Self-Awareness (HBR Emotional Intelligence Series)
Harvard Business Review (Marcus Buckingham, Robert S. Kaplan, Susan David)
23 min
8 Key Points
4.6 RateWhat's inside?
Explore the power of understanding your own emotions and behaviors. This book guides you to improve your self-awareness, leading to better decision-making, leadership skills, and overall emotional intelligence.
You'll learn
1. Why knowing yourself matters in life and work2. Tips to get to know yourself better3. Making smarter choices with self-awareness4. Self-awareness and its part in understanding emotions5. Handling feelings and reactions like a pro6. Using self-awareness to climb the career ladder.Key points
01Self-awareness is knowing your emotions and how they affect others. It's about understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
Understanding your own emotions, how they affect you and others, and how they influence your work performance is what we call self-awareness. It's like knowing that you tend to get a bit grumpy when you're under a lot of pressure with tight deadlines. If you're aware of this, you can plan your tasks and manage your time better to avoid such situations. This is self-awareness in action. But self-awareness isn't just about understanding your emotions. It's also about knowing your values and goals. If you're self-aware, you have a clear idea of where you want to go and why. You make decisions that match your values and long-term goals. For example, you might say no to a high-paying job if it doesn't fit with your personal beliefs or career goals. But if you're not self-aware, you might make decisions that clash with your values, which can lead to inner conflict and stress. So, how can you tell if someone is self-aware? Well, one sign is that they're honest and realistic about themselves. They can talk openly and accurately about their emotions and how they affect their work. They're not overly emotional or too confessional, but they're truthful and realistic. Another sign of self-awareness is how people handle performance reviews. If you're self-aware, you're comfortable discussing your strengths and weaknesses. You see constructive criticism as a chance to grow and improve. But if you're not self-aware, you might see feedback as a threat or a sign of failure. Self-aware people also tend to be confident. They have a clear understanding of their abilities and don't set unrealistic expectations for themselves. They know when to ask for help and when to take calculated risks at work. They're aware of their limitations and focus on their strengths. Despite its importance, self-awareness is often overlooked in leadership. Many bosses don't see the value of self-awareness and mistake honesty about feelings for weakness. They often undervalue employees who openly admit their shortcomings. According to psychologist Daniel Goleman, what makes great leaders stand out from good ones isn't IQ or technical skills, but emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is made up of five skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. These skills help leaders to maximize their own performance and that of their team. Research has shown that when senior managers have a good amount of emotional intelligence skills, their divisions exceed yearly earnings goals by 20%. This highlights the importance of emotional intelligence, and especially self-awareness, in leadership and business success.
02Self-awareness is about knowing who you are, how others see you, and where you fit in. To improve it, you need to reflect on yourself, ask others for feedback, and understand your emotions and triggers
Self-awareness is a bit like a chameleon, changing its colors depending on who you ask. Some folks see it as our ability to peek into our own minds, while others think of it as a fleeting moment of self-consciousness. There's also a group that believes it's the difference between how we see ourselves and how others see us. After a deep dive into a sea of studies, the Harvard Business Review came up with two main types of self-awareness: internal and external. Internal self-awareness is all about understanding ourselves. It's about knowing our values, what makes us tick, what we want out of life, and how we fit into the world around us. It's also about recognizing our reactions - our thoughts, feelings, actions, strengths, and weaknesses - and how they affect others. The cool thing is, research shows that people who have a good handle on their internal self-awareness tend to be happier, have better relationships, and feel more in control. They're also less likely to feel anxious, stressed, or depressed. External self-awareness, on the flip side, is about understanding how others see us. It's about being aware of how others perceive us in relation to all the things we just talked about. The research here is pretty interesting too. It shows that people who are good at understanding how others see them are better at empathizing and understanding other people's points of view. In a work setting, leaders who see themselves the way their employees do tend to have better relationships with their team. The team, in turn, feels more satisfied and sees their leader as more effective. But here's the kicker: experience and power can sometimes get in the way of self-awareness. It's a bit counterintuitive, but just because we've been around the block a few times doesn't mean we always learn from it. Being an expert doesn't always help us spot false information, and thinking of ourselves as experienced can stop us from doing our homework, looking for evidence that goes against our beliefs, and questioning our assumptions. Experience can also make us overconfident and lead us to think we know ourselves better than we actually do. For example, one study found that managers with more experience were worse at evaluating how effective they were as leaders compared to those with less experience. And here's another curveball: people who spend a lot of time introspecting - thinking about their thoughts and feelings - are actually less self-aware and report lower job satisfaction and wellbeing. The problem isn't with introspection itself, but with the way most people go about it. This makes the journey to self-awareness a pretty exciting one. For instance, a study of over 3,600 leaders across different roles and industries found that higher-level leaders often think they're better at their jobs than others think they are. This was true for 19 out of the 20 skills measured. This suggests that self-awareness isn't just about understanding ourselves, but also about understanding how others see us, and adjusting our self-perception accordingly.
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03To reach your full potential, you need both emotional intelligence (heart) and cognitive intelligence (head). Both are needed for success in life
04Good leaders don't ignore or hide their emotions. They learn to manage them effectively, a skill known as emotional agility
05Self-reflection, though sometimes uncomfortable, is important for self-awareness. It helps you understand your actions and emotions better and identify areas for improvement
06Knowing how others see you is important for self-awareness. One way to do this is by asking others for feedback about your behavior
07If you need negative feedback to succeed but aren't getting it, ask for it. Make sure people feel safe giving you constructive criticism. The goal is to learn and grow, not to feel bad
08Conclusion
About Harvard Business Review (Marcus Buckingham, Robert S. Kaplan, Susan David)
Marcus Buckingham is a renowned author and speaker on strengths-based leadership. Robert S. Kaplan is a senior fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School. Susan David is a psychologist at Harvard Medical School and an expert on emotions, happiness, and achievement.
