Identifying the ideal self

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Contents

Introduction

1. Identifying my Ideal Self

2. My Real Self

3. Feedback From Others

4. My Learning Agenda

Conclustion

References

Introduction

My name is Gavin le Roux and I am currently the Parts Manager at Hatfield VW Braamfontein. I have been employed in my current company almost 6 years, been a Parts Manager for the past 9 years and been in the Parts environment for over 13 years.

I have many goals and aspirations, both personal and within my department, many of which I have achieved and excelled at and some which I am still working towards. One of my major goals is to become a Dealer Principal, and for me to be able to peruse this and be successful in achieving this I will need to become a more effective leader.

So how do I become a more effective leader? Well first I to identify my Ideal Self which is the person I would ideally like to be and invasion myself to be, and to take the necessary steps and actions to work towards becoming that person. Second would be to understand myself better by means of acknowledging who I currently am, my core values, causes of my behavior. Thirdly I would need to gather honest feedback from others as to attain my current positive and negative behaviors. Lastly would be to populate a personal growth learning agenda to identify key growth areas.

1. Identifying my Ideal Self

As a Manager at my company I have vision to both grow my department and myself. In being able to be successful at this I need to identify my Ideal Self, which is the person which I ideally desire to be.

I have spent some time reflecting on where I currently am and what I have achieved at my company and where I would to take my department and myself to. During this process I have identified both strengths and weaknesses and have identified key characteristics and traits which I would require to master in being able to achieve in being my Ideal self within my company. These characteristics and traits are as follows:

To be an effective and successful leader
To be enthusiastic and have a positive attitude
To support my team at all times and with all aspects
Have excellent Interpersonal skills
To be confident
To communicate effectively with my team
Inspiring

Through these values I believe I can grow both my department and myself and be able to take my team and department to the next level and also reach my personal goals within the company which is to become a Dealer Principal. I want to leave a legacy behind me in my company and be known as the leader that took his department from zero to hero. A leader that set solid foundations, had great vision and implemented strategies to achieve his visions, a leader who was innovative and continually contributed to the growth of his department.

Growth in my department will not come from me alone, but from me and my staff as a unit. For me to be able to get my staffs support and buy in I first need to master myself and understand myself in depth before I can master others and become a successful leader.

The next step is achieving the necessary changes to myself in being able to get closer to being my Ideal Self is to apply Personal Mastery. Personal Mastery is the ability to see where I am as a person at present vs. the Ideal person I want to be, and to continually work towards improvement in being that person.

As I have already identified my key traits in being my Ideal self within my company, Personal Mastery will now assist me in my journey towards continuous improvement towards applying my desired traits. It’s all about self-discipline and taking responsibility to implement the necessary changes.

“People with a high level of personal mastery are acutely aware of their ignorance, their incompetence, their growth areas. And they are deeply self-confident” (Senge, 1990).

In addition to Personal Mastery, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is another tool which will assist me in my journey to getting closer to my ideal self as it will assist me with the ability to deal effectively with my team.

Daniel Goleman describes emotional intelligence as “managing feelings so that they are expressed appropriately and effectively, enabling people to work together smoothly toward their common goals.”

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth (Mayer & Salovey,1997) The ability to understand, interpret, and respond to the emotions of my staff will be a huge benefit for me in being a more effective leader.

I am going to integrate my results from my Myers-Briggs Type indicator (MBTI) Personality report into EQ to illustrate my stronger areas and areas I need to focus on in terms of EQ. My MBTI results listed me as an ISFJ (Introversion, Sensing, Feeling, Judging) Personality.

My Strong areas in relation to EQ are:

I notice what needs to be done to help people, I am sympathetic, tactful, and supportive to others in need and I notice and do little things that help others feel good. Now looking at key components in EQ, Empathy is vital in understanding the others emotions and being able to handle them in accordance to their emotional reactions.
I accept responsibility beyond the call of duty and follow through until my work is completed. This relates back to a key factor in EQ – Motivation, which is the passion to work for reasons beyond money or status and to peruse goal with energy and persistence.

My areas which I would need improvement on in relation to EQ are:

When I am in a crisis, I find it difficult to remain calm and composed. I find it hard to hide my distress and worry until the situation is resolved. EQ is very much about self-awareness and self-regulation, I need to train myself to be more in tune with my moods and emotions, to control them better and be able understand them and use them more effectively.
I am an Introvert and am hence reserved, quite, private. EQ requires Social Skill for the ability to manage relationships and build networks.

Understanding Emotional Intelligence will play a key role in helping me grow as a leader.

2. My Real Self

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be.” (Alan Watts)

I’ve learnt we as people often hide parts of our core personality behind a mask in an effort to cover-up our flaws and insecurities. We’ve been brought up in a world where people around us are like mirrors, reflecting distorted images of who we are and these distorted images are actually of their own brokenness and pain. This unfortunately submerges our true self beneath the surface. As soon as we try to reveal our trues self we are quickly judged and this pushes our true self even deeper under the surface and we replace it with a more acceptable self, a fake.

I’m going to use a few tools to give you a look into my Real-Self or alternatively worded as my “True-Self”.

