“Leading Self means that I am self-aware of what is happening and how I feel. It means that I am growth-minded and open to new ideas. It means that I am motivated in what I do. It means that I am resilient. It means that I am accountable.”
– Middle School Student
SELF-AWARE
“Being self-aware is being able to control what you say and who you say it to.”
– Eighth Grade Student
“I am aware of both my negative and positive qualities and the areas where I am capable and the areas where I need help.”
– 12th Grade Student
Use the information in this section to help you introduce the “self-aware” attribute to students. You can use the question stem “How does this attribute make you a better leader?” to start a discussion with your students and to check for comprehension (see Additional Resources in this chapter for more information to further your personal understanding).
Explaining “Self-Aware” to Students
We all have a mental picture of ourselves—what we believe, how we treat others, what we are good at, and what we may not be so good at. But do you see yourself as others see you? If you asked someone else to describe you, could you accurately predict what that person would say? To be self-aware means understanding who you are, your strengths, and areas in which you can improve. It’s important to understand not only how we see ourselves but also how others see us. Why do you think that is? One reason is that if you understand the areas in which you need to improve, you can ask for help in these areas from other people. Asking for help will allow you to build relationships and work well with others, which is very important for leadership.
What “Self-Aware” Looks Like
Self-aware leaders:
• have an accurate picture of their strengths and weaknesses
• are aware of their feelings
• reflect on and learn from experience
• seek feedback to improve
• are open to criticism and can hear feedback without getting defensive
• work on what they need to learn
• respond well to new situations that require them to stretch and grow
• know what their values are and why they are important to them
• are seen as authentic, attentive, thoughtful, responsive, reflective, and observant
• know how their actions affect others
• adjust their behavior to suit circumstances
What Gets in the Way?
When you are not self-aware, you might see yourself differently than others see you. This may lead to your misreading different situations and not acting appropriately. Your actions can contribute to confusion, frustration, and feelings of being misunderstood. Review the following list and note the items that might give you trouble developing self-awareness.
• You don’t take time to think about how your actions may affect others.
» (Examples: gossiping, bullying, not sharing, taking someone else’s things, etc.)
• You don’t want others to give you feedback.
• You don’t believe you have any room for improvement.
• You think your needs are more important than anyone else’s.
• You respond defensively to feedback.
• People are afraid to tell you things because they don’t want to hurt or offend you.
• You act as if you are someone you are not.
• You have a hard time accepting compliments or positive feedback.
Being able to recognize the positive and negative impact that your words and actions have on others will make you a better social-emotional leader.
Suggestions for Improving “Self-Aware”
Work with your students to discuss and establish some ways to build competency in this attribute. Below is a list to help support this exercise. We encourage you to develop your own strategies or modify these suggestions.
You might also consider doing an activity with your students (see this chapter’s Activity Center for suggestions) or asking them to write about the attribute (see Journal Prompts for suggestions) to help build their understanding. Support is an important part of development, so discuss with your students how you can support each other, as a group or class, to build skill in this leadership attribute.
• Check your awareness. List the characteristics or descriptions of how you hope others see you. For example: kind, considerate, respectful, fun to be around, optimistic, hard-worker, stands up for what you believe in, dependable. Then, ask your accountability partner to write out a list of how they see you. Compare the lists. If your lists do not match, think about ways that you can act that show how you want others to see you.
• Reflect on your personal values. What do you value the most? Where are you willing to compromise? Some of your values are more important to you than others. Think about how your values compare to the values of your family, friends, school, and community.
• Notice how others respond to your actions. If other people respond to your actions in unexpected ways, use that information to think about where your self-awareness may be lacking. Journal about what you might be doing or not doing that might lead to these unexpected responses. Ask a trusted friend or family member for feedback.
• Ask for feedback, and think of it as a gift. What other people tell you about how they see you will help you be more self-aware. Ask others for feedback, listen without being defensive, thank the people who give you feedback, and think of how you can use the feedback to change your actions.
• See change as an opportunity. You can change the beliefs others hold about you and the expectations that they have for your behavior. To make these changes, work on your actions, your approach to different situations, and your understanding about what others need.
• Note how you respond in times of stress. How do you act when you are feeling a lot of pressure or when you are in stressful situations? Every difficult situation or challenge is an opportunity for you to reflect on your experience and grow from it. Take time to think back on the activities of your day, the actions you took, and the choices you made. Decide what changes you can make to react differently in the future.
Activity Center
Here are some suggested activities you can modify to fit your context and the students with whom you work.
• Book introduction. Find a book to read with students that has a character who either demonstrates the “self-aware” attribute or who would have benefitted from being more self-aware, and have students discuss or journal about the character’s behavior (see the Suggested Books section of this chapter for some books that fit this activity).
