Self-awareness is knowing your motivations, preferences, and personality and understanding how these factors influence your judgment, decisions, and interactions with other people. There will be moments when you are leading or participating in a training or development session when you are faced with an issue that stretches your abilities or triggers you to have a negative reaction. Understanding why a situation is challenging is important to help you manage and avoid the problem in the future.

Self-awareness can also help you communicate more clearly, manage training sessions more effectively, and navigate potential conflicts. Finally, as you finish leading a training session and are debriefing to adjust for the future, it is important to understand how your own strengths and weaknesses contributed to the success of the training. Being willing to get feedback that may be less than positive is enhanced by being self-aware and clear about your strengths and weaknesses.

We develop our self-concept by examining our behaviors, personality, attitudes, and perceptions, along with understanding the perceptions others have of us. We also explore and learn about ourselves when we encounter diverse experiences. For every new experience, we gain new information about who we are and what we like or dislike. All of these factors influence our self-concept and help us to be a better trainer or trainee. One method we can use to be more self-aware is to develop our emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, regulate, and use emotions well in oneself and in others.

For the purpose of training and development, it can be beneficial for all employees, whether trainers or trainees, to find ways to develop their ability to understand and manage their emotions. Emotional intelligence is hierarchical, meaning ability grows as you master each level of emotional intelligence. At the base is perceiving/identifying emotions. In order to be emotionally intelligent, you must be able to identify an emotion and recognize it in yourself and others. The next level is using emotions, followed by understanding emotions and, lastly, managing emotions. We all experience emotions, but the ability to strategically use emotions and control their use is important for any manager, trainer, or employee in general.