Self Awareness Essay Example for Free

Self Awareness Essay Self awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions (Pathway to Happiness, n. d. ). Self awareness allows one to understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the moment (Pathway to Happiness, n. d. ). Self awareness is an essential first step toward improving management skills. Self- awareness can improve one’s judgment and help identify opportunities for professional development and personal growth. Self-awareness helps managers identify gaps in management skills. Self-awareness also helps managers find situations in which they will be most effective. 1. Skills development – Improvement projects should begin with an assessment of the gap between the current situation and the desired situation. Having an accurate sense of who one is helps with making improvements (Wright Education, n. . ). 2. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses – Self-awareness helps one exploit their strengths and cope with weaknesses. For example, if a manager is good at seeing the big picture that surrounds the decisions, but not good at focusing on the details, the manager might benefit from consulting a colleague that is more detail oriented when making decisions (Wright Education, n. d. ). Big picture oriented decision makers and detailed oriented decision makers can produce high quality decisions 3.  Developing intuitive decision making skills – Leaders with well developed emotional self-awareness are more effective intuitive decision makers (Wright Education, n. d. ). In complex situations intuitive decision makers choose actions based on a gut feeling or a sense of what is best (Wright Education, n. d. ). Managers who are highly self- aware are better able to read their gut feelings and use them to guide decisions. 4. Motivation – Self-awareness can reveal where the problems are and indicate what can be done to improve performance.  Awareness of one’s psychological needs can increase one’s motivation by seeking rewards that are desirable such as a sense of accomplishment, additional responsibility, and an opportunity to help others or a flexible work schedule (Wright Education, n. d. ) To improve managerial skills the best place to start is self awareness. With a sense of who you are and a vision of the who you want to become, a plan for professional development can be created. Self awareness allows managers to become more motivated and manage stress, become intuitive decision makers, and lead and motivate others.