• Verbal self-portrait. Ask students work with a partner to use words to create a portrait of how they see themselves in terms of their values or actions and how they see their partner (for example: kind, considerate, helps others when they are sad). After they’ve shared their portraits with each other, ask students to divide a piece of paper in half by drawing a line and to create two more self-portraits with words. One of these self-portraits should reflect the title, “This is who I am,” and the other, “This is who I want to be.” Ask students to think about whether they were surprised about anything their partner wrote about them.
• Monologue or poem. Ask students to write a poem or a monologue titled either “This is Who I Am” or “This is Where I Come From” to share with the class. For an example, see George Ella Lyon’s poem “Where I’m From,” which you can access at: http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html.
• Johari window. Give students (recommended for students age 16 and older) the Johari Window activity (p. 23). Have them complete their Johari Window with help from a peer or mentor (Luft & Ingham, 1955)
• Social identity. Give students the Social Identity prompt (p. 24) to write about and then discuss as a class. You can also structure this activity as a class discussion, working through each question as a group (Hannum, 2007).
• Values Explorer. Give students the opportunity to identify and rank their values and create a leader philosophy. You can access a free online version, the CCL ValueAble Leader Tool at https://www.valueableleaderproject.com/.
The Johari Window is a tool to organize your self-awareness. It is a two-by-two grid, with the four parts representing what is known and unknown about you to other people and what is known and unknown about you to yourself. As the figure below shows, what is known about you to others is public, while what is known to you but unknown to others is private. What is not known to you and others is unknowable and therefore not relevant. Most interesting is the quadrant representing what is known by others but not by you. When such information is revealed, when we get blindsided by how others really see us, it has the potential to create dramatic change. We discover a truth about ourselves.
These blindside moments are rare and precious gifts. They hurt—the truth often does—but they also instruct. A good mentor can help you identify these “truths.” Ask a peer, parent, or mentor for input for your Johari Window, especially in filling in the top-left quadrant that identifies your blind spots—what you are unaware of but that others know may prevent you from accurately assessing your own behavior and performance.
Source: Luft, J., & Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari Window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA.
Directions: Read the following questions and write your answers on a separate sheet of paper.
We all make assumptions about our own identity and that of others. Unfortunately, when we work together, assumptions are often treated as reality. These assumptions influence our beliefs about how others think and the motives for their actions.
Social identity comprises the parts of your identity that come from belonging to particular groups. We use social identity to categorize people into groups, identify with certain groups ourselves, and compare various groups—typically thinking more highly of our own. Use the following questions to work through some of your assumptions. You may wish to keep a particular person in mind (someone you’ve just met or someone you have problems with) when answering.
• When you are building a relationship with a new friend, what do you want to know about the other person? What do you notice first? Are you attracted to certain characteristics?
• What assumptions do you make about other people based on their social identity? (For example, their religion, the clothes they wear, the sports teams they support, etc.)
• If someone else were describing your identity, what do you think they would notice first? What would be most relevant to them? Why?
• What assumptions do you think other people make about you based on your social identity?
• How much do you think you have in common with other students in your school?
• What do you think makes you different compared to other students in your school?
• What insights occurred as you responded to these questions?
Your awareness of social identity—both yours and that of others—can help you see that people are different from one another, but each person can maintain their group identity while also valuing the contributions of others from different groups. What do you think you need to do next?
Choose one or more of the following journal prompts appropriate for the age level you work with. Feel free to modify or extend the prompt. Give students time to reflect on the questions in a personal journal. To extend the exercise, ask students to share their reflections with a peer or small group.
• Think about a time when somebody responded in an unexpected way to something you did. Describe the situation. Why was the response unexpected? Where do you think your self-awareness might have been lacking in this situation? Reflect on what you were doing, or not doing, that might have led to that unexpected response.
• What are your personal values? What are you willing to do to reach your goals? Where are you willing to compromise? Which values are more important to you than others? How do your values compare to the values supported by your school, or the values held by your classmates?
• How does it make you feel to get feedback? How do you react? How do you think you should react? What are some strategies that you could use to be more receptive to feedback?
• How do you think other people see you? How do you want to be seen by others? How can you change your actions and your approach to different situations to allow others to see you the way you wish to be seen?
• Think about the values shown by the actions of one of your good friends or family members. Describe similar values that you have that you might show in different ways. (For example, students who value family may work long hours after school to provide what their family needs, while other students may not work so they have more time to spend with their family.)
