Organizational awareness is the ability to recognize and understand how the organizational structures in which you and others operate can influence emotions. If empathy helps you understand the emotions of an individual, organizational awareness helps you to understand the culture within which those emotions operate. It involves recognizing that there are influences on yourself and others that come from the other people that you are surrounded by. For instance, the corporate culture of your organization is a major influence on how you can or cannot express yourself. In a conservative culture, the display of emotions is looked at as inappropriate. In another organization, you might be admired and encouraged for being expressive. Usually, only by reading the mission, values, goals of an organization or team, can we grasp what is the culture and the emotional intelligence of the organization.

How to have organizational awareness:

• Talk to others and ask them for their thoughts on how to make your department more effective. Find out, in a subtle way, what organizational constraints may prevent certain things from happening in your organization.
• Identify key people inside of your company who influence policies and decisions. Create a chart showing how they and others interrelate and compare it to the formal chart of the organization
• Do basic research on the company itself. What is its mission? What are the values? What are the department's goals? Are there specific goals expected of each team member? What is the culture of the organization?