Behavior & Culture, Leadership | Dec 29, 2024

Developing Social Awareness: Workplace Examples and Key Techniques

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Every day you spend at work can feel like navigating through a vast and unpredictable wilderness. You come as prepared as you can, but factors outside of your control can derail your best efforts. Even when—especially when—you’ve brought a qualified team along for the journey, different opinions, actions, values, and processes can leave you scratching your head and questioning your navigation skills. Without the right approach, at best, you end up going in circles. At worst? Totally lost. 

That’s why it’s vital to navigate workplace interactions with a high degree of social awareness. In any workplace situation, the only person you can control is yourself. By knowing yourself, your emotions, and how you affect other people, you can learn to steer social interactions and conflict resolution in a healthy, constructive way. 

Why waste time wandering in a land of misunderstanding, negativity, and stagnation? Social awareness gives you the power to interpret others’ behavior and regulate your own to stay on track at work. 

What is social awareness?

Social awareness can be defined as the ability to “read” people and situations to understand the underlying motivations and reactions to situations. It’s knowing the difference between two colleagues who dislike each other versus two colleagues who are often forced to compete for praise and promotion by their managers. When you have a high degree of social awareness, you have the ability to look beyond knee-jerk reactions and surface emotions to understand what could be causing them. 

Any time you seek to understand the “why” behind individual actions and change your reaction accordingly, you’re exercising social awareness in the workplace. 

Why is social awareness important in the workplace?

Think of working with others as one big, collaborative process. Unless you work completely solo, learning how to recognize your coworkers’ potential and using it to thrive can be crucial to success. Without social awareness in the workplace, corporate culture can breed mistrust, slow communication, and even damage relationships—simply because coworkers are unwilling or unable to understand their team members’ points of view. 

When coworkers give each other respect and take the time to understand their motivations, you’ll almost immediately notice benefits like:

  • Increased trust between team members: Whether it’s a difference of opinion or approaching a project a different way, social awareness helps team members see the “why” behind different decisions. They’re less quick to judge and more inclined to offer patience and understanding. 
  • Positive conflict management: Social awareness invites everyone to practice empathy and consider different perspectives when managing conflict. Instead of a black-and-white approach of who’s right and who’s wrong, managers can help team members create real, human solutions. 
  • Putting people first: When you take the time to understand where someone’s coming from, putting people first becomes a habit. You’ll notice an improvement in interpersonal relationships and a reduction in the “us vs. them” rhetoric that can poison company culture. Team members see each other as individuals—not rivals. 

8 examples of social awareness in the workplace

The idea of social awareness can, at times, seem abstract. How do you delineate between when you should get into the nitty gritty of emotions and experiences and when you should push through to business as usual? The truth is, if you make social awareness a priority in your workplace culture, it becomes part of the daily landscape. You might even be practicing solid social awareness without even realizing it. Here are some of our favorite social awareness examples and skills you should know. 

Active listening

You know when you’re talking to someone and you can tell they aren’t really listening? They’re looking at their phone or looking for ways to talk about themselves instead. It can make you feel unimportant and unheard. Active listening is the exact opposite of that behavior. It’s giving someone your undivided attention; it’s listening to hear and understand before responding and asking questions to deepen that understanding. 

Practicing emotional intelligence

We talked all about emotional intelligence, or EQ, in another post. In short, it’s the ability to recognize and manage your own emotions, as well as seeking to understand the emotions of others. 

Understanding nonverbal cues 

Sometimes it’s not about listening, but watching. Nonverbal communication can be just as impactful as a spoken conversation—if you know what to look for. There’s a stark difference between positive cues (eye contact, appropriate facial expressions and responses, and even good posture) and negative cues (avoiding eye contact, crossed arms, staring at a phone while someone is speaking, and a lack of interest). Good social awareness means knowing how to interpret a person’s body language. 

Empathy

Empathy might be one of the most underrated skills for the modern workplace. It’s the ability to see things from another individual’s perspective and act accordingly. Imagine this scenario: Your coworker has been missing deadlines and leaving you to pick up the slack. You confront them and they tell you that their child has been in the hospital recovering from an illness. Social awareness helps you offer not only empathy, but work to find solutions. It’s that secondary “action” piece that makes all the difference: An O.C. Tanner report found that 41 percent of  employees felt their leaders’ empathy was empty of any meaningful deeds. 

Seeking feedback

Social awareness means you don’t shy away from asking for feedback from your colleagues. That’s because social awareness is contingent upon how others see you and your actions. You could guess how they decipher your opinions and actions, but why not just ask? Being willing to seek feedback shows a confidence and willingness to change and adapt. 

Understanding motivation

Everyone has their reasons, right? Taking the time to understand motivation is a social awareness skill that lets you delve deeper into why a coworker is reacting a certain way or making specific decisions. Something that left you scratching your head in one situation can give you a total lightbulb moment when you realize the why behind the action. 

Mood, tone, atmosphere

Individuals with a high degree of social awareness can walk into a room and absorb the mood, tone, and atmosphere. They understand when it’s time to match that mood and when it could use a shift. Imagine the atmosphere at work like going outside. You always want to be properly prepared for whatever weather, right? Don’t show up to a rainy day without your umbrella. Social awareness means you’re able to take the tonal temperature of your workplace and adjust it with the right boost of balancing energy. 

Diversity awareness and appreciation 

With social awareness comes the comprehension of the importance of different backgrounds and cultures. A healthy appreciation for the value of diversity also gives you the vision to be more empathetic toward individuals with differing backgrounds and how that can affect everything from perception to decision-making and conflict management skills. 

How to develop social awareness

There’s no roadmap for learning how to develop social awareness, but it’s for a good reason. Social awareness isn’t a destination, but an ever-changing journey that requires a high level of patience for yourself and for others. If you want become more socially aware or you’re hoping to bring a new perspective to social awareness to your team, try these tips: 

Take an assessment to pinpoint your starting point. 

The PAT is one of the most powerful tools in our social awareness toolkit because, unlike other “personality” tests, its goal isn’t to categorize, but to teach. It’s a great way to see where you’re starting and see how you can improve. Learn your own strengths, including social awareness, with our PAT.

Practice being present. 

Look up! You’re missing so much when you’re glued to your devices. Not only is it a sign that you’re not actively listening, but you’re missing out on small social hints like body language and interactions. You can increase your social awareness simply by putting the phone down and observing more. 

Acknowledge your blind spots. 

Hey, no one’s perfect, and no one has to be. Acknowledging that you have social awareness blind spots help you pinpoint areas that could use a little work. Maybe you tend to jump to conclusions without offering empathy. If so, try giving yourself a few minutes to reflect before you react. If you’re prone to interrupting people when they’re talking, set expectations before the conversation. Let the other person know you’ll let them finish before you jump into the conversation. Knowing where you fall short gives you a chance to find solutions and strengthen your social awareness skills.

When your role requires you to manage conflict, communicate effectively, and create a healthy work environment, social awareness should be at the top of your skills list. If you find yourself getting lost in the day-to-day of social interactions at work, it might just be a matter of awareness and practice. Map out ways to see and hear your employees as individuals on your social awareness journey and, while there may be detours and a few missed turns, you’ll be well on your way. 

Andrew Fayad

Andrew Fayad

Andrew Fayad is a managing partner at Positive Leader and the co-founder of ELM Learning, a leader in learning and talent development since 2013.