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Emotional Intelligence – Building the Skill of Self-Awareness

By Tammy Kapeller

The Stepping Stone, January 2023

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Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is your ability to understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships.[1] EQ is an important skill, and unlike IQ and personality, EQ is flexible and can be modified or improved.

This is the first in a four-part series dedicated to strategies for improving EQ, based on the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 written by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. I will explore four skills for improving EQ—self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. I will also discuss several of the 66 strategies highlighted in the book, with examples and personal insight from real-life situations to highlight how EQ skills can be applied.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your own emotions in the moment and understand your tendencies across situations.[2] Your emotions reflect how you respond to every situation and circumstance and are developed through your own personal history, experience, and values. The authors highlight self-awareness as a foundational skill and assert that 83 percent of people high in this skill are top performers, while just two percent of bottom performers are high in this skill.

What can happen when we let emotions take over? They can cause us to react inappropriately or shut down. We might behave in ways that are contrary to our values and become unhappy, angry, fearful, or embarrassed. We also tend to make poor decisions if we are not aware of what is causing our emotions.

So, how can we avoid letting our emotions rule our behavior? We can build skills to help us be more intentional, consider multiple perspectives, think differently, and act purposefully. Understanding why we react a certain way to people and situations can help us spot our triggers and practice productive ways to respond. If we practice often, we will begin to form good habits, avoid mistakes that hold us back, and experience more success.

Bradberry and Greaves list 15 strategies to build self-awareness skills. I will explore three of them:

  1. Know who and what pushes your buttons;
  2. Stop and ask yourself why you do the things you do; and
  3. Visit your values.

I will share a few examples to highlight these strategies and describe ways I have personally tried to grow in self-awareness.

Strategy 1: Know Who and What Pushes Your Buttons

We can probably all think of a person or situation that annoys us. I volunteer for an organization on a regular basis, and there is one person who can trigger responses and emotions that don’t represent the person I want to be. “Pat” and I are very similar in a lot of ways. In fact, when we first met, I thought we would be good friends. But the more I worked with Pat, the more we started butting heads.

It started when Pat asked me to help with a project. I thought it was an interesting one and readily agreed. When I showed up with the necessary materials, Pat proceeded to tell me exactly what to do. I questioned a few things and suggested alternatives. None of my suggestions were acceptable to Pat, so I found myself getting frustrated and shutting down. I believe I even said something like “I don’t care … let’s just get this done.” In subsequent interactions, I found myself reading between the lines to understand what Pat was really saying or implying.

The reactions and behaviors I experienced were not productive, so I took the time to explore what I was really feeling. Acknowledging that Pat is someone who pushes my buttons made it easier for me to stop before I reacted. Because I wanted the relationship to improve, and because the organization deserves positive outcomes, I wanted to find ways to work with Pat more effectively.

The first thing I had to acknowledge was that Pat wanted what is best for the organization, just like I did. Understanding that others have good intentions, even when we might not agree is a good start to getting along. I am trying harder to appreciate Pat’s perspective, communicate more effectively and establish clearer expectations. Trust is key to building relationships, so I have stopped avoiding Pat and try to be friendly and helpful in every encounter. I have tried to be a better listener and ask questions to understand different ideas. My relationship with Pat is improving slowly. Better understanding Pat’s perspective and intentions has made it easier for me to trust that our work together will be valuable, regardless of whose ideas are used. We have now accomplished several projects in a unified way, with less time spent debating.

It is equally important to understand if we are triggers for other people. If someone lashes out when you speak or is displaying negative non-verbal behavior, explore it further. You can ask others if they observe the behavior and whether they can provide insight as to what is happening.

Building a stronger relationship with the other person might be helpful. Think of ways you can get to know the person better and possibly get to a point where you can ask for feedback and have an open, honest conversation. Once you understand what might be annoying someone else, consciously begin to practice altering the behavior.

To practice the strategy of knowing who and what pushes your buttons, simply make a list of the people and situations that spark negative thoughts and behaviors.

Strategy 2: Stop and Ask Yourself Why You Do the Things You Do

Understanding why we react a certain way is key to changing an unwanted behavior. In the situation with Pat, I asked myself why I was so annoyed. The underlying cause of my stress was being asked to do something in a way that I did not feel was optimal. I also did not like being told what to do. If I dig deeper, many of my frustrations are centered around inefficiency and lack of control. If I’m honest with myself, I know that I like to do things my way.

