1. Discuss the Signifances of self-awareness, and self-understanding skills with examples.

Self-awareness and self – understanding skills.

Self-awareness refers to having a clear perception of your personality, including strengths,

weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions. Self-Awareness allows you to
understand other people, how they perceive you, your attitude and your responses to them in the
moment.

Self-understanding is a process of understanding who we are as a person for instance if you

realise that you love nature and hate rudeness it becomes part of self-concept.

Significances of self-awareness and self-understanding skills.

Self-awareness and self-understanding skills are important in our day today life and to the people
due to the following reasons as discussed below.

Self-awareness is useful because if we understand it better ourselves, we are able to experience

ourselves as separate individuals. In a unique way instead of concealing them and this helps
someone with weakness to highlight or simplify them. Therefore self-awareness helps us in
know our weakness and how to solve them.

Self-awareness improves system behavior, reducing processing, communication, and energy

requirements. However, it is not feasible to design and implement self-awareness in an ad hoc
manner for every new system.

Self-awareness means you will be more effective in working with others. You will know how
your behavior influences others, either positively or negatively. You have the potential to
become a better negotiator because of your ability to judge how others react to your actions and
gauge the differences among the people. Self-awareness adds to your flexibility. You gain
“interpersonal agility” and learn how best to contribute to your organization. Finally, because of
your self-awareness and values you determine the course that allows you to achieve the goals
that you have set for your organization.

Self-awareness (sometimes also referred to as self-knowledge or introspection) is about

understanding your own needs, desires, failings, habits, and everything else that makes you the
unique individual that you are. The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting
to life's changes. When we have a better understanding of ourselves, we are able to experience
ourselves as unique and separate individuals. This empowers us to make changes and build on
our areas of strength, as well as identify areas where we would like to make improvements. Self-
awareness is often the first step to setting goals.

Self-awareness is important because accurate self-awareness is essential for optimal daily life
activities as it allows adapting individuals behaviours to different situation and this presents risky
or withdrawal behaviours.

Research shows that self-awareness is directly related to both emotional intelligence and success.
It helps you create achievable goals because you can consider your strengths, weaknesses, and
what drives you when you are setting goals. It allows you to guide yourself down the right path
by choosing to pursue the opportunities that best fit your skillset, preferences and tendencies. It
makes it easier to identify situations and people that hit our triggers and enables us to
anticipate our own reactions. It allows us to make positive behavioral changes that can lead to
greater personal and interpersonal success.

Without self-awareness, it is possible to imagine that everyone else has the same problems as
they do. In this way, the counselor's own problems are projected onto the client. Being self-
aware can enable the counselor to mark their ‘ego boundaries,’ and successfully discriminate
between what belongs to them and what belongs to their clients. Secondly, self-awareness
enables the counselor to make a ‘conscious use of the self’. Being self-aware can make the
counselor feel empowered in delivering therapeutic interventions, as they will feel more
conscious and thought of, rather than spontaneous and awkward.

Successful coaching is not always an easy job, and it's easy to inadvertently touch a nerve with
the person you are coaching. Self-awareness gives you an accurate perception of your emotional
state in each moment and an understanding of how you react and respond. Coaches with this
knowledge allow their emotional responses to inform coaching situations and never elevate to
the point of damaging the relationship.

Self-awareness is an honest understanding of your own values, desires, thought patterns,

motivations, goals and ambitions, emotional responses, strengths and weaknesses, and effect on
others. This awareness takes years to fully develop, requires commitment, and is supplemented
by others’ feedback. Once developed and practiced regularly, self-awareness enables you to
manage your behavior, improve your interactions and relation-ships, and gain or increase your
influence.

The level of self-awareness is related to the level of influence and performance: The more self-
aware a leader is, the more influential she is and the better her followers perform. As Daniel
Goleman, a thought leader in the area of emotional intelligence, explains in his book Primal
Leadership, “Leaders high in emotional self-awareness are attuned to their inner signals,
recognizing how their feelings affect them and their job performance. Leaders with high self-
awareness typically know their strengths and limitations and exhibit a gracefulness in learning
where they need to improve.

