Content uploaded by Richard J Klimoski
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Richard J Klimoski on Jan 30, 2017
Content may be subject to copyright.
Improving Self-Awareness and Self-Insight
Abstract
This chapter is designed to review the multiple ways that one can improve the capacity to seek or generate selfrelevant information (self-knowledge) and ways to promote regular self-awareness and (occasional) self-insight. Self-insight generally implies the level of understanding that exists relative to the nature of one's self-system (selfdefinition, needs, goals, attributes), while self-knowledge relates to the accuracy of introspection about these internal states and capacities (Wilson, 2009). These are thought to be at the core of interpersonal competence, a capability absolutely essential in today's work organization. While the "voice" of the chapter is that aimed at informing the human resources (HR) professional or practitioner, the material covered would be useful to individuals who are personally motivated to know more about how they might become more effective interpersonally through efforts at improving self-knowledge and self-insight.
... Studies consistently reveal the benefits of self-insight on leader effectiveness (e.g., Klimoski & Hu, 2011). In the current context, self-insight enables leaders to accurately assess their own strengths and weaknesses as they relate to EM. ...
... Self-insight also may be significant is demonstrating consideration and support for employees. Self-insight facilitates real-time monitoring of one's own emotions and behaviors, as well as those of others' (Klimoski & Hu, 2011), and is an important determinant of interpersonal effectiveness (Snyder, 1974). Similar to the logic above, then, leaders with better awareness should be especially effective both in detecting the emotional needs of others and in tailoring behaviors for specific scenarios and employees (Liu, Lepak, Takeuchi, & Sims, 2003). ...
... Being aware of one's charisma, for example, would allow the leader to draw from that characteristic in bringing about the intended performance. Conversely, leaders who accurately recognize their lack of charisma may choose a alternative strategy, defer to a more adept colleague to incite the intended motivation, and/or recognize a need to improve this knowledge (Klimoski & Hu, 2011). ...
The actions of organizational leaders are important determinants of the emergence, management, and consequences of employee emotional experience. However, the nature and dimensionality of leader emotion management and the behaviors that constitute such management are largely unknown. The authors present a comprehensive, theoretically-derived model of leader emotion management which clarifies the nature of emotion management and its role in leadership. This model also delineates the knowledge and skill-based antecedents of emotion management and the consequences of such management. Specifically, we propose linkages between particular KSAOs and specific emotion management dimensions and between those dimensions and particular individual and organizational outcomes. The model is meant to serve as a framework to guide empirical efforts in investigating the nature and correlates of leader emotion management.
... Moreover, improvement of self-insight (i.e., self-me coherence) has been a central therapeutic issue since the origins of psychoanalysis (or even before). Since then, numerous interventions have been developed to increase self-me coherence (for an overview, see Klimoski & Hu, 2011). ...
Several psychological approaches concern explaining the dynamic psychological processes and mechanisms that render personality a coherent whole, a “well-sounding concert.” Building upon personality systems interactions (PSI) theory, which explains personality functioning on the basis of interactions among cognitive and affective-motivational personality systems, we demonstrate how diverse perspectives on personality coherence may functionally be integrated. To do so, we describe interactions among four cognitive personality systems considered to underlie and optimize two meta principles of personality functioning—self-growth (in terms of the integration of adverse experiences) and action control (in terms of goal pursuit). These meta principles establish different subtypes of personality coherence differentially focused by psychological perspectives. We highlight the interdisciplinary relevance and practical application of the present approach and conclude with implications for future research.
... Practices popular in industry and designed to promote leader competencies appear to have gained some traction in MBA programs (Dragoni et al., 2009;Hooijberg & Lane, 2009;Waldman & Korbar, 2004). A recent review of the literature (Klimoski & Hu, 2011) identified several common tools of the business world for leader development that have been adopted by universities. These include providing multisource 360feedback (Brett & Atwater, 2001;Hooijberg & Lane, 2009), coaching (Dragoni et al., 2009), mentoring (Hall Hall, & Kram, 2008Parker, Hall, & Kram, 2008), service learning (Steiner & Watson, 2006), personality assessments (Dragoni et al., 2009), clinical counseling (Petriglieri et al., 2011), international travel (Ng, Van Dyne, & Ang, 2009), and developmental assignments (DeRue & Wellman, 2009;Dragoni et al., 2009). ...
There are real challenges involved in achieving success in developing individuals into effective leaders. This seems to be particularly true for those of us interested in promoting leader development in university-based MBA programs. It would seem reasonable that attempts to transform students into leaders would rely on what the field of leadership education knows from research and practice about leader development. However, we point out the irony that-university faculty, those who are usually on the cutting edge of leadership scholarship and who are also in an excellent position to apply the findings from this research, seem not to be doing this. It appears that, as they say, the "cobbler's children have no shoes." After disentangling some of the possible reasons for this, we observe that as university educators, we might want to remedy this curious state of affairs by turning to empirically valid models of how to transform organizations so that we really are capable of transforming our students into leaders.
This study investigated employees’ views about how their supervisors would rate their job performance (i.e., employees’ metaperceptions). Two hundred forty employees from a high-tech firm provided self- and metaperception job performance ratings, and their supervisors also provided ratings of the employees’ performance. The study produced several notable findings, including that metaperceptions were more strongly related to supervisory ratings than were self-ratings, that meta-accuracy was stronger for task versus contextual performance, and that employees who engaged in more impression management behavior exhibited higher meta-accuracy. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
To assess whether emotional intelligence (EI) is related to self-assessed relationship quality, an ability test of EI and measures of relationship quality were administered to 86 heterosexual couples in a university setting. Results indicated that female partners were significantly higher in EI than male partners and that EI scores were uncorrelated within couples. Two 2 × 2 multiple analyses of variance (performed separately for positive and negative outcomes) assessed how relationship quality measures differed across four different types of couples (high-EI female/high-EI male, low-EI female/low-EI male, etc.). As predicted, couples with both partners low on EI tended to have the lowest scores on depth, support, and positive relationship quality and the highest scores on conflict and negative relationship quality. Counter to our hypotheses, couples with both partners high on EI did not consistently have higher scores on positive outcomes and lower scores on negative outcomes than couples with one high-EI partner.
