Introduction
Personal improvement is an essential element of working in a team, and on a larger scale, within an organization. A higher potential for growth usually leads to higher chances of earning a reputation in a large corporation and being placed in a sweet spot filled with other employee perks and privileges. While this may seem to be one of the most common and strongest type of motivation for self-improvement and personal growth, especially at a time when studying in a university and enjoying the advantages and enjoyment associated with college or university life are already over, there is more to self-improvement and personal growth within an organization than money. Through and in this portfolio I will reflect on the things I have experienced and more so on the challenges I have faced, intra and inter-personally, in the past few years. I will focus on the ones that are directly related to my course and those which triggered the most number of realizations—all of which contributed to my personal and professional growth. Based on the identified lags and problems, I will also layout goals, plans (all of which must be SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound) and strategies on how I could improve on my weaknesses, and further develop my strengths. Considering these objectives in mind, this paper will focus more on my ability to have a broader as opposed to a narrow mind, to learn from my past mistakes, successes, and basically all forms of experience, outline general personal protocols on how I could further develop myself according to these reflections, and determine major social and cultural implications of improving my current competencies. Various questionnaires and other organizational assessment tools such as the Schutte’s Emotional Intelligence Scale, and the Dutch Test for Handling Conflicts are to be used in order to delineate my reflective findings in this paper from the stereotypical subjective and mostly opinionated findings from other portfolios or reflective papers. By using this test, I will be able to assess myself, reflect on my assessments, and outline smarter goals in further improving my competencies in a more objective and therefore, surefire way.
Section 1: Intrapersonal Effectiveness
Intrapersonal competencies may refer to a lot of things—things that are mostly innate to a person such as qualities which can either be positive or negative found within any individual member of an organization, hence the term intrapersonal. Based on my past experiences in working with no one but myself and with other members of a team, I have come to conclude that my learning style has been fairly average. Although certain things can definitely be done to make me more flexible and absorbent when it comes to churning out information, I find my learning abilities to be fairly quick and flexible, which automatically excludes it from my list of things to improve and personal weaknesses. So that is it, I think I am cleared of any major intrapersonal problems when it comes to my learning styles and abilities. I know myself quite well. I know in what type of environment I can thrive and what types of instructions I can quickly and wholly grasp and of course, where and which I do not. My main problem when it comes to intrapersonal effectiveness in working within an organization is the effect that my emotions inflict on myself, and even if it is out of this paper’s section’s context, its effect on others. I have this belief that everyone has the right to be moody and express their emotions, freely at that. I have had this kind of mentality about personal emotional management since I was a student and it goes without saying that I was able to bring it with me until now. I think this is one of the reasons why a significant number of my colleagues find me unapproachable or simply unattractive a co-worker to collaborate with. In a way, I think their reactions towards me are only rational and at the same time, reasonable and so I cannot really blame them for staying away from me—not literally but only in some instances. On the other hand, I firmly believe that I cannot blame myself for being like that too. That was the way how I was taught how to handle my emotions and that is to not leave them unexpressed and just store them in an unrealistically safe place where in fact it is not, and wait for them to accumulate until such time that they just burst out and explodes, a phenomenon which could damage every bit of relationship that I may have already established in the workplace.
Learning Goal and Related Activity
Section 2: Interpersonal Effectiveness
Interpersonal effectiveness most likely deals with my competencies that concerns and affects other people. However, I have come to realize that this effectiveness or the competencies involved in it do not only affect other people but also myself. So meaning to say, interpersonal effectiveness affects all aspects and factors associated with my competencies, regardless whether it is interpersonal or intrapersonal. I have decided to focus on the strategies for handling conflict because of the complex and broad aspects that they offer. Conflicts are everywhere. If it is present at home, chances are it would be present everywhere even within organizations that claim they are the most organized and planned in the world. Conflicts are like stressors to the muscles that either totally break or make them stronger. The more complicated a conflict is, the higher the risks of breaking things but at the same time, the chances that the ability of the group in handling conflicts and in preventing the occurrence of such conflict in the future would be higher too. In a way, encountering and resolving a conflict is like a gambling game because you really do not know for sure whether you would be able to successfully end the conflict or just make it worse. This is why I consider conflict management as one of my major weaknesses within my interpersonal effectiveness. To support my statements with literature and objectivity, I have decided to assess my conflict handling skills using the Dutch Test for Conflict Handling. It is basically a scale that assesses a person’s theoretical capability to positively, productively, and efficiently respond to situations, especially during times wherein there would be a major conflict . My score in the assessment shows that I handle conflict situations poorly, particularly during the instances of quick but informed decision making. Nonetheless, I still consider myself an average player in the game of conflict management, although it is definitely one aspect of myself that I could use a lot of coaching sessions on. Conflict management skills are important because conflicts are everywhere and being able to address them swiftly and under the correct procedures would definitely be a lot of help for the company .
Learning Goal and Related Activity
My main goal for this problem is of course to improve my conflict management skills and abilities. I am planning to do this by exposing myself to all, if allowable, situations wherein there are conflicts and practice my skills and abilities in doing the right thing even when under pressure because that is so far the major weakness that destroys everything I have studied and experienced as a regular player in this industry. Similar to my plans for my first thing to improve, the emotional intelligence, I am planning to perform a trial and error and ask someone to assess me or anyone if there were noted significant improvements because this is the best way to administer surveys and other questioning materials .
Conclusion
There are two main intrapersonal and interpersonal weaknesses that I have noticed on myself. First is my below average emotional intelligence and secondly is the inability or at least the lack of skills to handle and solve conflicts. I am trying to solve the former by simply trying my best not to hurt others and by trying to think on my feet which mean that I should plan all of actions first before executing them. The latter involves my conflict resolving abilities. Conflicts will be every present in any organization no matter how they claim they are planned and systematic organizations. I will try to improve my conflict management skills and experience by exposing myself to more and more conflict situations and share my idea, as long as I am allowed to, regarding a certain conflict. This way I will be able to effectively and productively work both independently and within a group, be it a big or a small group, something which increases my overall competencies.
References
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