Research shows that self-awareness is directly related to both emotional intelligence and success.
It helps you create achievable goals because you can consider your strengths, weaknesses, and
what drives you when you are setting goals. It allows you to guide yourself down the right path
by choosing to pursue the opportunities that best fit your skillset, preferences and tendencies. It
makes it easier to identify situations and people that hit our triggers and enables us to
anticipate our own reactions. It allows us to make positive behavioral changes that can lead to
greater personal and interpersonal success.

Self-awareness facilitates both empathy and self-management, and these two, in combination,
allow effective relationship management. Goleman continues to develop his thesis by pointing
out that the business world often overlooks self-awareness even though he considers it the
foundation for emotional leadership. He writes that without knowing one’s own emotions, one
cannot manage them and is then less likely to understand the emotions in others. Leaders who
are self-aware or assured are linked to their inner feelings.

In conclusion Self-awareness is all about self-examination of oneself. It is a conscious

knowledge of oneself with the capacity for introspection and ability in recognizing oneself as
being an individual separate from others and the environment. A self-aware person has a clear
view of his/her personality, emotions, motivation, beliefs, thoughts, weaknesses and strengths.
Self-awareness has an influence on personal development and this is manifested through skill
development, ability to identify one’s strengths and weakness, stress management, motivation
and leadership skills development. All these parameters are what add up to personal development
arising from self-awareness of an individual.
2a). Discuss the process of giving help, directions and guidance (person, on community or
family).

Giving advice is central to effective leadership and decision making. Yet managers seldom view
them as practical skills they can learn and improve. Receiving guidance is often seen as the
passive consumption of wisdom. And advising is typically treated as a matter of “good
judgment”—you either have it or you don’t—rather than a competency to be mastered.

When the exchange is done well, people on both sides of the table benefit. Those who are truly
open to guidance (and not just looking for validation) develop better solutions to problems than
they would have on their own. They add nuance and texture to their thinking—and, research
shows, they can overcome cognitive biases, self-serving rationales, and other flaws in their logic.
Those who give advice effectively wield soft influence—they shape important decisions while
empowering others to act. As engaged listeners, they can also learn a lot from the problems that
people bring them. And the rule of reciprocity is a powerful binding force: Providing expert
advice often creates an implicit debt that recipients will want to repay.

People are often timid or uncomfortable when others are ill, but that never helps anyone. When
someone you care about is fragile, that is the time to show your strength! So be brave and offer
kindness. Take on the challenge of being the best version of yourself. Even if you are in another
country, on the opposite side of the earth, you can tell someone that you are right there with
them. The following is process of giving help, directions and guidance to.

A Person.

Validate. Always start out by getting right in there and feeling some emotions with the person in
the health crisis. In the very beginning especially, hold them, cry with them and show them that
you feel the heaviness of their illness. They will see that they do not have to hold all the weight
on their own weary shoulders. It takes a strong person to be vulnerable with others, so show a lot
of respect and honor in this process. It will be good for them, and for you.
Uplift. Once it is established that you understand the weight of the burden, try to keep the
subject light and the words in the positive. For example, instead of saying something like “You
won’t die,” you could say “You will live a long life.” Put that positive energy out there — but
only after you have validated the ill person! If you jump straight into positive statements without
first validating their fear and pain, you may come across as patronizing.

Give. Give something tangible! Words are wonderful. But when you give a hand-written card, or
flowers perhaps, you are showing that you are willing to take extra steps to show your support.
Don’t think that it goes unnoticed with most people. We need reminders of love, especially when
we are dealing with the normal depression and anxiety that comes with a health crisis. Chances
are likely that your ill loved one will be strained with the burdens of medical bills and other
financial stresses.