• How do you respond in stressful situations? How do you react when you are under pressure? Every challenge is an opportunity when you reflect on your experience and grow from it. Take the time to think back on the activities of your day, the actions you took, and the choices you made; then, decide what changes you could make in the future that could improve the outcome.
• Is there anything about yourself that you are unwilling to admit to others? How might you come to terms with that characteristic so you can acknowledge it but not dwell on it? How might things be different for you if you could acknowledge that characteristic?
Integrating the Attribute into Your Curriculum
Choose an activity from your planning guide or syllabus. After your students complete the activity, relate the activity back to the “self-aware” attribute with a debriefing conversation. Below are suggested questions. Choose or modify questions based on your students’ developmental level, your activity, and your context.
This debrief can take the form of a full-group discussion. Consider giving students time to reflect on their answers with partners or in small groups before asking them to share responses with the larger group. Alternatively, ask students to work in small groups to record their responses on flip charts, and then create a gallery walk in which students walk around the room and read what other students have written. If you use a gallery walk, consider asking students to add their own thoughts to the charted responses.
• How did the activity help you understand the attribute “self-aware”?
• How did you work on being self-aware during this activity?
• How did other students demonstrate being self-aware during the activity?
• What does it mean to be self-aware?
• Why is it important to be self-aware?
• How can being self-aware make you a better social-emotional leader?
• How can lack of self-awareness affect leadership?
• How can self-awareness be developed?
• What are some ways you could practice self-awareness moving forward?
• How will you demonstrate self-awareness in your interactions with others?
• What effect can increasing your self-awareness have on you?
• Identify a person, past or present, who demonstrates self-awareness. What specific actions demonstrate that person’s self-awareness?
• Identify a book or movie character who demonstrates self-awareness. What specific actions does this character take that demonstrate being self-aware?
Questions to Assess Understanding
Consider giving the following questions to students to determine if you need to spend more time explaining this attribute.
• What does it mean to be self-aware? Give an example of someone you know who shows self-awareness. How does this person demonstrate being self-aware?
• What are three things you are going to work on in order to become more self-aware?
Suggested Books to Introduce “Self-Aware”
The books listed below can be used to deepen younger students’ understanding of the “self-aware” attribute.
• I Like Me! by N. Carlson
• The Color Monster by A. Llenas
• The Dot by P. Reynolds
• It’s Okay to Be Different by T. Parr
• The Magnificent Me by D. Haseltine
• Mommy Doesn’t Know My Name by S. Williams & A. Shachat
• Red: A Crayon’s Story by M. Hall
• Sometimes I Feel Like a Mouse by J. Modesitt
• Talking Treasure: Stories to Help Build Emotional Intelligence and Resilience in Young Children by V. Hankin & N. Yuval
• Today I Feel Silly by J.L. Curtis
• The Way I Feel by J. Cain
• Why Am I Different? by N. Simon & D. Leder
• The Worst Day of My Life Ever by J. Cook
Additional Resources
This section provides additional places to look for help and advice to develop your personal knowledge, as an adult, about this attribute.
Atlas of emotions. (n.d.). The Ekmans’ atlas of emotion. Retrieved from http://atlasofemotions.org/
Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. San Diego, CA: TalentSmart.
Cartwright, T. (2009). Changing yourself and your reputation. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Center for Creative Leadership. (2013). Interpersonal savvy: Building and maintaining solid working relationships. Greensboro, NC: Author.
Goldsmith, M., & Reiter, M. (2015). Triggers: Creating behavior that lasts—becoming the person you want to be. New York, NY: Crown Business.
Goleman, D. Emotional intelligence. (2005). New York, NY: Random House.
Kaplan, R. E., & Kaiser, R. B. (2013). Fear your strengths: What you are best at could be your biggest problem. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
King, S. N., & Altman, D. G. (2011). Discovering the leader in you. [Workbook]. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
King, S. N., Altman, D. G., & Lee, R. J. (2011). Discovering the leader in you: How to realize your leadership potential (New and Rev. ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kirkland, K., & Manoogian, S. (1998). Ongoing feedback: How to get it, how to use it. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Mount, P., & Tardanico, S. (2014). Beating the impostor syndrome. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Philipson, P. J., & Gary, J. M. (2015). Awareness in action: Self-awareness and group process. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Rae, T. (2013). Developing emotional literacy with teenagers: Building confidence, self-esteem and self-awareness. London, England: SAGE.
Sternbergh, B., & Weitzel, S. R. (2001). Setting your development goals. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
References
Hannum, K. M. (2007). Social identity: Knowing yourself, leading others. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.
Luft, J., & Ingham, H. (1955). The Johari Window, a graphic model of interpersonal awareness. Proceedings of the Western Training Laboratory in Group Development. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA.