Understanding Yourself and Others as a Manager

What do you think it means to ‘understand yourself’ and ‘understand others’? How would this ability help you as a manager and in your personal life?

How would you describe yourself as an employee? How would others describe you?

What do you do to earn the trust and confidence of others? How successful have you been?

What groups of people, or networks, can you call on for help, information and support? To what groups of people do you offer help, information and support?

How comfortable are you with conflict?

How do you rate yourself on your ability to recognise conflict and deal with it effectively? What tells you that conflict is approaching?

What are 3 key steps to establishing effective working relationships?

1. Understanding me refers to being aware of my knowledge, skill set and capabilities. It means how I handle stress, conflict and pressure and use my knowledge and skills to reach to a solution. It also stands for being aware of my shortcomings and flaws which I should be able to reduce with proper measures. Understanding others means to be able to judge the values, capabilities and skills of other persons.

As a manager, I must be able to use the available resources in the best possible way. The ability to understand myself and others will help in optimal allocation of resources in the organisation. For example, a person who is good at communicating with others will be asked to deal with the potential clients. The person will make use of his skills and create an interest amongst the potential clients to invest in the organisation. The ability to understand myself would help to improve myself in both my professional and personal life. At work, I will be able to excel by placing right people to right jobs. In my personal life, I will be able to work on my short comings and become a better human being in the process.

2. As an employee, I would describe myself to be a fast learner, adaptable, goal oriented and hard working. It is absolutely necessary to be a fast learner to be able to adjust to the values and environment of the organisation. Adaptability allows me to waste minimum amount of time and start working with the new environment and situation to move towards my goals. Planning and working my way towards goals is necessary for evolution. It is well known that no success can be achieved without hard working. Thus, I plan and put utmost efforts in every project to gain maximum out of it.

Others who work with me would describe me to be friendly, helpful and resourceful. It is always important to make others who work with you to feel comfortable. It is only when they can share their ideas and problems with you without any hesitation. I try to help my co-workers and be friendly to them so that they function best even at high pressure situations. Using my abilities to think practically and quickly I like to come to solutions for several problems that a daily work situation may face. Thus, I consider myself as a resourceful person.

3. Trust and confidence are equally important at workplace. I try to earn the trust and confidence of both my superiors and my co-workers. The first step is to build up a positive relationship with the superiors by spending time with them and understanding their way of thinking. With my co-workers I have developed a friendly relationship where we don’t hesitate to share ideas and discuss on the problems at hand. It is important to understand the goals of my superiors because it helps me to plan my own strategies to achieve that. It becomes easier to communicate the goals to my co-workers when I know what exactly is required to do. If the organisation is facing a small problem like a discontented customer, I find it necessary to communicate this to my superiors as well as my co-workers. Transparency is another point that will earn trust.

Understanding Yourself and Others in Personal Life

I share a healthy and positive relationship with my superiors as well as co-workers. I encourage my co-workers to use their skills in the best possible ways and this keeps the environment buzzing with energy. It is not possible to win everyone’s confidence but I am slowly working towards achieving an amicable relationship with all the other employees.

4. In any organisation, it is important that you find people who can provide you with valuable insight and help for dealing with problems and projects at hand. The superiors are always there to help me with any problem I face. They have been in the place I am now and know the hurdles that I might come across. They provide practical and achievable solutions to most of the problems. If I am a new employee in an organisation the superiors can help me get adjusted by explaining how the organisation functions. The co-workers also help in such situation as they have been accustomed to the working style of the organisation. The aged and highly experience people of the organisation can provide me with valuable information regarding the organisation, project related issues and more.

With my knowledge and experience I can provide support and information to my juniors and new employees. I can share how I have dealt with certain problems that my juniors will be facing in future. By doing this I will prepare them to be efficient enough to deal with the problem better and faster. I can help the interns who are in the organisation for a limited period of time.

5. Conflict arises in any situation where various people from different background, social and cultural norms come together. It is something very natural in workplaces at anytime. If conflicts are not managed properly the team might dysfunction. Several employees decide to leave an organisation because of poorly managed conflicts. Conflicts can be petty as personality clashes to serious like productivity problems. Conflicts, both negative and positive are present in every organisation. The attitude towards dealing with the conflicts makes the difference by either prolonging it or solving it. It also effects the growth of the organisation.

I am comfortable with conflict as I know it is as a natural outcome. It is easy for me to handle any kind of conflict that may arise. I usually speak frankly about the problems and present views that might not be popular amongst all. It is important to understand the reason of conflict from the core of the problem. There are always people do dislike me for this approach and find the directness to be distressing. But, when the conflict is over, I can always talk to them to sort out the bitterness. I try to help those who avoid conflict and help them deal with the problems.

6. Conflict mainly arises when in a team everyone has different objectives; the level of competition is unhealthy; individuals do not have clearly defined roles; miscommunication; and disrupted work flow. I find myself good at noticing such pointers which might lead to conflict. Confidence is important for handling any conflict situation. I try and focus on creating a situation that both the parties involved in a conflict do not feel the other is being favoured. I change my approach depending on the people involved in a conflict. For example if it is with a customer I try to identify it and solve the problem by following the rules and regulations of the organisation. If it is amongst co-workers a supervisor may be called in when a solution cannot be formulated. I try to deal with conflicts constructively, that is, by avoiding situations that might lead to further problems and fights. It is of utmost importance that I never speak negatively about anyone involved in a conflict, irrespective the other person is a customer or a co-worker.

Unhealthy competition among the team members of an organisation, miscommunication and unhappy work atmosphere are the big pointers which allow me to recognise that conflict is approaching.

7. The 3 key steps of establishing effective relationships at a workplace are:

Step one requires gaining trust and confidence of others; not missing out on appointments; doing the work well; apologising for failed promises and mistake; developing integrity; being fair and honest; and sharing information and resources with co-workers.

Step two requires collaboration among co-workers for team projects; exchanging innovative ideas; changing the usual way of doing the job; giving apt credit to those who contribute; request for feedback and providing others with constructive criticism; taking up challenging projects; incorporating ice-breakers and fun filled activities to improve communication among co-workers; encouraging by praising; and inspiring people to achieve better.

Step three requires improving my communication skills by peaking clearly and attentively listening, valuing others opinions, maintaining eye contact while speaking, keeping emotions under control, providing calling cards to service providers, other professionals and clients, respecting others, willingly examine others perspectives and ideas, courteously sharing my own perspective, avoiding personal stories and long emails which are not related to work, limiting distractions like phone calls in a shared office and always maintaining a courteous and professional attitude in office.

I follow these steps to maintain a harmonious atmosphere at work that imbibes productivity and encourages innovative thinking amongst the co-workers.