leadership self-awareness

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Giving Your Employees a Voice - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Awareness, Team Building, and Giving Your Employees a Voice

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / , ,

Self-awareness can help you build a strong team building program and give your employees a voice. In our fast-paced workplaces, we tend to forget that everyone has valuable ideas and talents that they can share with the team.  When your employees don’t have a voice you may be missing out on vital ideas that could help you run your organization more smoothly and profitably. Self-aware leaders understand that everyone has their own areas of expertise that can help the organization function better.

Here are some practical ideas so you can give everyone voice.

  • Listen to your employees so you can learn from their wisdom and varied perspectives.
  • Stop talking. If you’re the only person talking then no one else is able to his or her voice.
  • Show people you value their voice. Invite participation and the exchange of ideas. Be open to comments and suggestions. Use people’s ideas and give them the opportunity to come up with more.
  • Create a culture of respect. All ideas are valid and nobody gets belittled because their idea seems unorthodox.
  • Encourage autonomy and personal leadership. Allow your employees to use their voices to do their jobs better and become leaders in their own niche.
  • Let people do things they enjoy. People are more likely to express their views and use their voices when they are doing work that is meaningful to them.
  • Encourage collaboration. Build teams where everyone’s voice is equally valid and each person’s input is highly valued.

How many of these ideas do you currently use in your workplace? If you use them all you will create a workplace where your employees feel like valuable members of your team. What will you do to practice self-awareness and give your employees a voice?

Cheers,

Guy

Self-Aware Organizations Benefit from Diversity - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Self-Aware Organizations Benefit from Diversity

/ / Self-Awareness in Leadership / ,

Leaders frequently ask me why they should pay attention to diversity at all in their organization. The answer is simply so they can bring people together to get more done. While this might sound obvious on the surface, it’s a principle that’s frequently overlooked by leaders who lack the self-awareness necessary to realize that their organization would benefit from people getting along well.

The whole point of making sure everyone is included in idea development, decision making, and workplace operations is so that your entire organization can benefit from the varied talents and abilities your employees bring to the table. It’s counterproductive when leaders lack self-awareness and pretend diversity doesn’t exist when they could be using it to succeed at higher levels. Here are some of the benefits of diversity:

  • Reduced conflict.
  • Improved morale.
  • Stronger teams.
  • Less mistrust.
  • Greater collaboration.
  • More buy-in from employees.
  • Increased employee motivation.

These are outcomes that leaders say they aspire to in their organizations but somehow, when they are associated with diversity, they get nervous. There’s really no reason to be apprehensive, it’s actually an opportunity to invite everyone to the table and prosper from their input. You and your organization will benefit in many ways. How will you increase your self-awareness and welcome diversity into your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

10 Practical Team Building Tips for Self-Aware Leaders - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

10 Practical Team Building Tips for Self-Aware Leaders

/ / Self-Awareness Comes From, Self-Awareness in Leadership / , ,

Many leaders and organizations try to implement team building in one or two sessions only to find that their employees quickly revert to old behaviors. It takes self-awareness, time, and commitment for team building to take root and grow in any organization. It’s nearly impossible to move away from the behaviors you’ve built up over time and replace them with new, more effective ones without sustained effort. Here are ten practical tips to help you demonstrate and model self-awareness as a leader and implement a successful team building program.

  1. Make sure leadership is fully involved and sets a positive tone.
  2. Team building is offered to employees at every level.
  3. A one-hour time block per week is set aside for team building activities.
  4. Refrain from changing the team building schedule or combining it with other meetings.
  5. No interruptions during sessions, including people using phones, texting or being called out of the activities.
  6. Leave egos and agendas at the door, everyone is treated equally.
  7. Use an experienced, positive and neutral facilitator for activities.
  8. Focus on activities that build deeper interactions and relationships.
  9. Practice new behaviors over time.
  10. Evaluate how you’re doing after six months and make adjustments if necessary.

The key to successful team building is to have the self-awareness to model behavior and participate in activities that bring people together on a deeper level and help them acquire skills to keep moving forward. Practice team building over time so that everyone gets used to doing it. Once people are comfortable with your new approach, it will become second nature and your workplace will shift to one where collaboration and shared purpose are the norm. How will you practice self-awareness and promote long-term team building in your organization?

Cheers,

Guy

Conflict Resolution Requires Self-Awareness - On Developing Self-Awareness and Being Self-Aware

Conflict Resolution Requires Self-Awareness

/ / Self-Awareness Comes From, Self-Awareness in Leadership / ,

I recently facilitated a workshop on conflict resolution and I found it fascinating that almost no one possessed the self-awareness to understand their own role in conflict. I heard many comments about how the other person would be so much easier to get along with if they only did this or that but very little about what each participant would do himself or herself to improve the situation.

Conflict can be a horrible mess or it can be an opportunity for growth and increased understanding. The challenge for many people is that it requires putting their own issues aside in order to connect with someone else, which requires a high level of self-awareness. So how can you become more self-aware and resolve conflicts more easily? Try thinking of the following ideas the next time you feel a conflict coming on.

1. Be aware of your personal triggers. What sets you off?

2. Remember that you decide how you react to situations.

3. Only you can let someone make you mad.

4. Understand it’s not personal, people aren’t trying to slight you in general.

5. Learn to recognize exactly when someone is getting to you.

5. Where do you feel it? Identify where you feel the conflict in your body.

6. Do something different to interrupt the pattern.

If you deliberately give some thought to these areas you will find that you can increase your self-awareness, reduce the way conflict affects you, and move toward more positive interactions. It takes some discipline but it also affords you a way to not let conflict consume your life.

What will you do to develop your self-awareness and decrease the conflict around you?

Cheers,

Guy

The Self-Awareness Guy