To the community

Assemble a participatory group representative of all stakeholders. The first step is to ensure
participation and buy-in from the community by inviting stakeholders and other interested
individuals and groups to constitute a planning group. Check with group members to make sure
that there aren’t others who should be at the table. Make sure particularly that those most
affected by community issues are represented, since their voices are the ones most often ignored.

Identify the interests of various stakeholder groups in relation to the process of setting
priorities and using them to plan the implementation of an intervention or initiative. Depending
on their perspective – as health or human service providers, as part of the population affected by
community issues, as public officials, etc. – their interests might have to do with:

Establish clear criteria for setting priorities for community issues to be addressed. Through
discussion, brainstorming, or another method of generating ideas, the group should be able to
agree on a number of criteria. Some possible examples, depending on the issues involved and the
needs of the community:

Establish a process for engaging stakeholders and the broader community in setting
priorities for issues to address. Once you have a list of criteria, you’ll have to decide how to
apply them in determining the priority order of the issues you’ve identified in your community
assessment. Creating a process for doing so will make for smoother and more effective decision-
making.
Establish a process for selecting approaches. Once again, you have choices to make. The basic
process here is likely to be very similar to the one you used to choose the issue(s) to work on.

Review the criteria for selecting approaches that you agreed on, and make sure that everyone
understands them clearly and still agrees.

Finalize your choices. Make sure you’ve considered such factors as what else is going on in the
community, where your resources are likely to come from, who might best implement the effort,
and whether people will have to be hired for the purpose.

Make sure as well that your final decisions are truly agreed-upon and participatory. As
we’ve discussed, there are likely to be people in the group who have little experience with this
kind of process, and who may be reluctant to speak up, especially if they disagree with the
majority. Yet they may have information or emotional reactions that are extremely important
because of their grounding in the community.

Look for ways in which your issue and approach might mesh with other community efforts.
Look for overlap or ways to share work or collaborate with other efforts. If parts of your
approach or initiatives aimed at your target are already in place and successful, make sure you’re
working together rather than at cross purposes, and that you’re not trying to reinvent the wheel.
The more collaborative your approach, the more likely that everyone in the community will be
positively affected.

Be prepared to monitor your effort and change priorities as conditions change.

Communities continue to develop and change, and your effort should change as well if it’s no
longer addressing the needs that are most urgent and most important to community members.
You can use your criteria and your processes whenever you think you might need to change
direction.
b). With the help of examples explain the importance of communication, listening and
assessment in problem solving.

Problem-solving in modern organizations is a team sport.  Success as a team comes from

cooperation (sharing insights and information), collaboration (developing shared ideas),
decisiveness and coordinated action.  Communications is the glue that binds the team together
and enables them to work as a unit.  Nowhere in your company is this more critical than the
problem-solving process. When the stakes are high is when peak-performance is needed most. 
You will find that delivering great communication in these areas will pay you and your
organization dividends.

Communication is one of the most important skills in life. This skill is not just speaking and
writing; we often forget that one of the most important parts of it is listening. Listening is hard
work and requires concentration. We do not listen efficiently because of our faulty listening
habits. Listening is something more than the physical process of hearing. It is a matter of attitude
and also an intellectual and emotional process.

Somewhere down the line in a relationship, people tend to run into problems. Petty arguments
may arise, or even complicated disputes. Regardless, every situation can be diffused if both
parties are willing to communicate with each other. Communication skills are necessary for a
healthy relationship. There following are major ways communication, listening and assessment
can solve problems.

Making impacts stick (real change begins with awareness) – Problem-solving teams work
really hard to analyze situations, develop alternatives, make decisions and institute corrective
actions to resolve the issue at hand.  There is a lot of knowledge gained through this process that
can help the organization avoid the situation recurring in the future and/or expedite resolution if
the situation does happen again.  Organizational communication and building awareness can help
make the benefits from problem-solving stick.

