Impression management – How it helps in Self Development

“Almost everyone will make a good first impression, but only a few will make a good lasting impression.” – Sonya Parker

Managing impression is essential for an individual to live a good life, as it enables one to find the effective ways of self-development. Developing a tendency to create good impressions on others and managing impressions effectively is one of the best strategies. On the one hand, It helps one in leading oneself in the direction of self-improvement positively, on the other hand, it develops self-motivation by enhancing the awareness of self and developing self-concept.

In sociology and social psychology, impression management is a goal-directed conscious or subconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction 

The self-concept is the mental image one has of oneself. Developing self-concept leads to improve your self-image and self-esteem which encourages positive and realistic attitude towards yourself and the world around you. It thus can help you to give self-presentation better.

Impression is what stays in somebody’s mind. It’s a lasting effect, a feeling, an opinion or a mental image of somebody or something. The way a person speaks and behaves makes a particular impression on others. Thus, making a good impression on others and managing by way of maintaining good deeds and actions must be regarded as one of the most important approaches to life.

Managing impression appropriately not only aids in leaving a lasting impression on others, but it also helps in attaining desired results successfully. Impression management has considerable implications in all the aspects of life in which you have a need to give others your overall impression as good. It doesn’t just help to give an impression, but it leads to develop your personality accordingly.

When a person as an individual develops self-concept, he begins to recognize himself as distinct one. Since the self-concept is important to self-improvement, it can be increased to a greater extent if one begins to realize what impression others would form about him. It is thus to pave oneself the ways for developing overall personality.

Many a time or at some point in time of life, one may be disappointed due to being perceived differently from exactly how he should be. It is owing to the fact that one is unable to make a favorable impression on others. There may be several factors influencing the perception of others. Hence, it is important to take those factors, contributing to the formation of wrong perception into consideration and focus on such aspects that may help in giving a good impression. In this manner, not only one will have managed to create a favorable and indelible impression but also to clear spurious impression.

It must be borne in mind that if one is willing to give good impression on others, one should not forget the importance of maintaining a good personality at all times which is based on such behavior which is considered as correct and acceptable in the society at large.

Managing impression may also involve acting quite differently and presenting somewhat different version of oneself, especially when one finds others having different expectations from him or her. But, as a matter of fact, presenting oneself differently or pretending otherwise to give wrong impression is not a good thing to do. However, engaging in impression management appropriately can help you make sure that the interactions go smoothly, while it helps in making self-development positively.

However, it must be noted that it is not always that one needs to leave a good impression on others by saying something, there are times when one has to prefer to remain silent in order to produce an appropriate impression as well as manage the situation accordingly. It is worth mentioning the saying of Dalai Lama, “Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes on creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.”

Take a look at Professional Presentations

Written by:
K. A. Fareed (Fareed Siddiqui)
Writer, Trainer, Author, Blogger, Software Developer
BBA, MBA-Finance, MPhil-Financial Management, (MSc-Software Engineering)
(PhD-Management)
MA-English, MPhil-English
Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications and Programming
Certificate course in English language proficiency
Level 1 – Leadership and Management ILM – UK
Pursuing CMA-USA
Individual Member of Institute of Management Consultants of India