Self-awareness is the foundation of all soft skills

Biz School Best Practice: Key Takeaways, PART 2
By George ILIEV, #RepurposeEducation

Self-awareness is the foundation for developing all soft skills (leadership, communication, negotiation) and should be the starting point in teaching Organisational Behaviour, Leadership, and Human Resources Management at business schools. 

1. DIAGNOSTIC TESTS
There are 2 useful self-diagnostic tests for this:
A) The Big Five Personality Traits test, centred on measuring five factors: Openness, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Extraversion, and Neuroticism (combined in the acronym OCEAN).
B) The Nine Belbin Team Roles, divided into Thinking-oriented, Action-oriented and People-oriented roles.
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C) In the past the Myers-Briggs test used to be considered standard. However, it has been dismissed as unscientific in the last decade, as there are multiple issues around how it identifies and measures Extroversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving.

2. ANIMAL SELF-AWARENESS
We keep discovering more and more animal species that can pass "the mirror test" of recognising themselves in a mirror, including dolphins, whales, primates, elephants and magpies. If the animals can do it, we should be able to do it too in all circumstances.

3. CHINESE WISDOM
Laozi said it 2,500 years ago: "知人者智，自知者明"
"Those who understand the others are clever, but those who know themselves are truly wise."

Asian elephants can recognise their face in a mirror

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