The Michael Scott Syndrome

Self-awareness is not difficult to define, but is incredibly difficult to admit when we lack it; and, it is incredibly difficult to identify in ourselves. In fact, we tend to recognize weakness and dysfunction in others way easier than we notice it in ourselves. As a result, we often fail to see what needs to be fixed when looking in the mirror.

Increasing our self-awareness is such an underestimated and overlooked component in this critical quest for relational intelligence.

I'm convinced that our pursuit of relational intelligence must begin with self-awareness because it frames the entire conversation around being honest with ourselves first and foremost. It reminds us that we all have blind spots, and that we need other people to give us input if we want to maximize our highest levels of relational intelligence--we cannot engage this journey alone.

If you are familiar with the main character from the TV show, The Office (i.e. Michael Scott), you know how much he lacks self-awareness. Of course this contributes to the comedy, but the truth is, we all have a little bit of Michael Scott in us. In other words, we don’t always see how we contradict ourselves with our words, or what our deficits and dysfunctions really are, or how unaware we remain about how insensitive we can be to others. That’s just the beginning of why this journey is important for every one of us. Let’s face it. We’re often not aware as we think we are.