 Managing stakeholder expectations – Stakeholder confidence in your problem-solving

abilities are based more on what you communicate than what you actually do.  Ensuring
stakeholder communications are deliberate, timely and thoughtful can play a big part in reducing
the level of external pressure put on the problem-solving team.  To do this, stakeholder
communication needs to be a standard part of the problem-solving process and not approached as
an ad-hoc activity.

Assessing impacts and downstream implications – Everyone on the team has a unique point of
view on the problem and how it fits into the bigger picture of the organization.  Only through
communication can the diverse points-of-view be brought together into an accurate and
comprehensive perspective of the problem and its impacts on operations and downstream
activities.

Executing as a unit– Solving complex business and operations problems often involves a lot of
moving pieces to achieve a desirable outcome.  Coordinating the activities of the individuals on
the team to ensure efficient use of resources and avoid conflicts or duplication can be a
challenge.  Effective intra-team communication is essential to ensure that everyone on the team
knows what is going on and the role they need to play.

Through effective communication and working as a team, even the most difficult problems can
be resolved.  Kepner-Tregoe has been working with companies for close to 60 years to solve
some of the most difficult problems imaginable.  Their experts understand the importance of
teamwork and communication in the problem-solving process and can help your team up-level
your communications capabilities.

Communication Surfaces Issues. Some people tend to harbor bitterness or things that cause
them anger. Sometimes, these same people won’t tell the other party what exactly frustrates them
the most. Communication can help bring those hidden problems to light, which will also help
solve problems.

Communication Deepens Relationships. Relationships cannot thrive when there is no

communication. Consider plants: They cannot survive if they have no water and sunlight. In this
same manner, relationships need communication, where communication is the sunlight and
water. Further, make it quality communication, not simple formalities. Take time from your day
to sit down and have a meaningful conversation with your loved one. You will be amazed at how
much this can help you solve your problems.

Communication Alleviates Anger. The reverse is also true: Miscommunication causes

frustration. If you can effectively talk about your problems, and both parties are willing to
compromise, anger can be alleviated. However, be sure that the compromise falls within an
attainable range. Don’t make promises that you don’t intend on keeping. This will just cause
further problems.

Leveraging expertise – Each member of your team brings unique expertise, knowledge and
perspectives that can aid in the problem-solving process.  Communication is critical, not only to
ensure that everyone’s perspectives are captured, but to demonstrate that everyone’s
contributions are appreciated and encourage further participation in the problem-solving process.

In conclusion. Problem solving involves seeking to achieve goals and overcoming barriers. The
stages of problem solving include identification of the problem, structuring the problem through
the use of some forms of representation, and looking for possible solutions often through
techniques of divergent thinking. Once possible solutions have been arrived at, one of them will
be chosen through the decision making process.

Making decisions that consider the whole system – Without effective communication, there
will be a tendency to make problem-solving decisions that only address immediate symptoms
and/or the parts of the system that are directly associated to the issue at hand.  By including a
broader stakeholder audience in problem communications, decision makers are able to solicit
input on the broader impacts to the organization and select actions that benefit the whole system.
References

D. Goleman, Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence (Boston:

Harvard Business School Press, 2004, 253).

L. Ackerman, “The Identity Effect—Learning from the Inside Out,” Chief Learning Officer,
February 2010

[http://www.theidentitycircle .com/images/uploads/The_Identity_Effect_Learning_from_the_
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M. Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There (New York: Hyperion, 2007).

Adler, M. J. (1983). How to speak, how to listen. New York: Macmillan.

Bommelje, R. (2011). LISTEN, LISTEN, LISTEN. In The top 10 ways to strengthen your self-
leadership. International Listening Leadership Institute. Retrieved from http://www.listening
leaders.com/Articles.html

Bommelje, R., Houston, J. M., & Smither, R. (2003). Personality characteristics of effective
listening: A five factor perspective. International Journal of Listening, 17, 32- 46.

Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action (Vol. 1, p. 100). Boston, MA: Beacon
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Leavitt, H., & Mueller, R. (1951). Some effects of feedback on communication. Human
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