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Cultural diversity dictionary definition | cultural diversity defined

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cultural diversity definition: The definition of cultural diversity refers to differences among people because of their racial or ethnic backgrounds, language, dress and traditions. (noun) An example of cultural diversity is how the Chinese immigrants to the Unit...

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Social awareness gives you the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others. Improve your social skills and gain the respect of others as you apply the ideas on this page.

Understanding other people's feelings is central to emotional intelligence. Get it wrong and you'll be seen as uncaring and insensitive.

Getting it right is essential for success.

Social Awareness meets
Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence consists of four basic capabilities, or domains. These are:

This page focuses on social awareness - the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others. This is the third of the domains of emotional intelligence proposed by Daniel Goleman.

Use the links above to find out about the other domains or get an overview of emotional intelligence here.

Social Awareness

The waiter who suggests something better from the menu...

...the salesperson who goes the extra mile...

...the supportive team leader...

...and the executive that remembers your name -

...each of these have one thing in common...
They excel in social awareness.
According to Daniel Goleman the competencies associated with being socially aware are:

Empathy: understanding the other person's emotions, needs and concerns.

Organizational Awareness: the ability to understand the politics within an organization and how these affect the people working in them.

Service: the ability to understand and meet the needs of clients and customers.

Awareness of social situations means you carefully consider what people want, and plan to communicate with them in a way that is intended to meet that need.

Is this the same as manipulation? I'm not sure.

Great leaders and public speakers are skilled in this ability. It helps them build support.

I don't believe social awareness is intended to be quite as calculated as manipulation. At best being socially aware is a natural response to people, taking their situation and needs into account as much as possible.

Caring 2.0

Research reported in Scientific American suggests that our levels of empathy - the ability to understand the feelings of others - are lower today than 30 years ago.

An increase in social isolation is one theory used to explain this finding.

Digital communication, social networking, video conferencing and other forms of new media contribute to social isolation and are often blamed for the reduction in empathy.

After all, it's much easier to say negative things about others if you don't have to say it to their face. And if I don't feel like engaging in your problems, I can simply log off, or even 'unfriend' you. It's an easy option.

The trouble is that when there is no empathy, when we don't work to understand the needs of others, there is a significant loss of trust.

If I don't really know what you're thinking and feeling I trust you less, and isolate myself more. This can have major implications for business where trust is essential for successful leadership and partnerships.

Understanding = Trust

More importantly though, when you respond to the needs and feelings of other people, you gain their trust.

Others will be labelled uncaring and insensitive, but you are trusted when you're able to understand and respond to the needs and values of individuals, and the group.

This is true whether you're a salesperson dealing with the public, or a leader in an organization.

Empathy

Leaders in organizations have traditionally viewed empathy with suspicion, thinking that there is no place for soft emotional skills in the tough world of business.

My experience is that managers worry that employees will take advantage of them if they show any empathy.

But changing times and the need to consider the feelings of employees has led to social awareness becoming a critical skill for effective leaders.

This has even impacted the training given to doctors. Today doctors are trained to formulate a bio-psycho-social understanding of the problem rather than treating patients purely as a diagnosis.
A quick note...
Empathizing with someone - understanding their point of view - doesn't mean you have to agree with their point of view.

Empathy is really about acknowledging the emotions of others, being thoughtful and considerate of their feelings, and making decisions that take those feelings into consideration.

Too much empathy?

Your ability to connect with and understand others is an important skill. But it's important to control this so it doesn't become a burden on you.

Some of us find it really easy to empathize with others. And it is always appreciated.

But did you know that getting over-involved in the problems people share with us can lead to you feeling emotionally exhausted? While we're looking after the emotions of others we forget to look after our own emotional well-being.

That doesn't sound emotionally intelligent to me!

If this is you then it's in your best interest to learn transform your empathy into something more controllable.
This gentle audio hypnosis session will teach you how to do this and is an excellent start to looking after your emotional needs.
How to build social awareness

Improve your listening skills. Take a short course in effective communication skills.

Pay close attention to interactions with other people. Be aware of what they say, how they say it and what they do.

Use a gentle self hypnosis audio download to improve your ability to understand others.

Identify other people's emotional states. Listen carefully to what they're saying and notice how they respond to external events, such as someone greeting them or asking them to do something.

Think about your feelings. How does the other person's emotion make you feel?

Think before you answer and give clear answers.

