UNIT-1

1. Core competency
Core competencies are the resources and capabilities that comprise the strategic advantages of
a business. A modern management theory argues that a business must define, cultivate, and
exploit its core competencies in order to succeed against the competition.
A variation of the principle that has emerged in recent years recommends that job seekers focus
on their personal core competencies in order to stand out from the crowd. These positive
characteristics may be developed and listed on a resume. Some personal core competencies include
analytical abilities, creating thinking, and problem resolution skills.

2. Understanding of self
Self is a subfield of psychology. As the name implies, it deals with topics pertaining to both self
and identity. Key areas of investigation include self-concept, self-esteem, and self-control.

What distinguishes self and identity as a discipline is its scientific character. Emphasis is placed
on the empirical testing of systematic theories about relevant phenomena. Hence, its
methodological approach differs from both philosophy and sociology.

Self and Identity incorporates elements from different areas of psychology. However, it owes
particularly large debt to personality psychology and social psychology.

3. Components of self
Self-concept, the individual’s perception of self, affects relationships, functional abilities, and
health. Self-concept (1) is unique to the individual; (2) can be positive or negative; (3) has
emotional, intellectual, and functional dimensions; (4) changes with the environmental context;
(5) changes over time; and (6) has a powerful influence on one’s life.

The components of self-concept are identity, body image, self-esteem, and role performance.
Personal identity is the sense of what sets a person apart from others. It may include the person’s
name, gender, ethnicity, family status, occupation, and roles. Personal identity develops during
childhood from self-reflection and feedback from others. Erikson’s psychosocial theory stresses
the importance of the family, peer group, and community in forming the personal identity.
Body image, the attitude about one’s physical attributes and characteristics, appearance, and
performance changes as the body changes over time. The way one perceives the body is affected
by personal identity and self-esteem. Self-esteem is the judgment of personal performance
compared with the self-ideal. The self-ideal is based on personal standards and self-expectations.
Self-esteem is most threatened during adolescence. Self-esteem is associated with locus of control.
People with an internal locus of control perceive that they affect their own destiny, as opposed to
people with an external locus of control, who perceive that others affect their destiny.

Role is a set of expected behaviors that are determined by familial, cultural, and social norms.
People express their self-identity through their roles. Some people take on a “sick role,” a set of
social expectations met by an ill person, such as being exempt from role responsibilities, being
obligated to get well, and seeking help.

Self-concept develops throughout life. An infant whose needs are met develops a positive self-
concept and develops a sense of self distinct from the primary caregiver. Toddlers develop a sense
of autonomy and self-image and are self-centered. Positive and negative self-concept develop
based on feedback from significant others. Adolescents are quite interested in appearances and
social status. They cannot separate their body image from their self-concept and are usually self-
critical. Adults gradually adapt to the changes in self-image resulting from physical changes and
health challenges, at the same time developing and introducing new roles. The factors affecting
self-concept are altered health status from the loss or disruption of a body part; developmental
processes, such as pregnancy or menopause; and experience, such as frequently failing.

3.1. Self Identity

Self-identity refers to a person’s self-conception, self-referent cognitions, or self-definition that

people apply to themselves as a consequence of the structural role positions he or she occupies or
a particular behavior he or she engages in regularly. Self-identities reflect the “labels people use
to describe themselves” (Biddle, Bank, and Slavings 1987, p. 326). For example, a person’s self-
identities may include the fact that she is a mother, a wife, a daughter, a social worker, and a blood
donor. Self-identities provide meaning for the self, not only because they refer to concrete role
specifications or behaviors but also because they distinguish roles or actions from counterroles or
opposing behaviors (Lindesmith and Strauss 1956). For example, “the role of mother takes on
meaning in connection with the role of father, doctor in connection with nurse, and so on” (White
and Burke 1987, p. 312).

