Beyond self-awareness shadows

Marie Gervais, PhD., CEO Shift Management Inc. https://shiftworkplace.com

Is my self-awareness real because I say so?

I am always wary when someone tells me, “I’m quite self-aware.” It is the same way I react when I hear a speaker say, “I’ll be brief.” If someone feels compelled to make either of those statements, I’m not sure they are engaged in the process. It’s like taking selfies at a concert instead of enjoying the concert. They are two different processes. When you are in the experience of “being” self-aware, you are too immersed in it to proclaim your state of awareness. If you are truly focused on being brief, you don’t feel the need to announce it, it just happens. If you are loving a concert, it doesn’t occur to you to try to make friends jealous by posting a selfie.

Research about effective management always has self-awareness as an important leadership quality. But how to you learn to be truly self-aware? Beyond your own ego?

Do personality types and archetypes increase self-awareness?

You could start with a personality type or archetype label. For example, people might ask “What’s your MBTI profile?” or “What’s your color type?” and compare theirs to yours. Dr. Tasha Eurich (2018) suggests that self awareness is divided into internal and external awareness categories. She proposes that we need the ability to pay attention to internal prompts about how we see ourselves, as well as external prompts about how others see us, to be truly “self aware”. Here is her archetype diagram to show her thinking about self-awareness: ?

Although I see the value in this archetype and use assessments with students in my own managerial training, they have limitations. The difficulty with any archetype or personality type description, is that as soon as I identify with a particular label, it is easy to fall into the “that’s just the way I am” thinking trap. Which doesn’t lead to more self-awareness because it is static and rigid.

Awareness, identity and perception of reality

My take is that one grows in self awareness as the ability to release inner triggers becomes conscious. If I am unaware that my habit of seeking to please others comes from my past experiences, I won’t know that it is affecting my ability to see myself, my behaviour or a situation accurately. I will link my identity to “being” a people pleaser and my perceptions of others as taking advantage of that. ?I will find that my predictions about how other people behave are reinforced by the actions I take under the influence of that limited perception.

Categories are helpful for initial learning, since all beginning learning is rigid and tends to fall into understandable categories. Remember how you learned to write? You started with tracing the alphabet and gradually moved into more sophisticated ways of using writing and language. The danger is not in the category itself, rather in sticking with a limited projection of who we are. It is like Socrates’ allegory of the prisoners and the cave . ?

That famous cave story

Here is the story line in brief: Three prisoners in a cave seeing shadows projected on the wall believe them to be real. But when one prisoner is freed, moves out of the cave, and experiences a world under the sun, he is transformed. Even so, he has difficulty convincing the other prisoners about what he saw and they believe the only reality is that of the shadows they know. So they get mad and try to stop him from talking. But even if all three prisoners realized that the images on the cave were only shadows, they would not be able to act any differently.

I may realize I fit the pleaser archetype but how do I move past the imagined shadows between myself, the world, and other people?

Self-awareness is scary

Since Socrates was executed for destroying social order with his allegory of the cave, it is not hard to see that the idea of self-awareness is a scary thing for most people. Self-awareness is intimately connected to reading the reality of the world instead of projecting our reality onto it. What if…I find out that I am as incompetent as I fear? What if I find out that I am not always a “good” person? What if the world as I know it is not what I thought and (gasp) I will have been wrong all this time?!! Better to stay in the land of the shadows, continue to believe I am right and shout down anything shedding light on my shadow. Isn’t it safer to label ourselves and others as the “devils we know”?

Wait, what about...awe?

Consider this: maybe, with the right tools, knowing more about myself leads me to see my true abilities. Maybe I find that I have so much untapped talent and capacity and that I am filled with an experience awe and gratitude. Maybe that glimpse of myself in its highest form allows me to be compassionate and forgiving of my mistakes, and to show the same mercy to others. Maybe self and other awareness are linked to the compassion so missing in the world today.

Sounds great you might say, but how does this happen, and where do we start?

3 getting started practices

The good news is that there are ways to begin increasing self awareness that aren’t scary. You can start using them right now. ?

They are:

1.????? Notice my emotions, and name my feelings as they occur throughout the day.

2.????? Accept these feelings as part of our shared humanity, necessary and helpful to perception and growth.

3.????? Get curious about how others are experiencing life without judging them and become interested in them.

That’s the starting point. Practicing these three states has a dual benefit. It allows me to notice individual aspects of my reaction and through renewed curiosity move to increased understanding of self and others. From what I have seen in managerial training so far, this experiential self-awareness appears to be missing. There are charts, graphs and checklists galore. There are case studies and promising practices. But since the experience of the “real me” is missing from the mix, it is easy to think I know what to do without any observable change of practice. ?

Although models, theories and assessments can help me face aspects of myself I may have been reluctant to see, the experience of developing awareness of my higher self, and then moving to acknowledge that in others, is a total game changer. Behaviours that don’t serve me or others begin to fall away and are replaced with ability to transform resistance, engage others safely, and ask useful diagnostic questions. This brings collective wisdom to systems changes people are willing to work on because they feel acknowledged and seen. Impossible you say?

You won’t know until you try. I invite you to dip your toe in the water of experiential learning. Find out for yourself how the most effective road to good management starts with you, then, as your awareness increases, expands to others.

In my Project Manager Effectiveness two-day training you will experience the joy of:

1.????? Learning simple techniques to engage inner and outer self awareness

2.????? Building engagement through effective one on one conversations

3.????? Understanding resistance and commitment in team dynamics

4.????? Diagnosing a systems management issue you face with reality-reading tools

Here is what two participants had to say about the two day training:

?“I wish I would have had this training when I first started five years ago, it would have saved me from a lot of unnecessary frustration.”

-Mohammed I.

“Best 10 hours!? So many helpful tools you provided in this training. I am using them every day now.? Life is better.”

-Darlene S.

I invite you to join this journey of self discovery and see for yourself how much more enjoyable your management experience can be!

About the author:

?Marie Gervais, PhD, CEO, Shift Management specializes in helping employers train their supervisors to lead, get their workplace learning online and interactive, and coach for emotionally regulated performance. She has a background in integrating and managing the diverse workforce and in creating culturally responsive curriculum courses and programs for industry. Marie’s book, “The Spirit of Work: Timeline Wisdom, Current Realities” to understand the deeper processes behind workplace issues and find inroads into creating healthy and vibrant organizations is available on Amazon and other online book stores.