11.07.2023 Today’s Insights from CNBC: What’s the Most Under-rated Skill in Today’s Workplace?
Dear Students,
While we’ve all seen articles that claim to divulge the single “secret to professional success,” the CNBC piece below may prove more credible than these among ambitious international students like you, who we at Mandarin Consulting coach and develop.
Juliette Han, PhD, a Harvard-trained neuroscientist quoted by CNBC in the following article, argues that self-awarenessis perhaps actually the most critical to workplace effectiveness. Self-awareness, as she describes it, represents a constellation of attributes and skills, including:
- Ability to reflect on your own strengths
- Capacity to map these strengths to appropriate goals (both short and long-term)
- Openness to your being truly honest with yourself about what you most enjoy doing, which competencies you prefer using, etc. (vs. which you were raised to view as acceptable and/or reflective of your parents’ desires)
- Candid self-reflection and on which activities a young professional like you could see yourself performing consistently over time
Dr. Han also highlights benefits that self-awareness imparts, encompassing:
- Helping aspiring professionals like you to be more creative
- Making “sounder” decisions within your academic and professional environments
- Willingness to accept constructive and/or surprising developmental feedback
- Communicating more effectively with all stakeholders with whom you interact
- Building stronger relationships through collaboration with your coworkers
Because our MC coaching and development efforts emphasize competencies similar to these concepts, aspiring professionals like you who we coach may find the notion of “self-awareness,” as a foundation to many of the other “power skills” in our coaching program, to be intuitive, when unpacked in your ongoing sessions with our coaches.
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Research suggests that developing self-awareness helps us be more creative, make sounder decisions, communicate better and build stronger relationships.
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As self-awareness provides a meaningful introspective tool for candidates like you, our coaches are here to ensure that every single one of you continues to strengthen your muscles in this key skill, throughout your MC coaching experience.