that an individual may show in changing his/her perceptions, he/she must fail at a point and the failing points should be the stepping stones to achieve the success for the next day. I believe the journey that I have developed in realizing myself will be continued until I fully have self-awareness. I have also realized that I would have involved my lecturers to help me fully understand the ways of dealing with other cultures rather than sitting back after being unable to learn from other behaviors. From the discussion, self-awareness is the basis for the success of any manager in controlling the diversity within the workplace. Self-awareness creates the confidence and courage that an individual need in order to achieve different goals of life. Every individual in the society has the capability of knowing him/herself and it only calls for an individual to realize the does and don’t in the society as well as reflect on his/her behavior in life. Individuals should encourage each other to avoid any perceptions and stereotypes that interfere with the possibility of sharing making enmity a huge enemy for sustainable development. References Ashikali, T., & Groeneveld, S. (2015). Diversity Management in Public Organizations and Its Effect on Employees’ Affective Commitment The Role of Transformational Leadership and the Inclusiveness of the Organizational Culture. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 35(2), 146-168. Fernandez, C. S., Noble, C. C., Jensen, E., & Steffen, D. (2015). Moving the needle: A retrospective pre-and post-analysis of improving perceived abilities across 20 leadership skills. 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