When working on a team, no one likes a dictatorship. Everyone wants to contribute to a project or goal. At times, as a leader in my organization, I took control of a project and disregarded input and ideas from others. Becoming more aware of this behavior has made me understand that everyone’s opinion is valuable and diverse opinions will result in a better outcome that everyone is proud of and supports. I have learned to practice not being in control of every situation. Allowing others to lead allows me to follow in a trusting way and be more relaxed.

The Enneagram is a system of personality typing that describes patterns in how people interpret the world and manage their emotions. According to the Enneagram, each of the nine personality types is defined by a particular core belief about how the world works. This core belief drives your deepest motivations and fears—and fundamentally shapes a person's worldview and the perspective through which they see the world and the people around them.[3]

Using the Enneagram map as a guide, I have spent a little time exploring my personality type to learn more about what motivates me. I am ambitious, efficient, adaptable, driven, and results oriented. I tend to have a high level of optimism and push hard to succeed. My blind spots are failure, criticism and alternative perspectives. I find it difficult to discuss the possibility of failure, and sometimes people see me as impatient, rushed, and dismissive, especially if I view them as less competent.

Learning what makes us tick is interesting and scary at the same time. We make ourselves vulnerable when we accept the good, the bad and the ugly. Becoming aware of our blind spots and weaknesses allows us to work on those in a purposeful way.

For myself, I need to ask people for their thoughts, slow down and acknowledge when things have not worked well. I am a huge fan of the Agile Philosophy[4] and admire the concept of fail fast, learn and adapt. It fits with my strength of adaptability but allows me to admit failures in a constructive way, meeting my motivation of optimism as well.

To practice the strategy of knowing why you do what you do, Bradberry and Greaves suggest asking yourself why surprising emotions are coming to the surface and what motivated you to do something out of character. If you remember the first time you acted a certain way and with whom, you may be able to understand the origin and purpose of your emotions. What is similar now compared to the original situation? Do specific people trigger certain emotions, or is it a specific situation where anyone can cause the emotion?

Strategy 3: Visit Your Values

Every one of us has a set of values that define what we believe. As authentic humans, we want our actions to always reflect our values. Unfortunately, emotions can get in the way of behaving the way we want.

As an example, have you experienced road rage? When I find myself yelling at a driver, I stop and ask myself if I would yell at them if they were standing in front of me. Of course not! Sometimes I try to substitute the driver with a relative or neighbor, so the person becomes someone I care about and not some inanimate object.

I remember an incident when I was working on a system transformation and was looking for people to help define requirements. I called in a young actuary to get her opinion on what we could do differently with the pricing process, and she responded by saying she thought the current process was fine and couldn’t think of any improvements. I was not very kind in my response and did not include her in future discussions.

I value mentoring and helping people in their career development, but because I was annoyed at this person’s answer, I did not act according to my values. I should have shown empathy by putting myself in her position. Maybe she was concerned about her team not wanting to change the status quo, she was too new to think of workable alternatives, or perhaps she was intimidated and didn’t feel her opinion would be valued.

I should have asked more questions and slowly approached what was working, what wasn’t and what could be improved. I should have included this person in more meetings so she could learn more about the organization, its processes, and how everything needed to work together. I should have let her know that I valued her and her opinions.

To practice the strategy of visiting your values, Bradberry and Greaves suggest listing your core values in one column and recent actions you’ve taken in another. Are your actions consistent with your values? For areas of inconsistency, consider alternative approaches you might have taken. If you practice this on a regular basis, you will recognize more quickly when your actions are out of alignment with your actions.

Summary

The benefits of being self-aware are huge. In addition to lowering stress and becoming happier, having a greater ability to regulate our emotions gives us confidence, helps us communicate better, allows us to understand multiple perspectives, builds trusting relationships, and frees us from our assumptions and biases. Ultimately, this gives us more potential to influence others and make better decisions.

Statements of fact and opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors and are not necessarily those of the Society of Actuaries, the editors, or the respective authors’ employers.


Tammy Kapeller, ACC, FSA, MBA, is an executive leadership coach at Candid Consulting, LLC in Overland Park, Kansas. She can be reached at Tammy@CandidConsultingLLC.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammy-kapeller-candidconsultingllc/.

Endnotes

[1]Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 (TalentSmart, 2009).

[2] IBID.

[3] What Is the Enneagram of Personality? | Truity

[4] 12 Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto | Agile Alliance