UNIT III STUDY GUIDE Self-Awareness: Knowing What You do Not Know Course Learning Outcomes for Unit III Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to: 4. Analyze their personal values and motivations for leadership and develop a personal purpose statement. 4.1. Increase emotional intelligence and self-awareness. 4.2. Uncover blind spots through personal reflection. 4.3. Identify personal values and ethical boundaries. 8. Create a personal leadership development plan. 8.1. Integrate blind spots and a plan to monitor them into their personal leadership development plan. 8.2. Apply personal values and ethical boundaries throughout their personal leadership development plan. Reading Assignment Discover Your True North: Becoming an Authentic Leader: Chapter 4: Self-Awareness Chapter 5: Values The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Finding Your Authentic Leadership: Chapter 4: Develop Your Self-Awareness Chapter 5: Practice Your Values Unit Lesson Self-Awareness: Knowing What You do Not Know In this lesson, we are going to explore self-awareness and how much you really know about your core values and beliefs. You have probably figured out that Discover Your True North: Expanded and Updated Edition and the supplemental textbook, The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader, will guide you through this process, but you might still be wondering: How am I supposed to figure out what I do not know? That is a fair question and one that many students and leaders have asked over the years. As you consider the challenge of assessing yourself, you might wonder if you could possibly be accurate. If you were to ask others for feedback, what would you ask them? Can you trust them to be honest? Are you ready for them to be honest? We will look at solutions for each of those challenges and specific things you can do to learn more about your values and how they influence your personal leadership style. ORG 5000, Personal Leadership Development 1
Assessing Yourself UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader will provide you with multiple opportunities to reflect on who you are as a person and leader. (You will likely find the two are at least similar, if not identical.) Using those questions as a starting point, I encourage you to explore your own personal values by: Asking yourself reflective questions like, What are my values? and some of the other examples in the book. Consider why you chose the values you did. Which of your experiences or beliefs are they affiliated with? Note when and where in your life you see your values in action. Note when and where in your life your values are challenged. Ask others what they believe your values are. The exercises you will complete during this course will help you find a lot of these answers. Do not be surprised or alarmed if your answers evolve over time. The process of developing self-awareness is a growth process, so change is not only inevitable, it is the goal! Why Do You Think So? Once you have completed the exercises in The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader, you will have a succinct list of your core values. Whether you are reading this before or after you uncover your list of values, I encourage you to think about why you have the values you have. We are all shaped by our personal and professional experiences good and bad. You may have a strong work ethic because you saw your parents work hard. You might value honesty because you had a boss who often told half-truths that made you feel uncomfortable. You might even gravitate toward something because you have a natural gift like public speaking or working with numbers. We are constantly receiving feedback, having positive and negative experiences, and changing as a person because of it. Understanding as a person because of it. Understanding why you feel the way you do and making certain choices can help you make the most of your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses. Making the Most of Accepting Yourself For much of the history of professional development, leaders and followers alike have used the observations and feedback of others as well as personal reflections to focus on fixing what they determine is wrong. Tom Rath, in conjunction with authors Barry Conchie and Donald Clifton (as well as the Gallup Strengths Center), are just a few experts who have written about the opposite approach of making the most of who you are by focusing on what you are already doing well (Gallup, 2014). Identifying and taking advantage of what you do best is more than just a feel-good approach to leadership; it is a practical way to expel energy and manage your time. Consider a scenario in which a moderately talented leader of a team within a medium-sized organization is hoping to improve her leadership skills and overall effectiveness. She uncovers (through personal reflection and feedback) that one of her greatest strengths is her ability to clearly and succinctly communicate complicated ideas. She also realizes her most obvious area for improvement is in keeping track of details. If she is focused solely on fixing what is wrong with her leadership skill set, she might brainstorm professional development solutions for herself, like: taking a class on personal and professional organization; upgrading her note-taking software; setting aside 15 minutes at the same time every day to review the details of the projects she is managing to ensure she is maintaining the appropriate level of accuracy. ORG 5000, Personal Leadership Development 2