The current research examined the interaction between self-complexity, affect, and perceived goal attainability on self-regulation. Participants received failure feedback about their performance and were given the opportunity to reduce this discrepancy through practice. Greater self-complexity was associated with greater practice, regardless of affect and perceived effectiveness of practice. Lower self-complexity was only associated with greater practice when participants experienced negative affect and believed practice was effective at improving performance. These results suggest that those greater in self-complexity self-regulate when external cues signal the presence of a self-discrepancy, whereas those lower in self-complexity self-regulate when negative affect signals the presence of a discrepancy. However, when the discrepancy cannot be reduced directly, lower self-complexity individuals escape the situation to avoid negative affect.
Notes that ratings for performance appraisal are frequently made by supervisors. In the present study, judgments of effectiveness for 153 hospital nurses were obtained from the nurse herself and her peers in addition to her supervisor, using the same rating form. Factor analysis indicated that each rating source could be clearly identified and characterized. The data reaffirm the notion that interrater disagreement may reflect systematic rater bias as well as meaningful differences in the ways in which judgments are made. Implications for comprehensive appraisals are suggested. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article draws on research and theory on social information processing to understand how people learn about themselves and others in organizations. Interpersonal insight stems from four key components of cognition: receiving performance feedback, categorizing the information, attributing cause, and re-evaluating perceptions of oneself and others. The article examines how this process can be applied to self-insight and insight into one-on-one relationships, group dynamics, and negotiations. Implications for research and practice in human resource development are discussed.
Executive Overview Delivering critical feedback can be brutal for everyone involved. Most managers hate giving critical feedback, and most employees detest receiving it. In addition, critical feedback often fails to produce the desired results. We describe how cognitive and emotional dynamics—how we think and feel while giving and receiving feedback—can complicate this process, making it more painful and less useful than it should be. These dynamics often interfere with the ability of recipients to process and respond constructively to feedback. They also interfere with the ability of feedback givers to formulate and deliver feedback that is high quality and does not produce defensiveness. Further complicating matters, both feedback givers and receivers have a difficult time recognizing how their own cognitive and emotional dynamics are hindering their effectiveness in the feedback process. We illustrate how these dynamics hamper the feedback giving and receiving process and how understanding them can help managers produce more actionable feedback on performance (feedback that leads to learning and appropriate results).
Mentoring may be seen as a process that helps student teachers become professional teachers. In this context, a variety of significant roles played by mentors have been identified in the literature. This paper reports on mentors' perceptions of the most important roles selected from a given list, as revealed through questionnaire and interview data. This analysis forms part of a large‐scale evaluative project of a school–university partnership scheme initiated by the University of Hong Kong. The findings indicate overwhelming attention given to the role of ‘provider of feedback’, which stresses the provision of pragmatic advice given to student teachers according to their personal strengths and weaknesses. However, for those mentors whose perception of the most important role had changed over time, the direction of change was towards roles such as ‘counselor’, ‘equal partner’ and ‘critical friend’, which emphasize a more relational aspect of working together with student teachers to achieve professional development.
The initiation of formal mentoring has become a widespread practice in public and private organizations. This paper reports results from a one-year longitudinal quasi-experiment which examined the effectiveness of a formal mentoring program at a Fortune 100 corporation. Employees who participated in the program were compared with a control group who reported never having had a mentor. Results showed that subjects with formal mentors reported significantly higher levels of job satisfaction. While a small to medium effect for participation in the mentor program was observed for organizational commitment, this effect failed to reach statistical significance in the current study. Subjects participating in the mentor program did not differ from their nonmentored counterparts in terms of work-role stress or self-esteem at work. These results suggest that a formal mentor program can have positive effects on individual and organizational outcomes, but its effectiveness may not be as extensive as widely assumed.
Previous studies have found that self-monitoring can enhance the job performance of women in traditional male occupations (computer sales, management). The present study tested for this same enhancement effect among men in the traditional female job of staff nurse. Correlations between nurses' scores on the revised Self-Monitoring Test and hospital performance evaluations indicated that the self-monitoring factor of Sensitivity to Expressive Behavior of Others was highly correlated with male nurses' job success but was uncorrelated with female staff nurses' job success. This same self-monitoring factor was also correlated with the job success of female nursing administrators, a job that is "nontraditional" for women in the sense that masculine occupation expectations are generally associated with leadership and management behaviors. It was concluded that self-monitoring ability can facilitate adaptation to nontraditional occupations for both men and women probably because the social skills associated with high self-monitoring can enhance perceptions of occupation legitimacy.
Examined the importance of 5 underlying interpersonal trust components (competence, consistency, integrity, loyalty, and openness) as they affect trust among supervisors, subordinates, and peers. Ss were 66 supervisory and managerial level employees who were required to (1) have at least 1 individual reporting to them and (2) report to 1 individual. Questionnaires were used to measure dyadic trust. While the importance of conditions of trust differed within each dyad, the order of importance was the same for all 3 dyads: integrity>competence>loyalty>consistency>openness. Among dyads, no differences were found for the importance of integrity, competence, or loyalty, while consistency and openness were more important for trust in peers than for trust in supervisors or subordinates (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)