Chapter 2 Notes – Learning About Yourself
Definitions
Personality: set of unseen characteristics and thought processes that underlie a relatively stable
pattern of behavioral response to people, ideas, and circumstances
Myers-Briggs (MBTI): measures differences among individuals in their psychological
preferences for how they interact with others and perceive the world
End Values or Terminal Values: the kind of goals or outcomes worth pursuing
Instrumental Values: types of behavior that are appropriate for reaching end goals
Value-based management: Management that provides a shared foundation of ethical values
and beliefs that guide individual behavior and organizational actions
Unconscious Competence: becoming so practiced at doing something well that it occurs
correctly without thinking, without special effort
- Well-developed defenses will distort reality to protect us from truths that may hurt.
- Most perceptual distortions are in our favor!
- Our defenses act like a psychological immune system that defends the mind against
unhappiness in the same way the physical immune system defends the body against
illness!
Discover Knowledge
Is difficult to see your own characteristics objectively
Systematic self-inquiry helps individuals discover productive and nonproductive patters
and preferences.
Many of us would be surprised to find out what others honestly think about us.
Internal Aspects of One’s Nature
Personality traits
Beliefs
Emotions
Values
Strengths and limitations
Appreciating how your patterns affect other people
** Self-Awareness is essential to being an effective manager**
Achieving Self-Awareness: by recognizing your needs, traits, patterns, preferences and
limitations
Importance of Self-Awareness
A primary characteristic of effective leaders is that they know who they are and what
they stand for.
When managers deeply understand themselves, they remain grounded and constant.
People know what to expect from them.
Knowing who we are and striving to better understand ourselves maximizes our
management skills.
How to Expand/Enhance your Self-Awareness
1. Soliciting Feedback
o Seeking feedback can improve performance and job satisfaction
2. Self-Diagnosis
o Self-Inquiry and reflection honestly; plus, examining yourself objectively
3. Self-Disclosure
o Sharing your fears, thoughts, emotions and concepts with others
Johari Window
Key Individual Differences
The Big Five Model of Personality
- These factors represent a continuum.
- A person may have a low, moderate or high degree of each quality.
- Personality is only one influence on a manager’s performance, and may other factors
play a part in determining job success.
- However, some characteristics appear more important for certain types of jobs.
- A high degree of conscientiousness seems to be the one dimension of the Big 5 that is
important for success in all types of jobs and careers. Traits of agreeableness are
increasingly important for people in today’s collaborative organization.
Thinking Styles and the Whole Brain
History of the concept:
1960’s and 1970’s: left brain and right brain
Left Brain: logical, analytical thinking and a linear approach to problem-solving
Right Brain: creative, intuitive, values-based thought processes
The Whole Brain Model
Psychologist Carol Jung noted that people’s thinking and behaviour reflects a relatively stable
pattern based on:
How they prefer to go about gathering and evaluating
Relating to people
Interacting with the world
Four pairs of Attributes Based on Jung’s Concepts
i) Introversion versus extraversion
a. This dimension focuses on where people gain interpersonal strength and mental
energy
i. Extraverts are motivated by the outside world, tend to speak or act first
and think later
ii. Introverts gain energy by being away from people to focus on personal
thoughts and feelings, motivated internally and tend to think first, then
act
ii) Sensing versus intuition
a. This identifies how a person absorbs information
i. Sensing gathers and absorbs information through the five senses, focus
on facts, details and critical analyses for their information
ii. Intuitive rely on less direct perceptions, look for more patterns
relationships and hunches
iii) Thinking versus feeling
a. This dimension relates to how a person makes a decision; especially whether
emotions play a role
i. Feeling tend to rely more on their values and sense of what is right and
wrong and they consider how a decision will affect other people’s feelings
ii. Thinking tend to rely more on logic as they try to be rational, objective,
and interpersonal in decision making
iv) Judging versus perceiving
a. Concerns an individuals attitudes toward ambiguity and how quickly a person
makes a decision
i. Judging likes certainty and closure, enjoy focusing on goals and deadlines
and tend to make decision quickly based on available data to meet
deadlines
ii. Perceiving enjoy ambiguity and multitasking, will likely miss deadlines,
and may change their minds several times before making a final decision,
like to gather a large amount of data before reaching a decision
Four Fundamental Values for Ethical Management
i) Honesty
ii) Accountability
iii) Trust
iv) Caring
4 Step Process to Use Self Awareness to Build Management Skills
Stage 1: Unconsciously Incompetent - No Competence with the skill, and no awareness
that you lack competence
Stage 2: Consciously Incompetent - Become conscious of what’s required to do well; but,
are still personally incompetent.
Stage 3 Consciously Competent - The practice becomes a real pleasure. You receive
positive feedback from your skill and are aware of how well you are doing which sets up
transition to stage 4
Stage 4: Unconsciously Competent - The skill becomes an integral part of who you are.
It occurs naturally and without conscious thought or effort