Try This

Pay close attention to your interactions with other people. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. Did I listen actively to the person who approached me? Was I too busy to listen?

2. Did I ask the other person questions about the content of what s/he was saying as well as his/her feelings and emotions about what they are saying?

3. Did I change my body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, and other elements in order to meet the needs of the other person?

Sensitivity and diversity

Being socially aware is important as it affects your response to people and situations.

The starting place for becoming socially aware is self awareness.

Self awareness is essential in order to understand the feelings and emotions of others while self management is necessary to ensure that your response is appropriate to the situation.

An empathic response requires awareness of diversity and a sensitivity to the needs and emotions of others.

Diversity encompasses acceptance and respect while recognising our individual differences and uniqueness.

Open communication plays an essential role in managing diversity and building an awareness of social situations.

Everything starts with an 'E'

I always enjoyed grafitti I saw years ago that said "Everything starts with an 'E'.

While it's true that the word ' everything' starts with an 'e' I've discovered that empathy always starts with 'u' - (you).

Mother Teresa (1910-1997) told us that empathy has to start with us.

She said ' Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person'. This advice comes from one of the best voices for social awareness that we can listen to.

Social awareness is a key element of your emotional intelligence. Don't complain about people who are not understanding of your needs. Focus rather on growing your emotional intelligence and practicing empathy, service and organizational awareness yourself.

Being socially aware is an essential building block for emotional intelligence.

Practicing attention to social situations is a habit that closely corresponds with Stephen Covey's Habit 5...
"Seek first to understand, then to be understood".

The more it's practiced the more likely it is to become a habit.

As we improve social awareness we also improve our experience of life, create opportunities for better work life balance, become aware of other peoples emotions, and improve our ability to respond to change.

Leave your thoughts below and keep in touch by visiting our Facebook Page and clicking 'Like' to join the community.

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Develop Social Awareness To Build Emotional Intelligence.

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I may earn a small commission if you buy something through a link on this site. It won't cost you anything and I only recommend products I trust. Please see the affiliate disclosure for more. Social awareness gives you the ability to understand and respond to the needs of others.

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This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Self-management. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

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Self Awareness is the ability to perceive aspects of our personality, behavior, emotions, motivations, and thought process without self criticism.

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Often only the mean or mean difference between sexes given. This may not preclude overlap in distributions. For examples most males are taller and stronger, but an individual female could be taller and stronger than individual male.

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Effective communication in the workplace is imperative in a leadership role. An age-old aphorism goes, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Good communication is what separates a poor leader from an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is the key to good leadership.

When you communicate well with your team, it helps eliminate misunderstandings and can encourage a healthy and peaceful work environment. Efficient and open communication with your team will also let you get work done quickly and professionally.

The moment you get the lines of communication open with your team, the process of carrying out tasks and projects will most likely go by smoothly. Plus you will be surprised how meeting targets will become a whole lot easier.

Ways to Create Effective Communication in the Workplace

1. Open Meeting

It is easier to communicate your passion and how you feel to your team via open meetings. In this kind of forum, they will not only hear what you are saying, they will also see and feel it. This approach still remains one of the best approaches to communicate effectively with a team.

2. Emails

In official settings, communication via email remains potent. It will enable you to pass messages to members of your team without pulling them out of their workstations.

3. One on One

Experts have been able to prove that some people understand better when you take them aside and talk to them on a one-on-one basis. Ensure that you maintain eye contact with them to enable the message to sink in.

4. Create a Receptive Atmosphere

To effectively communicate with your team, you must create a receptive atmosphere. Avoid a tense environment at all costs because when you communicate in an overly intense manner, the message you are trying to share might not be well understood or retained.

5. Communication via Training

Your training should be tailored towards communicating certain information to your team members. Most employees take training serious, especially when it's part of their appraisal.

6. Display Confidence and Seriousness

Ensure that you display confidence and seriousness to ensure that you will not be taken for granted. When your team members notice any uncertainty and lack of seriousness when you're communicating with them, they are likely to treat the information with disdain or disregard.

7. Use Simple Words

The truth is that everybody cannot be on same page when it comes to vocabulary. Therefore, to be effective in your communications with your team members, use words that can be easily understood. When ambiguous words are used, you can be misunderstood and/or waste precious time having to explain yourself.

8. Use Visuals

Place visuals at strategic positionsaround the workstations of your team. They should not just hear the message, they should also see it. This gives room for better comprehension.

