Self-Awareness in Management & Leadership

Naomi's Story

Here are two roleplays based on real situations that I had last year working in the publishing industry. They are experiences of low communication, bad leader/manager situation and low organisational common values.
It was not a constructive situation and I was criticised on many things that I pride myself on such as my professionalism and commitment. The situation last year made me more aware of particular types of personalities. By doing the Holland analysis it became clearer why some personalities do not work well together. The situation was further compounded by the fact I had to live and work with these personalities.
It is important to acknowledge Drucker’s input about values. I believe that in my last job my values were not in line with the values of the organisation or people I was working with. Thus, success was to be difficult to achieve in that position.
The situation made me question myself and how I was contributing to the situation and perhaps the focus was too much on myself and not enough on the other party. Through exploring Eysenck, England, Holland and Drucker, I have become more self-aware and more interested in what is going on for the other person.
Communication is the best way to come to an understanding or agreement and to find what England calls a win-win situation. At the same time I would like to introduce Stephen Covey’s concept of ‘no deal’. Sometimes there are situations where a ‘no deal’ is better and each party must walk away from the situation. This is the situation I found myself in last year where the company and I reached ‘no deal’.
The short videos explore communication of body language, voice tones and ways to turn communication and feedback into positive experiences. Feedback is something that is not easy to hear.  But if it is done in a way that is constructive, it can be very positive and aid for growth. The first roleplay includes a two-column case study using the theories of Action Science by Argyris. These are interesting to understand what people are doing in order to understand the why. We often jump to our own conclusions without firstly understanding what is going on behind the situation.
The most interesting for me about doing this subject was how these methods either brought out parts of me that existed or helped to work on parts that I needed to improve. Enjoy!