Self-Awareness and Contiuous Self-Development Essay

SELF AWARENESS AND CONTINUOUS SELF DEVELOPMENT WORD COUNT: 1098 words This part will discuss self-awareness and continuous self-development through analyzing a number of prior researches, then come up with the link of them to support my role as a manager in the future. Self-awareness Self-awareness is a terminology that has been widely discussed in not only psychological but also business and managerial perspectives. There are a number of authors trying to propose different definitions of it. In very earlier research, the theory developed by Wicklund (1975, 1978, 1979) defines self-awareness mostly as one’s ability to self-observe. That person will base on certain standard or new information to judge his own behavior (as cited in†¦show more content†¦The higher level of self-awareness an individual has, the more effective he has in work performance. Church’s finding in 1997 is also consistent with that research on managerial self-awareness. He reports that higher levels of managerial self-awareness are positively related to greater levels of individual effectiveness as rated by supervisors. Similarly, following Goleman (1995)’s research, self-awareness inadequacy can damage one person’s relationships and career (as cited in Whetten Cameron, 2011). However, there are cases people can refuse self-awareness. According to Maslow (1962), people avoid acquiring new knowledge about themselves because of the uncertain and uncomfortable feelings they can receive (as cited in Whetten Cameron, 2011). Whetten and Cameron (2011) believe dis-closure is the key for people to overcome that panic. By discussing one’s own aspects with others, people can reduce the ambiguity of problems. For instance, through exchanging results of self-analysis toolkits in Developing Self seminars, people can be more aware of their own strengths and weaknesses as well as receive feedbacks from others. Their Johari Window of what I know and what others know can be more extended. Continuous self-development Self-development is also appeared in many works, especially in a context of an organization. Self-development is defined by Knowles (1975, p. 18, cited in Ellinger, 2004) as â€Å"a process in which individuals takes the