The Link Between Self-Management Skills and Productivity
Everything you need to know
The Link Between Self-Management
Skills and Productivity
Most employees are motivated by certain aspects of their jobs, and others are a challenge. Most managers have responsibilities and limitations that prevent them from being the most effective coach they can be to their teams. No workplace, no role, and no individual can be perfect, which means achievement and success require self-management skills in order to see productivity.
External factors that can stand between you and your goals aren’t something we can always plan for, but we can work on soft-skills that help bolster productivity in spite of obstacles. Organizations that encourage employees to explore and expand their own daily self-management will see higher levels of engagement, motivation, and productivity.
Focusing self-management can help your company identify and nurture future leaders and lay a foundation for performance management and individual development.
6 Key Self-Management Skills
Self-management can be broken down into 6 essential soft-skills that managers can help facilitate in any employee. With the right attention, motivation, and leadership, every employee has the potential to develop self-management skills.
The 6 key self-management skills are:
Composure
Remaining composed under pressure or in stressful environments is a good indicator that an individual can manage their emotional responses to stimuli.
Someone with self-composure will exhibit behaviors like:
- Staying visible: Set the tone for reaction. When others can see a person remaining calm, it signals to others that the correct response is composure.
- Responding decisively: Individuals with composure remain unwavering in the way they respond to stress. It demonstrates that the response comes from a rational place rather than an emotional one.
- Taking accountability: When things become stressful, employees with composure take accountability for the situation and for solving the issue — whether that means solving the issue themselves or directing it to the attention of the appropriate person.
- Remaining positive: Composed individuals can help others experiencing stress to remain calm by painting the situation in a positive light, or calling attention to the opportunities and potential for improvement.
Composure and Productivity
Composure is the state of feeling calm and in control. In the workplace, this might be the ability to manage an overstuffed workload or the ability to maintain performance when the stakes are high. Operating with composure means employees are more likely to tackle issues head-on, think clearly, resolve conflicts quickly, make sound decisions, and demonstrate coolness to their teammates. Self-management skills help individuals to identify stressors, address them appropriately, and anticipate when an emotional reaction might lead to additional conflict or miscommunication. Employees who can self-manage think about future consequences and act accordingly to ease any tension they might anticipate. These results lead to better collaboration, better communication, and less friction among teams.
Ways to Coach Composure:
- Lead by example. Demonstrating an even-keeled response to emotional or stressful situations sets the tone for others to respond in kind.
- Teach flexibility. There is never just one answer. Consider all options before making a firm decision. Flexibility promotes clear communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity.
- Show acknowledgement. Employees who receive praise are likely to replicate the behavior. Conversely, if you see them reacting emotionally, coach them on how to keep their cool. Helping them notice and understand behaviors in the moment can help them develop self-management skills.
- Stay positive. Coachable moments should be approached as opportunity. Discuss what can be done so the individual feels supported, but identify what they can learn from the situation, without feeling like they’re being scolded.
Self-Awareness
Perception is important. Individuals may be perfectly good at performing their work, but if comments, attitude, or behaviors are seen differently, it can cause friction between team members. A self-aware employee monitors reactions and considers how their words and actions affect everyone else, and the ability to anticipate reactions and adjust behavior accordingly demonstrates strong self-management skills.
How to Be More Self-Aware:
- Ask for honest feedback
- Take a personality assessment to identify strengths and weaknesses
- Reflect on daily interactions and situations
Self-Awareness and Productivity
Self-Awareness is the conscious knowledge of one’s own character, feelings, motives, and desires. Someone without self-awareness might make off-hand comments that offend, interrupt others while they’re working, or they might even misunderstand their own workstyle or preferences — without realizing that they’re working counterproductively.
Self-awareness is a self-management skill that helps employees work most effectively and communicate clearly and appropriately with others. Without self-awareness, individuals may inadvertently make more work for others and miss opportunities for improvements in process or structure.
What Makes an Employee Self-Aware?
- Introspection: Personality assessments allow individuals and their managers to gather insights on personality and work-specific competencies. These help individuals better understand their proficiencies and deficiencies.
- Reflection: Schedule regular time with individuals to talk about their week, their work, and their interpersonal relationships. Take this time to think about the tasks and interactions that went well or could have been better, why each turned out that way, and how to use that knowledge moving forward.
- Mindfulness: Encourage employees to take an extra minute to think about the things around them. When they take a moment to assess a situation and how their actions affect the outcome, they’re more likely to act with care.
Adaptability
It’s inevitable that companies will have to revise systems, strategies, and policies. Being stubborn, reticent, or unwilling to adapt shows resentment towards change. Without adaptability, individuals risk slowing progress, experiencing roadblocks on track to their goals, and teammates may not work collaboratively with them for fear of being held back by inflexibility.
Conversely, an openness to change demonstrates an individual who can see that changing their ways can make them a better teammate. It’s a self-management skill that puts the greater good at the forefront, rather than clinging to processes where a person feels comfortable. It shows a willingness to learn and grow.