Theoretically, the importance of the concept of self-identity is derived from identity theory
(Stryker 1968, 1980; Burke 1980; Stryker and Serpe 1982; Wiley 1991), which views the self not
as an autonomous psychological entity but as a multifaceted social construct that emerges from
people’s roles in society and the behaviors they perform. Symbolic interactionists such as Mead
(1934) and Cooley (1902) considered the self to be a product of social interaction: It is through
social interaction that identities actually acquire self-meaning and people come to know who they
are. It is important to note that identity theory focuses on the self-defining roles that people occupy
in society rather than on the wider range of different social attributes, such as gender, race, or
ethnicity, that can be ascribed to the self. Thus, the general perspective of identity theory forms
the basis for a relatively large body of microsociological literature concerned with predicting role-
related behavior (Simon 1992; Thoits 1991). Within social psychology, however, researchers have
been more interested in using self-identity to improve our understanding and prediction of the
relationship between attitudes and action.

The concept of self-identity is pivotal in the link between social structure and individual action.
Self-identities, by definition, imply action (Callero 1985) and are a set of expectations prescribing
behavior derived from a person’s social position and considered appropriate by others. Satisfactory
enactment of roles or behaviors not only confirms and validates a person’s self-identity (Callero
1985), it also reflects positively on self-evaluation. The perception that one is enacting a role
satisfactorily should enhance feelings of self-esteem, whereas perceptions of poor role
performance may engender doubts about one’s self-worth and may even produce symptoms of
psychological distress (Thoits 1991; Hoelter 1983; Stryker and Serpe 1982).

3.2. Self concept

The term self-concept is a general term used to refer to how someone thinks about, evaluates or
perceives themselves. To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.

Baumeister (1999) provides the following self-concept definition:

"The individual's belief about himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and
what the self is."

The self-concept is an important term for both social and humanistic psychology. Lewis (1990)
suggests that the development of a concept of self has two aspects:
(1) The Existential Self
This is 'the most basic part of the self-scheme or self-concept; the sense of being separate and
distinct from others and the awareness of the constancy of the self' (Bee, 1992).

The child realizes that they exist as a separate entity from others and that they continue to exist
over time and space.

According to Lewis awareness of the existential self begins as young as two to three months old
and arises in part due to the relation the child has with the world. For example, the child smiles
and someone smiles back, or the child touches a mobile and sees it move.

(2) The Categorical Self

Having realized that he or she exists as a separate experiencing being, the child next becomes
aware that he or she is also an object in the world.

Just as other objects including people have properties that can be experienced (big, small, red,
smooth and so on) so the child is becoming aware of him or her self as an object which can be
experienced and which has properties.

The self too can be put into categories such as age, gender, size or skill. Two of the first categories
to be applied are age (“I am 3”) and gender (“I am a girl”).

In early childhood. the categories children apply to themselves are very concrete (e.g., hair color,
height and favorite things). Later, self-description also begins to include reference to internal
psychological traits, comparative evaluations and to how others see them.

3.3. Self confidence

The concept of self-confidence is commonly used as self-assurance in one's personal judgment,
ability, power, etc. One's self confidence increases from experiences of having satisfactorily
completed particular activities. It is a positive belief that in the future one can generally accomplish
what one wishes to do. Self-confidence is not the same as self-esteem, which is an evaluation of
one's own worth, whereas self-confidence is more specifically trust in one's ability to achieve some
goal, which one meta-analysis suggested is similar to generalization of self-efficacy. Abraham
Maslow and many others after him have emphasized the need to distinguish between self-
confidence as a generalized personality characteristic, and self-confidence with respect to a
specific task, ability or challenge (i.e. self-efficacy). Self-confidence typically refers to general
self-confidence. This is different from self-efficacy, which psychologist Albert Bandura has
defined as a “belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task” and
therefore is the term that more accurately refers to specific self-confidence. Psychologists have
long noted that a person can possess self-confidence that he or she can complete a specific task
(self-efficacy) (e.g. cook a good meal or write a good novel) even though they may lack general
self-confidence, or conversely be self-confident though they lack the self-efficacy to achieve a
particular task (e.g. write a novel). These two types of self-confidence are, however, correlated
with each other, and for this reason can be easily conflated.

