social awareness

every human has four endowments — self-awareness, conscience, independent will and creative imagination. these give us the ultimate human freedom… the power to choose, to respond, to change.

Stephen Covey

let’s first remind ourselves the four aspects of emotional intelligence:

it is through self-awareness and empathy that we are enabled to expand our social awareness. and through self-regulation and social awareness, we reach co-regulation. emotional intelligence, simply put, helps us to make our emotions work for us, instead of against us. it encompasses managing our emotions as well as observing, understanding, and relating to the emotions of others.

self-awareness trains our capacity to be aware of emotion. self-regulating takes this deeper and exercises our emotional self-management and our adaptability. empathy bridges us into social awareness, where our situational or other-awareness expands. this brings us to co-regulation, where influence, coaching, mentoring, conflict management, teamwork, and leadership are at play.

perceptive

if there is one quality that typifies social awareness, it would be the human capacity to perceive. social awareness is the ability to accurately read others and their emotions, including those from diverse backgrounds and cultures. perception becomes reflective, thoughtful and inspirational when we mature in social awareness. due to this perceptiveness, we can adjust ourselves and become other-oriented. as you can probably tell, empathy plays a powerful role in this process; empathy towards myself in terms of managing my emotions, and empathy towards others in understanding and relating to their emotions.

social awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on for them.

Travis Bradberry

in his book Social Intelligence: The new science of success, Karl Albrecht proposes five key traits of social awareness. they’re encapsulated by the acronym SPACE; situational awareness; presence; authenticity; clarity; and empathy. let’s take a deeper look into each of them.

situational awareness

situational awareness most directly means being aware of others, their feelings, and your impact on them. in other words, really acknowledging others. if you find yourself continually upsetting others unintentionally, or physically bumping into things, your situational awareness may need some practice.

the socially aware person is able to maintain a social radar, noticing people’s emotional states, intentions, and interaction styles. this seems simple, but in practice becomes quite nuanced, for example, when we realize that we don’t need to discuss our great day with a person who looks sad or worried, even if we really want to share our good fortune with someone. in the deepest sense it consists of a mental map that helps us to understand where we are, what surrounds us, and what the possible challenges could be. situational awareness means that we can stand back from our experience and see it within its context. Albrecht suggests that we make time to consciously watch people, making sense of their verbal and non-verbal communication, their personality, and the social dynamic. the socially aware person would be paying deep attention to appearance, emotion, gesture, tone, and interest. we can also perceive our own experience with greater clarity, asking ourselves: “how do i feel right now? what triggered this state? what do i think about how i feel? what is the environment like (threatening or favorable)? which aspects of this situation have potential?”

presence

when you look at a tree and perceive its stillness, you become still yourself.

Eckhart Tolle

the person with high social awareness recognizes that it is not their time that is their greatest asset, but their ability to be present. they see interaction as a learning opportunity. being present means that i’m not only there physically, but even more importantly, emotionally, and attentively. for most of us, this is a very difficult skill to develop. not only do we need to resist the distractions around us or on our phone, but we also need to be undistracted by our own thoughts or agenda. ways to develop our presence will include mindfulness, meditation, and being with others without thinking exclusively about our own needs. when we truly want to be present, we must stay off our phone, not only making eye contact but maintaining it. we need to stay aware of our own feelings as much as the feelings of others. we need to contain and modulate our expressions in a way that contains others. pivotally, presence also means that we are deeply connected with our own authenticity. it will not help to simply fake the behaviors just described, or to become hypervigilant. our inauthenticity or strain will be felt by others.

you must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.

Henry Thoreau

authenticity

authenticity is a respect for our self, faith in personal values, and being candid with others. we know that we’re authentic when we’re willing to speak our truth when it is difficult to do so. our values play a profound role here, as they define the person we want to be. self-awareness completes the cycle, enabling us to be aware of whether we are living up to our own values. it is helpful to create a mission statement for yourself. don’t overthink this. simply ask yourself what you most deeply want to bring into the world. what makes you feel alive? natural gifts and talents? what have you learned from experience? who is the person you have become, and further want to become?

authentic people are highly self-aware, and deeply aware of their impact on others. this self-awareness also leads to greater mindfulness and realistic expectations. because authentic people are not self-deceiving (but self-accepting), they see reality with the same clarity. they express their emotions freely and clearly. the authentic person is also willing to learn from “mistakes.” they are self-forgiving (humble) and do not expect themselves to have all the answers in advance. so, when there is a mistake, they experience it as a learning opportunity, no matter whether it may be painful or not.

authentic people tend to know what they want, because they are living their values. they understand their own motivations and are free of the need of approval. often, they walk to an “inner drum.” their greatest gift to others is creating the space for others to also be authentic; to walk their talk.

clarity

if you are tuned out of your own emotions, you will be poor at reading them in other people.

Daniel Goleman

socially aware people can speak their truth, thoughts, and feelings in a clear and easy to digest manner. they don’t need to blame or become reactive. listening more than they speak, they use questions to explore more deeply, leading to greater clarity in their understanding. they are aware of what would be difficult to hear, and adapt to the needs of the person they are with. when we want to learn to speak with more clarity, it is helpful to write what you want to say, or deeply reflect on what you want to say. look for people who you regard as good and clear speakers and pay attention to their presentation, their reasoning, and how they deal with difficult situations.

be flexible. clarity makes it easier to focus on the “third position.” in difficult situations reflect on your needs (first position). now focus on other’s needs (second position). now find position three, that strives to give to some of the needs of both positions one and two, but finds the way that is us, rather than i. this is only possible when we can understand and empathize with the opposite view.

empathy

you can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.

John Steinbeck

it is not possible to have social awareness unless we are empathic. reflect on the following: am i giving people room to express themselves? am i connecting with their feelings? can i step back to see different perspectives and reasoning? can i be with the feelings of others without trying to fix anything? can i be quiet to make space for painful feeling?

empathic people give themselves for the sake of giving and not to receive something in return. they know that life is relationship and not transaction. as we’ve discussed in our program on empathy, the first step into empathy is staying out of judgment. listening without jumping to conclusions. listening to understand, rather than to argue or reason. the next step would be perspective taking. the more deeply we listen to others, the more it is possible to hear and recognize their feelings, even if we would feel vastly different feelings under the same circumstance. the final step is the ability to express our understanding of their emotion, or to hold their emotion in silence.

some more ways to develop social awareness

seek feedback: the way we see ourselves is often very different from how others may perceive us. only by combining your view and their view can you develop a clearer picture of who you are, and the way you are with others.

ask reflective questions: especially when we want to assist a friend in need, or need to get to know a new person quickly, it helps to have some reflective questions. here are a few:

• what brings you joy (or another emotion/state)?
• how do you deal with anger (or another strong emotion)?
• what are you afraid of?
• where do you go (or what do you do) to find support?
• how do you take care of yourself in a situation like this?
• what makes you feel alive?
• what is the most important thing to learn, here?
• how do you manage anxiety?

the beauty of social awareness is that a few simple adjustments to what you say can vastly improve your relationship with other people.

Travis Bradberry