LearnaBytes

INTRODUCTION

Self-awareness is about understanding our emotions and their impact on ourselves and others. It is the first and foundational component that is necessary for developing emotional intelligence. This session will focus on exploring what self-awareness is and what self-awareness behaviour looks like.

DELIVERY MODE

• Virtual

DURATION (ESTIMATED)

• 45-minutes

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• describe what self-awareness is
• recognize what self-awareness behaviour looks like

WORKBOOK

• Yes

PREPARATION

• Read through all the resources (facilitation guide, workbook, and presentation) to understand how they all work together to deliver the session.

PREREQUISITES

• Participants should know what emotional intelligence is. They should also know what the four components of emotional intelligence are.

PARTICIPANTS GROUP SIZE

• Up to 16 people

INTRODUCE THE SESSION

Introduce the session by sharing the learning objectives with them. Display the slide titled – LEARNING OBJECTIVES.

After displaying the slide, tell them that:

• We already know what emotional intelligence is and we also know what the four components of emotional intelligence are.
• In this session, we are going to explore the first component of emotional intelligence which is self-awareness.
• We will answer two important questions which are, what is self-awareness? What does self-awareness behaviour look like?

Ask them for any questions and/or comments about what you just said. Listen to any they have and respond appropriately.

Then move on to answer the first question, what is self-awareness?

WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?

In this part of the session, the participants will explore what self-awareness is. Start by asking them the question, what is self-awareness? Tell them to write their answers in the chat window.

Give them 3-minutes to write down their definitions and as they do so, read through them quietly so you don’t distract them.

When the 3-minutes is up, stop and thank them for answering the question. Then let them know you are going to read through all their definitions.

You can read their definitions by saying something like, ‘Thanks Debra, you defined self-awareness as… And Kofi, you said self-awareness is …’

After you’ve read their definitions, tell them you also have a definition to share with them. Display the slide titled – WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?

Allow them to read the definition for 10-seconds. When they finish, check if they have any comments and listen to them. You don’t need to respond unless it is necessary.

Next, tell them you have more information on self-awareness that you want them to explore. Direct them to the section in their workbooks titled – WHAT IS SELF-AWARENESS?

Let them know that they will read the information there and in pairs discuss and summarise what they read. Afterwards, each of them will write a summary of what they read and discussed in the chat window.

Give them 8-minutes for the reading and discussion activity. When the time is up, stop them and bring everyone back to the main room. Let each person write a summary of what they read and discussed in the chat window.

Give them 2-minutes to write the summary and as they do so read through what they are writing quietly. When the 2-minutes is up, stop them. Don’t read out what they wrote but encourage them to read each other’s summaries. Give them up to an additional 2-minutes to do this.

After that, thank them for doing the activity and move on to answer the next question which is, what does self-awareness behaviour look like?

WHAT DOES SELF-AWARENESS BEHAVIOUR LOOK LIKE?

In this part of the session, the participants will explore what self-awareness behaviour looks like. In small groups they will work on scenarios of how two managers behaved in a difficult team meeting and demonstrated or did not demonstrate self-awareness.

Tell them that:

• We have just finished discussing what self-awareness is, now we want to explore what self-awareness behaviour looks like.
• This may be a bit challenging because a lot of self-awareness behaviour is unseen, but we can determine whether a person has self-awareness or not sometimes by how they respond to challenging situations or what they do under pressure.
• We are going to look at two scenarios with two managers in a meeting and see how each manager responds. You will discuss the scenarios in small groups and your aim will be to identify whether the managers demonstrated self-awareness or not.

Direct them to the section of their workbooks titled – TWO MEETINGS, TWO MANAGERS.

Use the ‘breakout’ rooms feature to split them into small groups. None of the groups should have more than four participants.

They have 15-minutes for the activity.

After 15-minutes, stop them and bring everyone back to the main room.

Thank them for doing the activity. Ask each group to give their feedback. What you want to hear from them is:

• How Leroy and Janet demonstrated or did not demonstrate self-awareness behaviour.
• If any of them did not demonstrate self-awareness, why do they think so.

Listen to them and after they finish giving feedback, thank them and display the slide titled – LEROY VS. JANET.

When the slide is displayed, allow them to read the information on it for about 2-minutes. Then tell them that:

• Both Leroy and Janet experienced the same challenging situation.
• They both had similar feelings of anger and being upset.
• But what separated their response to the situation was self-awareness.
• Leroy was aware of how he was feeling about the situation and how he really wanted to respond. But he used the awareness of how he was feeling to respond in a more positive way.
• Janet was not aware of how she was feeling or maybe she was and just ignored her feelings. She responded in an impulsive way that was not good for either her or the team.
• The key lesson here is to realise that in situations we will always experience certain emotions and feelings and being aware of them can help us manage how we respond.

After that ask them for any comments and/or questions that they have. Listen to any they have and respond appropriately. Then, direct them to the section of their workbooks titled – DAVE AND MELANY.

Tell them that:

• There is a section in your workbook titled – DAVE AND MELANY.
• Read the information there to see what colleagues said about their self-awareness.

Give them 4-minutes to read the information. When they finish reading, ask for their views about what they just read. Listen to them and only respond if necessary.

Next, move on to the final part of the session.

REVIEW, REFLECT AND CLOSE

Display the slide titled – REVIEW.

Tell them that:

• During this session, our aim was to learn more about what self-awareness is.
• First, we defined self-awareness.
• Then, we looked at what self-awareness behaviour looks like by exploring some scenarios and also reading about Maria who has strong self-awareness behaviour.
• Before we close the session, you will do a quick reflection on how what you discussed today will impact your own self-awareness.

Display the slide titled – REFLECT – NOTE – ACT.

Direct them to the part of their workbooks titled – REFLECT – NOTE – ACT. Give them 6-minutes to read the information there and do the reflective activity.

When the time is up, stop them and get everyone’s attention. Thank them for taking time to do the reflective activity. Ask each participant to share their thoughts about how what they learnt during the session will impact their own self-awareness.

Listen to them without commenting or asking any questions.

After that, thank them for their participation and close the session.

This is the end of the session.