Self concept

The data and insights you see in our product primarily use what we call the Self Awareness pattern. That’s because it’s the most important! It describes your true self — your most natural workplace behaviors — the person that you described when you were taking the Behavioral Assessment and selected the words “that you yourself believe really describe you.”

But, there are times when you’ll see and use the information that includes an additional pattern, Self-Concept, which is created from the words you selected to describe “the way you are expected to act by others.”

Both the Self and Self-Concept patterns are a result of the same Behavioral Assessment.

In an ideal world, your internal drives and external demands would be perfectly aligned. But workplaces are rarely that simple, and people often feel expected to work in ways that run counter to their natural strengths.

Self-Concept shows how a person perceives the external demands of their work environment.

Seeing differences in Self and Self-Concept can give you insight into how someone is trying to balance their expected behavior versus what comes most natural to them. If the patterns are close, they may not need to spend a lot of energy meeting the expectations of the role. Where they differ can indicate where a person may be adapting to meet expectations.

Knowing this can potentially help facilitate conversations around important areas that align with Inspire, such as inclusion, development, and “stretching” one’s factors in productive/positive ways.

Let’s take a look at the example below.

For the most part in the example above, the Self and Self-Concept are aligned. However, this person’s amount of Formality (D) differs from what they think is expected to succeed in the role or what they are currently experiencing. They prefer to be more precise and their Self-Concept shows they feel they need to be more flexible. This may or may not be impacting their performance or their happiness in the role.

Seeing the differences is not enough to make assumptions or jump to any conclusions. The next step is always having a conversation with the employee. The data facilitates conversations around self-awareness, growth, stretching behaviors, or enhancing/improving an individual’s understanding of their role, their team, and what is expected of them at work.