Over time and with a significant amount of time and energy, she might be able UNIT to bring x STUDY about significant GUIDE positive change in her life. She might also fail repeatedly because change especially Title if you are on your own is difficult. If she instead focused on how the strong communication skills she has can support the detail-oriented aspects of her job, she might develop an approach that looks more like this: For every project she manages, she assigns a project manager and designates that individual as the person responsible for collecting the details of the project and disseminating them to the appropriate people. Twice daily she meets with her administrative assistant to review her calendar and recent communications to discuss what information has been sent to team members and ensure all of the right people have all of the right content. Critics of the second approach might be quick to point out that capitalizing on the strengths you already have is essentially circumventing change and development, but supporters would likely refute those claims with two considerations: 1. She did learn and grow; she is managing her environment differently now. 2. Why does she need to develop a skill set she does not need? She clearly found a way to be successful using the talents she already has. No matter which approach you prefer because it is perfectly normal to support either or both approaches the important part of the process is to realize what needs to change to improve leadership effectiveness. Only when you understand where opportunities for improvement exist can you begin to move in the right direction. Values: What do You do When no one is Looking? We already briefly considered how you might identify your own values, but it is also important to take time to really understand how you live your values every day. You might discover the values you think you hold are slightly different than you imagined. What if you identify one of your core values as teamwork only to discover that your leadership style promotes an individualized approach to work? From this discovery, you might: Consider whether or not teamwork really is one of your values. Remember, there is no right or wrong set of values for you. This is about gaining an accurate understanding of yourself. Make adjustments to how your team is designed and how work is completed. Especially if something always felt off in your approach, this could be the adjustment you need to lead authentically. What is the value in clarifying your values? The entire process of using self as instrument requires you to have an honest understanding of yourself, not who you think you should be. Whether you clarify your values or adjust your leadership style to more closely align with the values you have expressed does not matter, as long as you take a step closer to living your values in your leadership role. Recovery It is unlikely you will be able to complete a self-assessment and consideration of your own values without finding yourself in a scenario similar to the one listed above. When you face the inevitable truth that you have been doing something or multiple things that do not support your values, it is important to accept that realization and make changes based on what you have learned. Many leaders share their journey with their team, peers, mentor, and leader. Others even invite them to complete the same or similar reflection exercises so they can discuss what they have all learned about themselves and support the change that will bring about alignment and help them live their values in the workplace. No matter how the leader has decided to approach the scenario, the key is to be open and honest about the changes that result. ORG 5000, Personal Leadership Development 3
Next Steps UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title Whether you are reading this material before or after you read the Discover Your True North: Expanded and Updated Edition chapters about knowing yourself and your values and completing the exercises in The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader, hopefully you see the benefits of first understanding who you are and what you believe. After all, how can you support the development of others if you are out of alignment with your true self? Reference Gallup. (2014). Strengths. Retrieved from http://strengths.gallup.com/default.aspx Suggested Reading Ashley, G., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2012, September). Self-awareness and the evolution of leaders: The need for a better measure of self-awareness. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management, 14(1), 2-17. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. New York, NY: Bantam Books. Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Stanley, D. (2008, July). Congruent leadership: Values in action. Journal of Nursing Management, 16(5), 519-524. Learning Activities (Non-Graded) Exercise #1 As you consider your Personal Leadership Development Plan, you will uncover underdeveloped areas in your professional skill set. This is normal and healthy! To achieve maximum results from your plan, it is important to truly understand each area you might be tempted to ignore or avoid. Complete Exercise 4.2: Peeling Back the Onion from The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader. Identify at least five areas in which you feel vulnerable and the aspects of your being you do not like to acknowledge. Email your answers to your instructor, and add then them to your Personal Leadership Development Plan. Exercise #2 In a work, personal, or educational environment, it is likely your ethical boundaries have been tested. In this exercise, you will explore: What happened? How did you feel? Were you aware of what was happening? Complete Exercise 5.3: Identifying Your Ethical Boundaries from The Discover Your True North Fieldbook: A Personal Guide to Becoming an Authentic Leader. 1. Consider the initial list of your ethical boundaries over the course of a few days. Pay close attention to the many interactions you have with people in person and online. As each day passes, finish the sentence prompt from the first part of the exercise: I will not ORG 5000, Personal Leadership Development 4
2. Complete the second portion of the exercise by considering a specific UNIT example x STUDY of a time GUIDE when your ethical boundaries were tested and how you responded. It is critical that Title you respond to these questions honestly, even if in hindsight you realize you responded in a way that was unethical by your own boundaries. 3. Share your response (or a summary of your response if that is more appropriate) with your instructor. Non-graded Learning Activities are provided to aid students in their course of study. You do not have to submit them. If you have questions, contact your instructor for further guidance and information. ORG 5000, Personal Leadership Development 5