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Chapter #3 Self-Awareness Maysa Jahmani

Lecture # (2)
Personal SWOT and different roles adopted in
life
SWOT
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
A SWOT analysis on oneself is an objective and a sharp look inwards. Once you
honestly prepare a list of your strengths and weaknesses and identify potential
opportunities and obstacles in your life, you can make informed decisions. These
decisions help in creating the best impression and creation of your Personal Brand.

Ways to do a Personal SWOT:

l. Take a strategic and proactive approach to your accomplishments.
2. Identify your ideal state of mind. (your mood and its effects on your thinking and behavior)
3. What are the core competencies and characteristics that you want people to
associate with you?
4. What part of your personality would you like to highlight and what part would
you like to minimize?
5. Assess your current image, social-economic background and immediate
environment.
6. View the environment around you from a micro and macro perspective. In other
words, things which immediately affect you and things which can have an effect –
both positive or negative in a few years.
7. How equipped are you to handle those potential situations: economically,
financially, education-wise and exposure-wise? How do others currently perceive
you?
8. Conduct a cost-benefit analysis for your self-image change. For example, if you
had to change yourself from being a very casual and free-spirited person to a very
conservative and traditional person, is it worth it? Is the time, money and effort
justified?
9. Do you care about others’ perceptions of you?
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10. Are you capable of changing your image? Are the benefits worth the
Physiological, psychological, emotional and financial costs?

SWOT Analysis Examples

Strengths
Work experience
Education
Technical Expertise
Personal characteristics
Good networking contacts
Associations, Business groups
Opportunities
Positive Trends in your field
Enhancing Education
Fields in Need of your skills
Geography –ability to move
Utilizing Skills in Different ways
Enhancing Personal Development
Weaknesses
Lack of Work Experience
Limited Education, Wrong Major
Limited Technical Knowledge
Lack of Job Knowledge
Weak Interpersonal Skills
Negative Personal characteristics
Threats
Negative Trends in Your Field
Competition in Your Field
Training& Education Obstacles
Limited Advancement in Field
Limited Ability to Develop
Limited Positions in Your Area

Strengths Weaknesses
Knowledge of tour Lack of marketing
locations to corporate
Proven ability customers

International No research on
resources customer needs

Opportunities Threats
Business market Web-based
more stable than business services
consumer market
In-house travel
Can negotiate departments
better terms with
suppliers
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Self-awareness doesn’t develop all at once. The process begins in childhood,

as kids start being able to recognize and name their emotions, strengths and
challenges, and likes and dislikes. And it keeps developing over time.

Role in the Workplace and Leadership

Self-awareness improves our communication, confidence, and thus our job
performance (Sutton et al., 2015). It’s easy to see how self-awareness can lead to
these outcomes in the workplace, as better self-evaluation naturally leads to
improving the alignment (consistency) between our actions and our standards,
resulting in better performance. Good managers and leaders need both types of
self-awareness (Internal & External) to perform well in their roles.

Although you might think that more experience as a leader and greater power
in one’s role lead to better self-awareness, that may not be the case. Experience can
be positive or negative in terms of learning and improving the self. Even positive
experiences can lead one to attribute success to oneself when it may have had
more to do with the circumstances, leading to false confidence.

(The underlined sentence) Sometimes success may be achieved under circumstances that do not
always exist.

In fact, only 10–15% of those in Eurich’s (2018) study displayed self-awareness,

although most of us believe we are self-aware. To improve self-awareness, Eurich
(2018) recommends introspection, but with a focus on asking oneself the right
questions. She notes that asking “why” might not always be effective, as many of
our internal processes remain shrouded in our subconscious or unconscious minds;
instead, asking “what” may lead to better introspection.

For example, instead of asking, “Why do I fail at this task so often?” you might ask
yourself, “What are the circumstances in which I fail at this task, and what can I
do to change them?” It’s not a foolproof method (incapable of going wrong or being
misused), but it can aid you in improving your self-awareness and increasing your
alignment with your standards on certain activities.

Introspection: an examination of one's own thoughts and feelings.

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Self-Awareness in Students and Children

Self-awareness isn’t just for managers and employees; it can also
substantially benefit students, children, and adolescents. The same benefits that
make us more productive in the workplace can make students more productive in
the classroom and at home: better communication with teachers and peers, more
confidence, and more satisfaction with performance can all lead to happier,
healthier students.

These benefits also apply to advanced students. Increased self-awareness

leads to more self-care in medical students (Saunders et al., 2007) and a better
understanding of one’s strengths and capabilities along with a boost to emotional
intelligence in law students (James, 2011).

Case in Point: Radhika is the daughter of a self-made wealthy businessman with

deep connections. Her father forced her to study Commerce. He wanted her to be a
CA, something he never could. She graduated and after her B. Com (A Bachelor of
Commerce) her father got her a job as an Articles clerk at a Big Four accounting
firm. In her vacations, prior to her joining, Radhika did a lot of soul searching and
realized that accounting is not to her interest. She just couldn’t imagine a future
working with figures, finances and numbers. Instead, she found herself interested
in at Art. She spent the vacation going to art galleries and studying the works of the
Masters. She explored Post Graduation programs in Design and finalized one. She
revealed her plans to her parents who were very angry and disappointed! They did
everything they could to force her to change her mind but she stood firm in her
belief. She went on to study Art and Design and today she is the leading Art
Historian in her field.

A Chartered Accountant (CA) is a person who specializes in auditing, taxation and

accounting.

"Big Four" is the nickname used to refer to the four largest accounting firms in the
United States, as measured by revenue.
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References
Butterfield, J.(2010)Problem-Solving and Decision Making - Soft Skills for a
Digital Workplace (Illustrated Course Guides) ,Course Technology, Cengage
Learning, US

Sharma, P.(2018)Soft Skills-Personality Development For Life Success , BPB

Publications, INDIA

Eurich, T. (2018, January 4). What self-awareness really is (and how to cultivate
it). Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-
awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it

Goleman, D. (2001). Emotional intelligence: Issues in paradigm building. In C.

Cherniss & D. Goleman (Eds.) The emotionally intelligent workplace. Jossey-Bass.