Socrates advised us ‘know thyself’ and he claimed the unexamined life is not worth living … Unexamined lives may well be valuable and worth living, but an education that does not invite such examination may not be worthy of the label education.
Nel Noddings (2006, p. 10)
Broad concepts
In this chapter, your journey along the professional leading-managing path encompasses concepts about the self, including both your personal life and your professional life. You are encouraged to think about the following Steps:
Is ‘knowing oneself’ relevant?
Who am I personally?
Who am I professionally?
What is leading with managing?
From this first chapter onwards, you will traverse the professional path filled with diverse ideas that are linked with professional experiences, research findings and professional associations. These sources represent multiple professional fields and academic disciplines, including early childhood education, philosophy, feminism, sociology, anthropology, psychology, ethics, human ecology, social justice and equity.
Step 1: Is ‘knowing oneself’ relevant?
The notion of knowing and understanding oneself may be related to asking oneself such questions as:
Who am I?
Who is my family?
Where do I come from?
What is my background?
When (in what times) did I grow up?
How did I live?
Who am I now?
What roles do I have in society?
How did I get to this point?
How comfortable am I with myself right now?
Additionally, it will be helpful if you incorporate a qualifier question – ‘Why?’ – for each of the above questions, as suggested by Noddings (2006, p. 10). For example, revisiting the ‘Who am I?’ with a ‘Why?’ forms the deeper question: ‘Why am I who I am?’ Carefully revisiting past childhood and earlier adulthood experiences can help reveal our present thoughts, values and attitudes, dispositions and habits of mind and indeed result in greater self-awareness. Such a trip back in time may help us understand the impact of the past on our current daily adult lives. This kind of self-study, or memory work, is not about self-interest or self-promotion, nor is it about selfishness (Noddings, 2006). Rather, the purpose of better knowing oneself relates to living and working authentically with others. In fact, Amanda Sinclair (2007) suggested ‘going back’ because ‘leadership has a childhood’.