Perception can be a wonderful and awful thing, can’t it? It’s especially wonderful when accompanied by a good sense of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. It’s especially awful when it’s accompanied by neither.

You know what I’m talking about.

It’s that guy at the company Christmas party — we’ll call him Jack — who won’t shut up. Everyone in the room has his or her own individual perception of Jack, of course, and they vary a bit. The problem is that Jack assumes (see what I did there?) he’s the life of the party, the wittiest guy alive, and that he’s well-liked by all.

Unfortunately the reality is more along these lines…Everyone dreads at least one part of the Christmas party every year — Jack. Is he a terrible human being? No, he’s not. But he seems to be so full of himself. He never stops talking, acts like he’s smarter than he is, and is like that guy in high school who only thinks he’s the most popular kid in school.

So where’s the disconnect? Well, it goes back to what we mentioned in the first paragraph. Everybody perceives situations differently based on a number of factors, including their own self-awareness and emotional intelligence.

Another example. Say a local TV personality is eating at a casual restaurant. He happens to be sitting alone in a booth, and appears to be doing something on his computer. A woman approaches the booth and without hesitation slides onto the bench seat across the table from the now confused man.

He doesn’t lift his head, but looks up from his screen to see who his unexpected guest is. Not recognizing her, he assumes she’s mistakenly landed in his booth thinking it was her own. But she doesn’t move.

“You’re Nathan, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“I’m sorry. Do we know each other?” he replies, taken off guard.

“No, but I follow you on Facebook and catch you on TV all the time. Love your show.”

“Thanks,” he says. “I appreciate it.”

Thinking that would be a sufficient amount of conversation for his guest to move along, he goes back to his work; but she doesn’t move.

“Mind if I join you and buy you a drink?”

Awwwwkwaaaarrrrrd, he thought to himself.

“Um, thanks but no. I’m not trying to embarrass you or read too much into this, but I’m together with someone and really do have some work I have to get done.”

“I just think we have so many things in common,” she replies, missing the cues.

He looks back at her, giving her that that’s-great-but-please-just-leave smile.

She was saying something as she scooted out of the booth, but he was determined not to hear or acknowledge it, and so continued to stare as intently as he possibly could into his computer as she walked away.

What happened there? Two people were involved in the same situation, but were perceiving it in different ways. One was lacking self-awareness and emotional intelligence to some degree, right? Mr. Nathan the TV Man was giving all the signs of not wanting her to be there, but yet she tarried. And talked. And offered to buy him a drink. And said how much they had in common. You know how those pesky stalkers get — all clingy and whatnot.

So as leaders and teammates we’ve got to do a better job with these things (perception, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence — not the stalking thing). We need to understand that regardless of our intent, others will always have perceptions about us; and they won’t always be right or fair or what we’d like them to be.

To stay with our recent and now tired example, maybe you just like wearing suits or dressing up for work, but someone else interprets that as you trying to appear powerful or better than them. Or maybe they assume that you must be super smart and successful since you don such dapper attire. And really, all it actually boils down to is that you like that style and so you wear what you like.

Or it could be the other way around and the jeans and shirt guy is deemed “less professional” and “doesn’t take his job as seriously.” And Mr. Jeans is certainly not as smart and successful, right? Because if he were, he’d be wearing a suit.

It’s amazing what people think they can “know” about others based on such random and arbitrary factors. But that’s the world in which we live. Everyone has perceptions about everything. Everything means something.

So we’ve got manage perceptions about ourselves and at the same time be aware of potentially misguided perceptions we have of others. And we need to be humble enough to wrestle with self-awareness, even when it’s not pretty.