Core Soft Skill 4: Self Awareness

Heard that old saying 'know thyself' and got bored stiff? OK, go to the fridge, grab a drink and listen up: self awareness helps you land the job you want and has a positive influence on the size of your future pay cheque! Got your attention? Read on...

In a nutshell, self awareness means you are aware of your preferences in the way you communicate, relate to others, solve problems and process information. The fast pace of today’s workplace means that most of us work on auto pilot much of the time, and the behaviours that come naturally to us run the show. If you don’t question this you lose much of your behavioural flexibility, which in turn can limit your effectiveness at work.

It really is simple: the most successful people know themselves well, period. This section helps you make a start and lay a solid foundation for self awareness. Here are four great tools to have a go:

The Johari Window [pdf] is a tool commonly used in management development programmes. It provides you with a framework within which we can start to understand the often hard to define concept of self awareness.

For a thorough introduction to the probably most comonly used tool used by employers to raise self awareness at work, check out the MBTI and JTI tools [pdf].

Check out the HBDI [pdf] if you want to become more aware of our thinking styles, and organisations such as MTV, Coca Cola and Microsoft have used it to develop their employees.