3.4. Self image

Your mind can create images, even images of yourself. Some images act like memories and are
stored in ways that we are not aware of, or we might call unconscious self-images. Even though
they are only mental concepts, we can even identify and believe that these images are us. Since we
can believe many things about our self, we can have many self-images, even contradictory ones.
Some of these self-images may be positive and some negative. All our beliefs about our self that
are positive form a collective positive self-image, and create positive self-esteem. All the negative
beliefs form a negative self-image and create negative self-esteem. Self-esteem is the emotional
valuation or worth that arises from the collective beliefs in self-image.

Since the mind is the realm of imagination, nothing has to be fixed or finite. The mind can create
many self-images and they can change moment to moment and be contradictory. The mind has no
innate need or governing mechanism to resolve these conflicting self-images. This is how we can
have numerous beliefs related to self-image that are positive and numerous negative ones. This
explains how we can feel good about our self in one moment, and then triggered by a circumstance,
or someone making a comment, we feel terrible and deflated the next moment. Our sense of
identity can shift from one image to another with someone making a complimentary or critical
comment. Our emotions often follow the shift in identity based on the image we align with.

Because self-image is created and maintained in the mind it can also be distorted. Images of our
self from memories formed during moments of embarrassment, shame, guilt, fear, or anger might
be lodged with lots of emotion. These emotions make them more powerful and distort an honest
representation of our self in our mind. These types of memories with their distorted self-image and
emotion project forward into our present day identity of our self. This can often cause a distorted
sense of self-esteem and unhappiness. When we are engaged in self judgment, we are often judging
a snapshot mental image instead of our real self.

Self-image also forms a sense of identity. We might in some moments believe ourselves to be a
confident, capable person. In other moments we might believe we are insecure and incompetent.
It can quickly shift from one to the other. This is an indication that our self-image is not fixed. We
can use this realization to our advantage and consciously change our self-image. Once you become
aware of how quickly self-image can change, you can take advantage of its malleable nature by
consciously changing your self-image.

Changing Self Image

To see how to change self-image, watch listen to this video. It will talk you through a guided
meditation. Through this process you will become aware of how quickly the mind creates a new
self image and makes it seem it is your identity. You will also be introduced to being the witness
observer of these false self images

4. Self analysis and finding the right fit

Meditation is a great practice for self-analysis; it will help you digest your daily activities and
thoughts, break it up into pieces, and see them for what they are. If you had a troubling event,
through meditation, you can meticulously think about every action or thought that was conveyed,
see where things went wrong, and how it affected you.
At the end of the day, sit down, close your eyes, and think about your day from the moment you
woke up. Did you accomplish everything you set out to do? Were you a good person to yourself
and others? Did you hurt anyone today with your words or actions? If so, why did you do it? What
could you have done differently to create a better outcome?

Asking these kind of questions to yourself is vital to understanding who you are and what you’re
doing. It helps to stay focused, balanced, and it breaks you out of the never-ending cycle of self-
defeat that most people unknowingly put themselves through.

What does it mean to find the right fit in your career?

While some people thrive in the fast-paced environment of a startup where they get to wear
many hats, others prefer the structure and stability of working in a corporate office where things
are a bit more clear cut. And then there are those who may want a combination of both.

Every company has its own unique culture and values. You can imagine a thousand-person
corporation will likely have a very different atmosphere than a tech startup with only six full-time
employees.

And, that’s exactly where the question of fit comes in—because while these are two very different
versions of work, neither one is “right” or “wrong.” They both have the potential to be the right
place for the right person.

That’s why, here at The Muse, we focus on helping employers attract right-fit talent: People who
understand what makes your company special and want to contribute to your culture.
So, then, how do you define fit?

We asked the attendees of our Fast Company Innovation Festival Fast Track session to tell us
about when they knew they found the right fit at their company. Watch the video above to see what
they had to say.