The Importance of Self-Awareness for The Project Manager

One of the key tasks of leadership is to direct attention. In order to do this, a project manager needs to have the ability to focus their own attention. Whilst we consider focused to mean thinking about one thing whilst ignoring distractions, it is still possible to be focused on a number of different things at the same time.

These focuses can be divided into three separate groups, focusing on others, focusing on yourself, and focusing on the world in general. This offers a new way of looking at many of those all-important project management skills that are essential to the role.

When someone focuses on themselves and also on others, it can help them to develop a better understanding of emotional intelligence. It can also improve their abilities to innovate, manage and devise strategies.

It is important for every project manager to develop these three categories of awareness. After all, when they fail to do so it can result in problems within the team.

Focus On Yourself

In order to become more self-aware, it is important to be in touch with the inner voice. This helps a project manager focus on more resources in order to connect with what is authentic. If you want to hear your inner voice and be more self-aware, then you need to pay attention carefully to the signals that are there. These are subtle cues that the frontal lobes of the brain keep a special eye on. One very common way in which people focus on enhancing their self-awareness is by paying attention to their own heartbeat. 

As a project manager, it is also a good idea to stay focused on your “gut feelings”. These can often be a good indication of when something is wrong or right. Of course, they are not always correct, but they can often be a good starting point when it comes to self-awareness. 

Another aspect of self-awareness that needs to be considered is the feelings that occur when a loss is suffered in a project. The anxiety that this can cause is something that even the most qualified project manager can take from one project to another. It isn’t a bad thing but rather something that helps them become more self-aware. It is actually something of a critical skill that gives someone more of an open awareness into what is going on around them. 

Consider Others

Whilst a project manager is in charge of a project, they also have a responsibility to the project team. In order to be the best manager that they can be, it is important that they understand themselves so they can better understand those people who they are working with. If we think about the question “what is project management?” in this context, it is about more than just the project itself. It is about everything that makes up the project, including their feelings, emotions and worries. A self-aware project manager is much more in tune with how these things might affect the members of their team and this means they listen.