Monday, May 14, 2012

How Important is it to be self-monitoring?

In the last blog, we looked at self-esteem and its implication to a practicing manager. In today's blog we look at the concept of "self-monitoring" and how a manager could make use of this understanding.

As humans, our survival and success in the process of evolution has been primarily through our ability to adapt to the changing scenario. We pick up cues from the environment and respond to the situation at hand - But do all humans respond to the cue with the same intensity? Absolutely not. This is what the concept of self-monitoring talks about. Self-monitoring refers to the extent to which people base their behavior on cues from other people and situation.

People with high self-monitor are respond to the cues from nature better than low self-monitors who are not so vigilant to situational cues and act from internal states rather than paying attention to the situation. This also means that the behavior of people with low self-esteem is consistent across situation, while the people with strong self-esteem are more unpredictable and less consistent.

It could be seen that people with high self-monitoring would be quickly promoted as they accomplish tasks by reaching the expectations of people they work with. They are extremely flexible; however this flexibility is not suited for every job!

Since, high self-monitors are very receptive to the situation and people around, they demonstrate higher levels of managerial self-awareness - they are able to assess their own workplace behavior pretty accurately. And in managerial positions these people would also be able to read their employees needs and change the way they interact with them based on the needs.

No comments:

Post a Comment