8 steps to self-discovery: How to become the manager your team deserves

"Finding yourself" and self-discovery is often associated with adolescence and puberty, but in reality it is a lifelong process. New experiences and life roles shuffle the value ladder, influencing our attitudes and behaviour. But self-discovery is a journey that's definitely worth embarking on - especially if you're in a management position and your decisions, behaviours and reactions affect how your team functions.

Self-knowledge and self-awareness: Tools for effective people management

As a manager, you need your team to be motivated, communicate well, work efficiently and generally run like clockwork. But to effectively manage others, you first need to be able to manage yourself. And if you want to manage something, you need to read the manual first, that goes without saying.

Self-knowledge vs. self-awareness

Self-knowledge is the process of gaining a deeper understanding of your own thoughts, processes, feelings and behaviors. It enables you to realistically assess your own strengths, weaknesses, values and the way you influence those around you. It enables you to navigate through life more easily, contributing to personal growth and self-esteem.

Self-awareness is the ability to observe oneself as an entity separate from others and the environment in which one finds oneself. 

Organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich defines two types of self-awareness:

  • Internal self-awareness, which she links to values, aspirations, reactions, emotions, and influence on others. Internal self-awareness is then correlated with higher job and relationship satisfaction and overall happiness, and lower levels of anxiety, stress and depression.
  • External self-awareness, which links to understanding how other people perceive us in terms of the same factors (values, aspirations, etc.). Her research then shows that people who are aware of how others see them are more able to show empathy and accept others' perspectives.

Research by Tasha Eurich has shown that only 10 to 15% of people have true self-awareness.

Self-awareness is therefore a precious value that needs to be cultivated - leaders in particular should work on both types of self-awareness. You may be surprised to learn that a high level of inner self-awareness does not necessarily mean a high level of external self-awareness (and vice versa)

You need to actively work on not only seeing yourself clearly, but at the same time getting feedback to understand how others see you. It may be an uncomfortable process, but it will clearly make you stronger and demonstrably help you be a better leader. But where do you start?

Experience and power as obstacles

You may have a great education and academic recognition, but if you fail to influence and persuade others, you won't get far in your professional life. Being too convinced of your own truth can come across as arrogance and limit your cooperation with others - even though "your" truth may indeed be the objectively correct one. It is important to remember that interactions with other people and how those interactions are perceived by others are the keys to success in life and business. 

Experience and power can be barriers to self-awareness and the process of self-discovery - they can lead to overconfidence in one's own abilities and a lack of receptivity to feedback.

Lack of self-awareness can manifest as:

  • passive-aggressive reactions
  • defensiveness
  • aggressive reactions to criticism
  • making excuses and blaming others
  • a constant need to defend oneself
  • exaggeration

Techniques for better self-awareness

The modern business environment is characterized by constant growth and innovation. And just as each of your companies keeps up with the competition, streamlines processes, innovates and improves, so too must management. You can look at self-awareness and working on self-awareness as an innovative tool to make your management more effective - a manager who knows themselves well adapts better to new challenges, inspires those around them and becomes an authentic leader.

We can pursue our own self-knowledge only through two basic tools: mindfulness and attention. Mindfulness helps us to obtain information from the inner and outer world, and attention allows us to select among various stimuli and information the important ones.

1. Mindfulness and meditation: work on mindfulness and attention

A regular walk where you focus on your body and breath, a ten-minute guided meditation between meetings, breathwork or mindful eating - there are many practices in this category, so you can easily choose one that suits your needs. The aim is to quieten the mind, observe without evaluation (of events, thoughts, your body) and develop being in the present, grounded and relaxed. 

2. Explore physical reactions

When you start working on mindfulness and attention, you can focus it on your physical body. Physical reactions to the world around you can give you invaluable information about your inner life. Everyone perceives strong emotions in a different part of the body, but when you start paying attention to them, they become a reliable indicator of how you really feel about a situation or person - all you have to do is stop and ask yourself a few questions:

  • What exactly am I feeling in my body right now?
  • What happened just before my reaction?
  • Does this situation remind me of anything from the past?

3. Keep a diary 

Journaling is on almost every list of psychological techniques. So give it a chance - there really is something to keeping a diary, I guess! It helps you sort out your thoughts, express what you're feeling without prejudice, and process even challenging thoughts and experiences. You can approach journaling in whatever way suits you, there is no prescribed way. You are free to write down whatever comes to mind, write a summary of the day, write down emotions and situations you have experienced. (The journal will also come in handy for other techniques - defining life values, discovering triggers and your inner voice.)

