How to improve your Situational/Organizational Awareness

Self-awareness is the basis of emotional intelligence, but we must not forget that life is made up of relationships and social awareness is equally important. 

In the arsenal of social competencies, reading the environment (everything that is going on around a person) is crucial. This means understanding the situational and organizational landscape and accurately read emotional currents and key power relationships... and use these information to move strategically, with agility. 

Situational awareness can be applied to everything that is happening around you. Ii's all about detecting crucial social networks and understanding the political forces at work in social and business settings, including the community, social events, the workplace and organizations, gatherings of family and friends. 

In general, this means being able to accurately read the guiding values and unspoken rules that operate in various social and work situations.

People who are socially aware understand and navigate social dynamics with ease, making use of both formal and informal power structures and dynamics.

They are effective at influencing social, organizational, family and community events and do not violate the underlying norms. On the contrary, people who are not socially aware usually make mistakes due to a lack of understanding and awareness of events and situations. As a result, they might act in ways that are not appropriate and (unwillingly) offend social, organizational, family and community norms and generally find it very difficult to get things done in various social settings. 

In order to develop and improve your your social (situational/organizational) awareness the very first thing you can do is: listen.

Pay attention to what is going on along you. This competency is empathy on a much larger scale and to be successful and get things done you need to be tuned in.

Simply put, it’s all about information intelligence. It is very important to recognize the informed structures, procedures and practices that support settings things done.

To gather these information you need to know the history of your groups of interest (social, community, workplace/organization), having informed conversations with friends, family members, coworkers to get their perspective on how to get things done in specific (social and organizational) settings and listen carefully to how they describe people people they view as effective and ineffective. This will help you to identify the characteristics and behaviors of individuals who are successful and apply this knowledge to your specific situation. 

In organizational settings, one of the best ways to tune in (or enhance awareness of the team emotions) is interviews. So, take the time and listen (and acknowledge what you heard). If you are the team leader you can take the necessary steps to improve the social and emotional intelligence of the team as a whole.

You can also meet (and have breakfast or lunch) with people who are perceived to be influential and hear from them how to operate within the organization and find a Social and Emotional Intelligence certified Coach to work with to develop your skills. 

Discover your strengths and development opportunities to improve your social and emotional intelligence! Start here.

Social and emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of our own emotions and those of others, in the moment, and to use that information to manage ourselves and manage our relationships. —The Institute for Social and Emotional Intelligence