Managing Personal Behaviour

Outline

How we present ourselves to the world makes an immediate, and often lasting, impression on others. Authenticity is your best bet in doing this. However, for many people, being themselves is difficult in situations where they do not feel completely safe. It is important that people in authority over others have self-knowledge and understand what their presentation of themselves says. Their credibility, and ability to work effectively with others, rests in large part on this.

Aim

To understand how you present yourself to the world

Objectives

• To be more aware of the personal attributes you possess
• To be able to present yourself in the best possible light
• To understand what attributes are seen as important by others
• To be able to modify your approach if and when it is not effective
• To be able to be authentic i.e. yourself

Outcomes

• Awareness of your personal attributes and becoming better at expressing them in your behaviour
• Understand the practical relevance of this to your performance
• You will stop wasting energy trying to fake it

Outline

Ego is defined, in the Oxford English Dictionary, as:

1 •n. a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. 2 psychoanalysis the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity. Compare with ID and SUPER-EGO. 3 philosophy (in metaphysics) a conscious thinking subject.

How your ego drives you to behave and express yourself can impact well or not on others. Many people are unaware of how their ego affects, informs and drives their minute-to-minute behaviour. An increased understanding of this can help in how effective you are in your career, in your personal life and in your life as a whole.

Having a better understanding of your ego and how it drives particular aspects of your behaviour can have a profound beneficial effect on your relationships, your effectiveness and on the quality of your whole life.

Aim

To reach a better understanding of your ego and the behaviour it is driving.

Objectives

• To understand what ego is and how it works.
• To understand the intimate link between your ego and your behaviour.
• To identify ways in which you could better manage your ego.
•  To understand how to strengthen specific behaviours and edit others, for better personal performance.
• To examine how your ego might drive, hinder or block your  performance and career progression.

Outcomes

•           A better understanding of your ego.
•           Clarity on when it works for you, when it works against you.
•           An understanding of how your ego drives effective behaviour.
•           An understanding of how your ego drives ineffective behaviour.
•           A personal development plan to change your behaviour.

Outline

The ability to manage pressure, stress and conflict is becoming more important by the day as we face increasing pressures in the working environment and results become ever more important. Inner conflict and inappropriate external demands cause stress, eroding our ability to deal effectively with other people and with difficult situations. Much pressure, stress and conflict at work is hidden but the results are visible and appear on the balance sheet.

Aim

To develop your ability to manage pressure and stress and understand and manage conflict productively

Objectives

• To understand how conflict leads to stress and how stress leads to conflict
• To understand how unresolved inner conflict causes external conflict and other problems
• To analyse what your optimum levels of stress are
• To explore what your personal style is with regard to conflict and its resolution
• To identify tactics to use when you are under stress
• To understand the links to assertiveness and influencing

Outcomes

• Understand the equation for stress and be able to use it appropriately
• Recognise and break the vicious cycle of stress – conflict – stress – conflict . . .
• Understand what causes you inner conflict
• Be able to resolve inner conflict and express confusion, difficulties or concerns appropriately
• Develop tactics to release your stress and stop it building up to the point where you become ineffective
• Identify those people and situations which cause you stress and be better able to anticipate them
• Plan rationally what to do when experiencing stress before you become emotionally ineffective or helpless

Outline

Change surrounds us and permeates our lives. We choose whether it just happens to us or we manage it when it does. Many fear or dislike change, rather than managing it they expend energy in, usually futile, resistance. Some change is imposed, some we choose. Just because we choose it does not mean that accepting it and dealing with it is easy. Much change is unstoppable, that does not mean that it cannot be slowed, understood and harnessed.

Change often has people reacting emotionally, becoming trapped in their feelings. Your feelings about change are a signal that you could use your thinking skills to plan a route through the change.

Aim

To be able to anticipate and plan for change

Objectives

• To understand the mental processes which occur when change is imminent
• To analyse what causes anxiety, worry or fear and what can be done about it
• To develop the ability to look ahead and anticipate change
• To be better able to use the thinking, rational part of the brain when dealing with change
• To improve in making practical plans to manage effects of change in a constructive way
• To work on how to be an initiator rather than a victim when change occurs

Outcomes

• Improvement in your thinking processes, and your confidence to act, in situations of change
• Better ability to gather and analyse information and plan and deploy resources when change is present
• Understanding how to analyse risk in a realistic way
• Be able to do all