The Importance Of Emotional Self-Awareness, Emotional Intelligence, And Communication Skills In The Workplace

The Role of Self-Awareness in Leadership

In order to motivating other employees and remaining self-motivated it is very important to own a strong “emotional self-awareness”.  Self-awareness is the process of understanding the self and identifying the gaps or skills that the self-carry. One of the top most criterion of leadership is to be self-aware first, which will give a clear direction to the leader about the path and goal that he or she desires to attain (Duval, Silvia & Lalwani, 2012). I perceive self-awareness as the traits which enables me to lead myself, being aware of what is happening around me, and managing my relationships effectively.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to be in control of one’s own emotional traits in various directions. Human being is a sentient being and he is emotionally aware about everything that is happening around him. Emotional Intelligence which is often also termed as Emotional Quotient, is the aptitude of an individual human being to discern his or her own emotional status and also of others (Sadri, 2012). The self-assessment tells me that my emotional intelligence is moderate, and it is improving by the day. I can well contemplate the emotional state of a person when I have a conversation with someone. In the case of self-assessment of my own emotional state, I sometimes get confused, or have problem in decision making due to emotional influence. However, I am working towards management of my own emotional intelligence, and hope to improve situations soon enough. My management study has taught me the art of being impartial and objective in decision making process. Emotional intelligence is important in management because it helps in comprehending the self and the others around in a correct way (Lam & O’Higgins, 2012)

Communications is one of the most important key skills required to be effective in the work place. There are various kinds of communications that run parallel, including lateral communication with the colleagues, downward communication with the subordinates and upward communication with the supervisors (Keyton et al. 2013). There may be certain hurdles to organizational communication including linguistics, and cultural barriers that needs to be overcome with the help of proper strategies in place. I have chosen the strategy of being unbiased towards people who do not share the same culture as of mine, and keeping an open mind towards any new aspects of culture that comes across. According to the assessment presently the deficiency that I have in my communication is the problem of communicating freely with my supervisors. However, the advantage that I have in my communication skill is the ability to freely and closely communicate and mix with my colleagues. This gives me a professional advantage because I can win confidence of the people who are related to me in the organizational context. Communication skills and self-awareness are two keys with which one can achieve success very quickly (Showry & Manasa, 2014). However, I have to work towards enhancing my skills of upward communication, which will enable me to gain promotions.

The insights that have been received from the online assessment will help me understand the shortcomings I have and the strengths that I have which will help me to move upwards in my career.  The shortcomings include my inability to communicate freely with certain people, and some of my biases towards cross cultural communication. The results that I have received will be shared with some of the very experienced communication strategists at my educational institute whose feedback will help me in developing my skills further and mitigate my shortcomings in an effective manner. Already I have received feedbacks from my friends and well-wishers who have appreciated my skills to communicate freely with my peer group and establish an emotional connect in a short period of time. However, they have given certain feedbacks which I have taken as notes to refer in the future and work on them.

Reference:

Duval, T. S., Silvia, P. J., & Lalwani, N. (2012). Self-awareness & causal attribution: A dual systems theory. Springer Science & Business Media.

Keyton, J., Caputo, J. M., Ford, E. A., Fu, R., Leibowitz, S. A., Liu, T., … & Wu, C. (2013). Investigating verbal workplace communication behaviors. The Journal of Business Communication (1973), 50(2), 152-169.

Lam, C. S., & O’Higgins, E. R. (2012). Enhancing employee outcomes: The interrelated influences of managers’ emotional intelligence and leadership style. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 33(2), 149-174.

Sadri, G. (2012). Emotional intelligence and leadership development. Public Personnel Management, 41(3), 535-548.

Showry, M., & Manasa, K. V. L. (2014). Self-awareness-key to effective leadership. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 8(1), 15.