As you write your journal, spend a few minutes on the following topics:

  • What kind of people energize me? In whose presence do I feel most myself?
  • In what activities do I feel like the best version of myself?
  • What people drain me? What interactions make me feel uncomfortable?
  • What am I grateful for in my life/today/this month/this year?
  • What is really important to me in my life?

4. Clarify your values and priorities

Understanding the roots of your behaviour and actions requires knowing your personal values. If you realise that your decisions are not in line with your values, this may be a sign of a lack of self-awareness. Which values do you live by and from which do you sometimes deviate? 

5. Identify your triggers

Checking and naming emotions and patterns goes hand in hand with self-awareness. We all have triggers for uncontrolled emotional reactions. And the goal is to recognize these triggers and become aware of the emotional reaction. By practicing mindfulness and attention, you gain perspective on similar situations - perhaps you recognize the physical reaction that precedes an angry outburst, manage to become aware of it, and take a few deep breaths. Then you can prevent or stop the reaction, or at least control it. 

It helps a lot in a particular situation to name your emotion - by naming it and saying it, it seems to lose its power - try it:

  • If someone interrupts you several times in a row, do you start to see red? Instead of shouting, name your emotion: "It makes me angry when you jump in my speech. It makes me feel like you don't respect me and don't care what I say." 
  • You and your colleague agreed on something this morning, but he didn't follow through. And when you remind him, he doesn't remember anything. Before you get angry, tell him how you feel: "It frustrates me that I can't rely on when we agree on something. From now on, I'll need you to confirm work arrangements by email."

6. Know your inner voice. And teach it to say what you need it to say.

How do you speak to yourself? In what tone? And what does it say in specific situations? Are you more of an inner encourager or more of a critic?

First, just observe your inner voice. If you get something right. When you don't get something right. When you're facing a challenging situation. Write down what it says in specific situations. You may find that when you're nervous, you start to convince yourself of your successes and strike an arrogant tone. Or you may find that before you start talking in front of people, the voice of your elementary school teacher who always humiliated you in front of the class starts up in your head and your knees buckle. 

The first step is paying attention to your inner voice and thoughts. Then you can identify unwanted patterns and begin working on eliminating them or replacing them with new ones.

7. Listen actively

In a conversation, do you often find that while the other person is talking, you are just waiting for them to finish so that you can say what you have already prepared in your head - and say it independently of what the first person is actually saying? But then it's no longer a conversation, is it?

The basic idea of active listening is that when the other person is talking, you remain silent and listen with the intention of understanding. Active listening is a great technique for self-discovery and building authentic relationships in the workplace and beyond because it first focuses on understanding what the other person is coming from. And you can then respond with greater empathy and understanding.

8. Ask for a feedback

Nothing beats the power of seeing yourself through the eyes of others. Feedback from colleagues, subordinates, a mentor or coach will give you insight into how you are perceived by those around you. External self-awareness refers to how others see you and react to you. Assumptions are not enough. You don't know what other people think until you ask them.

Tip: Getting honest feedback can be difficult from a leadership position. So it's worth trying engaging in 360-degree feedback with colleagues, using psychological profiling or working with an external coach.  

For example, you might ask:

  • What is my greatest strength?
  • What could I improve?
  • Am I someone you would turn to for advice or comfort?
  • What do you think my values are in relationships and at work?
  • Do I have strengths in one context that may be a weakness in another context (and vice versa)?

Remember: The key to making feedback productive is to try to avoid defensiveness. Actively listen to what they are saying and try to assimilate the new information. Don't immediately try to defend or evaluate. Listen, thank them, and then analyse with distance and calm.

If those around you perceive you the same way you think you stand out, great! But is there a gap between how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you? Do you feel that you are friendly, but your employees perceive you as unapproachable or arrogant? Then here comes the big work - consciously adjusting your behaviour and communication. 

Solid support for you and your team

Working on ourselves is an internal matter for each of us. But that doesn't mean we have to do it alone. As you uncover your own patterns of behaviour and thinking, you may come across situations from the past that you can't handle. You are not sure how to change how you interact with others. You need to talk to someone unbiased. Or maybe you just need advice on how to tame your thoughts during meditation.

In our online mental health care programme, you'll find daily support for yourself and your team - corporate mental health care has long been a taboo subject, and our experienced trainers and therapists can help you maintain mental wellbeing throughout your organisation - through prevention and quick psychological help in times of crisis.

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