When addressing my own emotional strengths and weaknesses, I feel that an article found through my Leadership and Communication course does a great job of categorizing different emotions. The Emotional Intelligence article found in this article describes social awareness as “the ability to recognize and understand your own emotions and how they affect your life and work.” Emotional intelligence has always been a superior strength of mine. Whether it is good emotions or bad, I am often able to accurately label where I stand on an emotional level. Through this, I can pinpoint where my strengths are as well as my weaknesses. This ability can prove useful for I can be more successful in knowing when to apply myself in a task or duty, as well when I should step down and let somebody else take the reins.
Not only am I aware of my own emotions, but I am good at identifying the emotions of those around me as well. Though not always completely accurate, I can usually get a good sense of where another individual is standing on an emotional level. By identifying these emotions, I can adjust myself into a position that could make the individual feel more comfortable. This can give me an advantage since this can open up opportunities for relationships to form. By forming relationships and having members who are comfortable with me, I can see an increase in their energy as well as notice that they are more open towards conversing and sharing their ideas with me.
Part of being aware of your own strengths comes with being aware of your weaknesses. One weakness that I face emotionally is my inability to successfully handle some of my emotions; this applies to the “self-management” category in the emotional strength article mentioned above. When I state that self-management is a weakness of mine, this does not include all of the contexts associated with it. For example, I can be very trusting if an individual has demonstrated that he or she is responsible and worthy of being trusted, and I can be pretty adaptable. An instance of this adaptability could be seen when recently working with team in my Leadership and Communications class. We were a few weeks into our project when we realized that we had hit a dead-end. As we shift gears in our project and and looked for new opportunities, we worried that we had fallen too far behind. When we discovered our new pathway, we were able to catch up with other teams despite falling behind. However, my self-management weaknesses derived in the form of not properly being able control some other emotions of mine, such as anxiety and stress. Interaction with other people can often be very stressful for me and this will at times have a negative effect towards the way I interact and display leadership. Due to the anxiety that can occurs while conversing with others, and the fear that I have of being negatively judged, I will often refrain from putting myself in the focus of attention while working with others.
Our strength and weaknesses are not always set in stone, and thus, I have been working hard towards strengthening many of my weaknesses. I believe that if one is serious about lessening their weaknesses and bettering themselves as a leader, then self-reflection is essential. I make sure to reflect back on my performances after just about every meeting, and sometimes on-and-off again throughout the day. I will firstly identify how I feel about my performance. Was it good day or was it bad? After categorizing, I will then determine what it was about my performance as both a leader and a contributor that led to this good or bad result. I will identify strengths during my better performances and will make sure to implement them into futures meetings, as well as identify weaker characteristics so that I can push myself to improve on them. Many examples of my own self-reflections can be seen through the blogs I made for my Leadership and Communications course (blog page).
No matter how self-aware one may be, he or she can never be perfect in judging their own emotional identity. That is why it is essential to ask those around you for feedback. Getting feedback on your performances can help you identify strengths and weaknesses that may have slipped right by you. For example, during my recent group project in my Leadership and Communication course, we received feedback from our teammates. Through this feedback, I had discovered that I had a slight attachment issue towards some of my own work. One member quoted that I “sometimes get too attached to ideas.” I was previously aware that I had some materials that I had wished to use in our project, but before this was pointed out to me I had no idea that this was not only really obvious to other members, but was also hindering to our performance as a team. Learning that I had this unknown characteristic was an eye-opening for me, and I plan on seeking this sort of feedback more often. Prior to this feedback, I had made it a habit to ask for feedback or opinions on any of my own or others ideas or work. I never however, had the courage to ask for feedback for myself as a team member. It can be scary to do, especially if you are one to worry about the possibility of negative feedback/ criticism, as I am. This is an aspect that I will continue to work on.
While it is true that I worry at the thought of receiving feedback, I am very mature in the way I handle it. As I did with the feedback obtained from my Leadership and Communication group, I will thank anyone for any feedback that they provide for me. I will also take this feedback very seriously. I mean that in the sense that I will take their words to heart, and will be sure to implement steps necessary towards overcoming any negativity that I had received. To my pleasure, most of my feedback was generally positive, and I was satisfied with my scores. That’s another aspect about feedback; among the criticism is some positive feedback. This positive feedback is just as beneficial to me as the negative, as it gives me a greater understanding of my strengths. With a better understanding of my strengths, I can apply these characteristics more effectively towards acquiring any desired outcomes.