9. Listen to Your Team Members

Communication is intended to be a two way street. Don't just talk because you are the leader without listening to anyone else. Encourage them to open up so you can be well guided when communicating in the future with them. You have two ears and one mouth -so you must listen more than you speak.

10. Use Body Language

Your body language will pass your message faster and better. Master the art of using body language when communicating with your team. Stand/sit up straight, use smiles, handshakes and eye contact.

11. Act Out Your Message

Someone once said, "Tell me what you want me to do and I might forget it, but do it in front of me and I will never forget it." Acting out your message is a very potent way of communicating with your team. Let them see you do what you want them to do, and watch their excuses disappear.

12. Use The Appropriate Tone of Voice

One word can mean a different thing when said in a different tone of voice. Make sure you use the appropriate tone of voice to communicate your message to your team so that you won't be misunderstood and discourage or demotivate members or cause them to shut down completely out of fear.

13. Avoid Unnecessary Repetition

If you want your team members to take you serious, never sound like a broken record and don't beat a dead horse. Tell your team members what you want them to know or do and ask them if they are clear about it. If they are not, only then do you repeat what you have said.

14. Use Presentations

Some people grasp messages easily when pictures and sounds are involved. Using presentations like Microsoft PowerPoint to communicate with your team will give them the opportunity to refer back to it if they aren't clear about certain things.

15. Be Humorous

Using friendly jokes when communicating with your team members will help pass your message along in a more relaxed way. This method of communication has been proven to be a highly effective way of dousing tension. When the atmosphere is unfriendly and intense, being humorous does the trick. If you must use jokes, please don't overdo it. Remember, you are not a stand-up comedian.

16. Be Articulate

Communication is indeed a skill that must be learned by all, especially if you want to lead any group of people. Being articulate when you communicate to your team members makes it easier for them to understand your message.

17. Avoid Mumbling

Your team members should be able to hear you clearly. When communicating with them, try as much as possible to speak clearly and not mumble words. When you mumble words or speak too quickly, you may assume that they are clear on the subject. But the truth is, they might not be. It also shows a lack of confidence on your part.

18. Encourage Feedback

Don't just talk and walk away. Give room for feedback so that you can measure the effectiveness of your style of communication. It will also afford you the privilege of knowing if your message was well understood.

19. Gesticulate

Use your hands to demonstrate your message. Make hand motions and signals to establish the seriousness of your subject matter when communicating with your team members. This shows that you understand what you are trying to relay to them. Just don't let your body movement become too exaggerated and intense.

20. Be Appreciative

After every communication session, via whatever means you have decided, always remember to thank your listeners for their time. It will cost you nothing and it's a simple courtesy.

Remember that the point of working as a team is to share ideas and boost productivity. When effective communication in the workplace is hampered, it can sidetrack the entire effort.

You must work hard at these communication tactics and create ground rules to keep everyone up to date, which helps avoid confusion and ensure the completion of the project with ease.
Presentation Photo via Shutterstock
Open Meeting Photo via Shutterstock

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Effective communication in the workplace is imperative in a leadership role. An age-old aphorism goes, "It's not what you say, but how you say it." Good communication is what separates a poor leader from an exceptional one. Having effective communication skills is the key to good leadership.

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Written communication involves any type of message that makes use of the written words

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Verbal communication
Spoken or use of lanaguge
Face to face
Telephone
Radio
Television
Other media’s.

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Written communication
Memos
Reports
Job descriptions
Employees manuals
Emails
Instant message
Letters
Contract
And many many more.....

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Non verbal communication
Facial expressions 😀
Gestures ✌️
Body language 💁🏽
Eye contact 👀

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Barriers to communication
Cultural diversity
Gender differences
Physical separation
These barriers to communication are specific items that can district or prevent communication between people xx

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Nonverbal communication information in nonverbal ways using groups of behaviours x

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Barriers to communication can be status differences 😊😊

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There are five barriers to communication:
Language
Cultural diversity
Gender differences
Status differences
Physical separation
These Barriers to communication are specific items that can distort or prevent communication between people.

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Written communication- in which you read their meaning.

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Verbal communication- listening to a person and understanding their meaning.

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verbal communication is the use of sounds and words to your self Xx

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Often only the mean or mean differences between sexes given. This may not preclude overlap in distributions. For examples most males are taller and stronger than females, but an individual female could be taller and stronger than an individual male.

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Verbal communication 😈