Why Self-Awareness is Important for Female Professionals
Featuring contributions from members of the Women in CX online community and summarised by Harley Stabler.
Every month, members of the first global community designed especially for women united by our interest in advancing customer experience meet to discuss, dissect, and disentangle an issue faced by customer experience professionals.
These roundtable discussions seek to shed light on and offer solutions to some of the most pressing problems of the sector.
This blog summarises the forum where members discussed what exactly self-awareness is, why it is so important for female professionals, and what we can do to cultivate it!
What is self-awareness?
Although most people consider themselves to be self-aware, studies estimate that in fact only 10-15% are. Luckily, self-awareness is not a fixed trait; with time and energy, it can be cultivated!
As a key component of emotional intelligence, self-awareness requires that we look inwardly at ourselves, considering our emotions, aligning our actions with our values, and identifying correctly how we are perceived by those around us. Self-awareness requires us to understand why it is that we feel and behave in the ways that we do.
According to Eric Berne, author of Games People Play, our early existential choices – the ways we feel and behave – are informed by verbal and non-verbal messages. Although these messages enable us to adapt to circumstance and social situations, they can act as a ‘life-limiting script’ and as such must be challenged in order to exercise self-awareness.
Think of a time that you altered your own appearance or ‘toned down’ your personality in order to adhere to societal norms. As the ‘creators of our own scripts,’ the power is within us to recognise and to challenge external pressures and perceptions.
Recognising the importance of self-awareness and harnessing it as a tool for personal development, we’re able to bring about a sense of clarity regarding who we are and what we want. Without self-awareness, change is virtually impossible.
Why is self-awareness important for female professionals?
As highlighted within the forum discussion, the world is unequal.
When exhibiting the exact same behaviours, men and women are perceived differently: men are ‘assertive’, whereas women are ‘bossy’. Men are ‘passionate’… women on the other hand, we’re ‘emotional’. Yawn.
It’s an unfair and sad fact of life, but how can self-awareness help us to compensate for this inequality?
Members of the WiCX community highlighted several key benefits brought about by the cultivation of self-awareness:
You feel confident in your own ability.
The world doesn’t seem to appreciate strong, successful women. We’re expected to ‘be humble’, to take up less space, and even shrink ourselves to be perceived as palatable or less invasive, particularly within corporate settings.
Striving to become self-aware enables us to recognise and acknowledge our strengths (and weaknesses!), which can in turn make us feel more confident.
Self-awareness isn’t about focusing upon the negative – it can lead us to be entirely comfortable with who we are and encourage us to wave goodbye to the manufactured versions of ourselves that we present to the world.You’re better equipped to deal with feedback.
By being self-aware, we’re more open to constructive criticism and less likely to react to it based on the emotion alone.
Devised by Berne, the Ego State Model suggests that by being aware of our feelings, we can choose how to react in each situation. When occupying the ‘Child State’, we react based on raw emotion and as such, produce ‘basic behaviours’. In comparison, when occupying the ‘Adult State’, rooted in logic and rationale, we’re able to listen effectively to another’s viewpoint, consider new information, and evaluate our own behaviour.You’re able to recognise the impact that you have on others.
Self-awareness isn’t simply about one’s self; it is also hugely beneficial to those around us. When working in leadership roles or as part of a team, being familiar with our moods and emotions can help us to recognise how they affect others.
Internal and external self-awareness
Writing for the HBD, Tasha Eurich suggests that there are two broad categories of self-awareness:
Internal: how clearly we see and understand ourselves.
External: how clearly we understand how others view us.
An understanding of our own external self-awareness enables us to be empathetic and to take into account others’ perspectives.
We’re only human, and as such it isn’t uncommon for us to take our negative emotions into the workplace; however, it is important that we address these before we project them onto others!
The cultivation of self-awareness can enable us to evaluate and work upon our own traits and behaviours.
Personality types
By becoming aware of others’ personality types and preferred communication styles, we’re able to communicate in a way which will resonate.
Myers–Briggs Personality Types
Attempting to categorise a wealth of different personalities into a limited number of types, the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a self-administered questionnaire that employs four categories as a basis for identifying personality types:
Introversion vs extraversion
Sensing vs intuitive
Thinking vs feeling
Judging vs perceiving
As everyone is assumed to have a quality for each category, the MBTI generates 16 divergent personality types.
So, what’s our point?
As female professionals, owing to our own self-awareness, we’re better positioned to recognise and adapt our leadership style as required. It’s by consciously varying our approach that we’re able to increase our ability to communicate effectively with others (regardless of their personality type!).
How to enhance self-awareness
Recognising the importance of self-awareness for personal development, how can we become more self-aware?
Take a personality test.
Personal assessment tools such as 16 Personalities and DiSC® allow you not only to deepen your understanding of yourself but also of those around you.
Research suggests that when we see ourselves more clearly, we build stronger relationships and communicate more effectively.
For female professionals, understanding the dispositions and preferred working methods of our employees and colleagues can encourage a more fruitful (and pleasant!) working environment.
Identifying the dynamics at play within your team or organisation is vital for success.Encourage feedback from your peers.
Being open to feedback can help us to avoid instances of miscommunication and unnecessary unease in the workplace!
Members of the WiCX community recalled being perceived as ‘rigid’ or ‘difficult’ by peers due to a lack of healthy and honest communication. Sometimes we need to see ourselves through the eyes of another; doing so can illuminate personal blind spots!Create a mindfulness journal.
When practising self-awareness, it’s important that we distance ourselves from the situation, acknowledging and learning from negative emotions as they arise as opposed to reliving them.
A mindfulness journal can act as an outlet within which you can keep track of your thoughts and feelings, allowing you to take time to analyse these and to document in which situations negative emotions are triggered.
Summary
By understanding our own core values, personality traits, behaviours, and emotions, and recognising how all of these affect both our actions and the actions of others, we’re better equipped to manage stress, make informed decisions (based on logic and not emotion!), and ultimately inspire our employees and/or colleagues to do the same.
The cultivation of self-awareness is paramount for both personal development and effective leadership and communication within the workplace (and outside of it, for that matter!).
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Contributors
Thanks to WiCX community members Liz Berks, Lara Khouri, Adriana Salazar Hidalgo, Sangeetha Murthy, Katie Stabler, and Louise Wadsworth for contributing to this discussion.