First tool is the “My Ice-burg” concept which is based on an iceberg floating in the ocean with part of it above the waterline and the rest of it below the waterline. Above the waterline my mask, my cover-up to the world and also my conscious mind. Below the waterline is my True self, which has been suppressed over time by numerous factors, and this area is also my unconscious mind.

I have identified myself as illustrated below:

I need to allow all of which lays below the water line to surface and to face it head on to be able to unleash my true self.

“Our true self is here now, but it has been pushed beneath the surface by the hands of time and pain and fear”

The second tool is Life Positions which is based on views and beliefs about ourselves and others. There are 4 basic Life Positions and Franklyn Ernest (1971) created the diagram below to illustrate these positions:

Franklyn Ernst (1971)

After spending some time trying to be brutally honest with myself in identifying where I am positioned in this grid, I found myself to be between two quadrants which are

“I am OK / You are OK” and “I am OK / You are not OK.

So why between two quadrants? Well, I see myself as someone who is quite happy with both myself and others, I feel very much in control of my own life and don’t rely on others to achieve this, I have high standards and I don’t always look at others as having lower standards for themselves. In short I’m very much happy go lucky. Now, on the other hand I can also be find myself sometimes blaming others and wanting to be right and being firm. This is why I find myself to be between two quadrants, as I see mixed traits in my Real Self from both “I am OK / You are OK” and “I am OK / You are not OK.

3. Feedback From Others

STOP, START & CONTINUE FEEDBACK

COMPARED TO MY OWN UNDERSTANDING OF MYSELF

FROM 7 PEOPLE

STOP

DIFFERENCES

SIMILARITIES

BLINDSPOTS

Presenting problems without a solution

I feel like I do add solutions

None

Defiantly caught me by surprise. Not aware I was doing this

Thinking Management is out to get you

Often doing this as a joke

I agree that I do this due to various circumstances, but will work on stopping this action

Wasn’t aware this was being taken seriously

Being so stern

Thought I was quite an easy going, understanding Manager

None

I had no idea that I was been portrayed as someone who is “stern”. This is defiantly an area I need to uncover more and work on

Trying to maximise your profit with internal sales

I thought I was assisting them by offering internal discounts, will investigate reason for this perception

None

Wasn’t aware this

Not asking for help

I feel as if I do ask for help

None

Not aware of this point – Need to unpack more to understand in more detail

Not allowing opportunity to talk during conflict

I thought I did allow opportunity to talk

Been told in the past that I do this

Never knew I was still doing this

START

DIFFERENCES

SIMILARITIES

BLINDSPOTS

Thinking out of the box

I always thought I do

None

Taken by surprise with this

Communicate department strategy in management meetings

None

Agreed – I am very quiet in Management meetings and don’t disclose my strategies

None

Interacting with all staff

None

Agreed – I don’t interact as often as I should, due to my introvert facet

None

Giving more positive and encouraging comments

I feel that I do portray positives

I do get negative at times

Was not aware that I wasn’t being as positive as I should be

Trusting people more

None

This is a weakness of mine – Something Personal Mastery will assist me with going forward

None

Visit Parts sales office more

None

Defiantly agree – I don’t do this as often as I should.

Was not aware that this was something my staff wanted

Having regular meetings with all staff

None

Agreed with this and my staff have mentioned to me on numerous occasions

None

Being more Positive

I feel that I do portray positive

I do get negative at times

Was not aware that I wasn’t being as positive as I should be

Being more of a Team Player

Always felt like a team player in the company

None

Caught me by surprise. Need to unpack and correct perception

Socialising more with Management team

None

Agreed – I keep to myself

Was not aware that Management was bothered about this

Ask for assistance when needed

I feel as if I do ask for help

None

Not aware of this point – Need to unpack more to understand in more detail

Listening Better

Thought I was actually a good listener

I have been told the same by others

Did not know this was still an issue

CONTINUE

DIFFERENCES

SIMILARITIES

BLINDSPOTS

Controlling department with regards to costs, income and staff

None

Agreed

Was nice to know that this was being noticed

Positive outlook on my department

None

Agreed

None

Keeping people on their toes

None

Agreed

Was nice to know that this was being noticed

Controlling department

None

Agreed

None

The systems in place to manage the department

None

Agreed

Good to know that this came from one of my staff

Visiting customers and gathering information on how we can improve service

It’s more my Representative that does this, but understand that this could be generalised

Agreed

Reassuring that my staff see the value in customer retention

Assisting and backing up New Cars

None

Agreed

None

Smiling

None

I know I do this

I did not know this was noticed

Communicating important issues

None

Agreed

None

Verifying before actioning process

I know that on occasion I do jump the gun

I do often get all the facts before taking action

None

Effective time management

None

Agreed

None

Caring & Loving

None

Agreed

None

4. My Learning Agenda
Conclustion
References

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Available at: http://www.mountain-associates.co.uk/life_positions.html

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Available at: http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/2010/01/top-12-development-goals-for-leaders.html

[Accessed 03 April 2014].

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[Accessed 28 March 2014].

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[Accessed 26 March 2014].