An adaptable person:
- Asks questions so they understand the bigger picture.
- Regularly updates their understanding of processes so they never become outdated.
- Volunteers to be part of the solutions and thinks about future needs.
Adaptability and Productivity
An important part of productive work is to accept dynamic changes as part of the workplace. Anticipating the need to make changes — at any time, for a number of reasons, from a wide variety of external factors — is a signifier of strong self-management skills.
When an individual can self-manage through periods of change, the amount of friction that results from the new circumstances is reduced, and management can focus on meeting the team’s needs as they transition into the new way of doing things.
Key Aspects of Adaptability:
- Organization and preparedness: Forward-thinking individuals can stay organized and can easily maneuver when things need to change on a dime. Someone with adaptability knows where all the important pieces of the puzzle lie and how they fit together.
- Stay current: Gain a deeper understanding of why changes occur and what factors contribute to shifting trends. Staying on the cusp both pushes past the status quo, and makes adopting new methods easier when you can see them coming.
- A proactive mindset: Adaptable people are open to doing things differently, and as such, they often look for new solutions to recurring problems. Those who look ahead and anticipate future needs tend to be more willing to accept change as it occurs.
Professionalism
Professionalism is about maintaining integrity when executing your responsibilities. Professionalism means acting with respect, ethics, and responsibility. Remaining professional even when an individual is stressed, irritated, or frustrated demonstrates strong self-management skills.
Professionalism requires a set of values and a personal code of ethics. Self-management skills include not just performing job duties in a timely and satisfactory manner, but also deliberate styles of interaction. Communication is key.
Professionals treat others with respect, speak with confidence, and convey messages in the proper tone for a given setting. Professionals know when to be casual with coworkers at the water cooler, but can adapt to address stakeholders in a meeting or pitch a sale to a client. Individuals with professionalism present themselves in a way that shows they take their job seriously.
Key Aspects of Professionalism in the Workplace:
- Punctuality
- Positivity
- Commitment to promises
- Willingness to help others
- Accountability
- Even-keeled and managed emotions
- Appropriate language and communication with colleagues
Ownership and Productivity
Professionalism is directly tied to performance. Individuals with excellent self-management skills hold themselves accountable for the work they do. They receive feedback well, accept where they have room to improve, and seize opportunities for growth.
They are comfortable stepping outside their specific job function in order to serve the needs of their team, and they are open to challenges. While they have goals for their own career and skill sets, they also consider the greater good, and how they can pitch in to move forward together as part of a team.
Ownership of Work
An employee with strong self-management skills delivers on their promises. They accept both praise and criticism gracefully. They don’t pass the blame for setbacks, and they show appreciation for help when a teammate steps in to help with their workload.
How to own your work:
- Hold yourself and others accountable: Own up when you make a mistake or miss a deadline, and demand the same from your teammates. Don’t make excuses for yourself or others.
- Don’t fear failure: Mistakes are inevitable. Instead, focus on the takeaways and how you can use what you’ll learn and apply it to future work.
- Keep the big picture in mind: Think about the end goal. What needs to happen to get there, and how will you adjust if you aren’t on track? How will missing your goal affect others?
Ownership of Work and Productivity
Employees with self-management skills take ownership of both the wins and losses they experience in their work. These employees are not afraid to admit when they’ve made a mistake, need help, or feel out of their depth — but they are also eager to contribute when they believe they have something of value to offer.
They take their work seriously, pride themselves on a job well done, learn from their missteps, and want to teach what they know and apply their findings when they see success.
A Focus on Learning
Individuals with self-management skills know when they need to expand their knowledge base. These people value an open mind, look for cross-training opportunities, and show eagerness to gather insight and expertise from the people around you.
Higher level employees can learn from young new hires — those just out of college or trade school may have valuable new insights, methods, or philosophies that haven’t penetrated the office yet. Young employees can learn from the experience and expertise of those who have been in their industry for considerable time. Openness to new ideas doesn’t undercut an individual’s authority — it strengthens it.
There is no ‘correct’ way of completing a task, and new approaches are implemented all the time. It’s essential to reinforce learning opportunities in the workplace and offer employees the opportunity to expand, think creatively, and continue to grow.
Learning and Productivity
Self-managed employees are hungry to learn more — even if it’s a skill relevant to a different department than the one where they’re stationed. The more knowledge and skill they can take in, the better, and the more complex understanding they gain of their own work. The more well-rounded the breadth of knowledge, the better the output of work will be.
Additionally, those who grow beyond their explicit job function can easily and effectively jump in and help out in other areas of the company when assistance is needed, as well as share fresh perspectives with your team and others. Giving your employees ample learning opportunity can promote self-management skills by encouraging ownership of their own professional growth.
To learn more about the ways Caliper can help coach self-management skills within your teams, and how the Caliper Profile can help identify an individual’s strengths and weaknesses as they apply to self-management, reach out to our experts and start the conversation about coaching and learning in the workplace.