SELF REFLECTION
1.Introduction
‘Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other’. This quote by former U.S. president John F. Kennedy
(http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/leadership.html) was one of the reasons I was looking forward to doing the Leadership and Management course at EBSL. It focuses on the importance of learning before and even during being a leader. Only if communication, trust and cooperation is given within a group, a leader can be effective and supportive. A leader therefore has to work closely with his group and try to not undermine others opinions or beliefs. It is a thin line between being a charismatic and successful leader and being bossy and intolerant. In this context it is not always necessary for only one person to lead the group throughout the whole project but many committed group members should be encouraged to bring in their ideas and opinions. It mainly depends on who is the most competent at a certain moment for a certain task. This person should be encouraged to take responsibility and step forward to lead his group with inspiration and motivation. Nevertheless it is inevitable that one person keeps track and has an overview over the whole process and actually will be considered a leader. He also should be seen as a key contact for the group. At this point the management element of this assignment comes in with everything that is related to it: setting goals, choosing ways to get there, spotting problems, solving them, negotiating and developing back up plans just to mention a few aspects (Lewis, 2009). The main goal of this report is a constructive self evaluation created to analyse the learning outcomes of the leadership and management module under consideration of the Bon Voyage project. This self reflection will be done by focusing on the two main psychological domains – cognitive and conative skils- which are supported by various leadership and management theories. However, further domains such as behavioural skills and affective skills wil be reflected on. (Hayes, 2009).
The author of this report tries to gather a profound understanding of his constraints, weaknesses and strengths as an individual in the framework of a group project by using aforementioned theories and the included process evaluation. Although the main focus lies on leadership in this report, aforementioned management aspects will also be considered, as “the better the management, the greater the output” (Farmer and Richman, 1964, p. 57), which after completion of our project proofed to be a true statement.
Motivation and Expectations
. One of the reasons for choosing EBSL was the practise orientated teaching approach. Most of my friends In Germany complained about the theoretical approach at their schools and envied me for going to a university where we actually could organize and manage an event at a later stage. When we finally could start planning our project it was as interested as I thought it to be although many problems and issues had to be solved. After completion of this course I am now looking forward to doing something similar in my job and apply all the skills and experiences I gathered during my studies in general and in the Leadership and Management course in particular. Nevertheless I was quite concerned about the size of the group and some doubt how and if this could be handled. Previous group experiences always focused on smaller groups with clear structures and hierarchies. Only after a few meetings it became clear to me that the size was not a disadvantage but rather an advantage as the input from many members with different cultural backgrounds was very useful and made it possible to take another point of view. Although I rather work by myself which I consider one of my main weaknesses I learned how to trust others and improved my ability to trust my fellow students. This made it possible for me to focus on my own tasks and be a more efficient and valuable member to the team.
2 COGNITIVE SKILLS
According to Nicky Hayes (1998) the cognitive field to is that of thinking and reasoning, it also includes analysing and explanations to why people hold a certain position.
2.1 TRANSFORMATION &CONCEPTUAL THINKING
In the beginning when I have been put in the sponsorship team, I tried to find out why I have been considered to be an useful asset for the group. I think I was chosen for my position, as sponsoring leader, based on the trait approach theory , which consists the thought of a person born as a good leader on the capability of owning certain personal traits such as charisma, intelligence, self-confidence, determination, integrity and sociability etc. (Bolden et al., 2003). I also believed that people thought I had good contacts which could have been very helpful for our project and the fundraising.
When the project was still at a theoretical point, I attempted to maintain rather supportive role , as defined by the Hersey Blanchard model of leadership, (Bolden et al., 2003). Since I was one of the first students allocated to a department, and according to the situational leadership theory, I tried to be as supportive as possible by using two-way communication including giving advice to my team members of which department they should join. (Zigami et al, 1985). From the start I was very confident with my group although some concerns such as organisation, delegation and structure would be the best fit for the group. To make things easier and as fair as possible a democratic approach has been taken. According to Fiedler (Fiedler et al, 1988) : " A leader is not effective in all situations" which described my feelings in this kind of situations. Due to the fact that I share a great admiration for all successful leaders in business life, it became very clear to me that for me it was still a long way to go until I could try to lead the sponsoring.
I came to the conclusion that, in the context of a group project, it would be best put an utmost effort in an area where I can be certain of being productive instead of risking to make mistakes by throwing myself into the challenge of a high rank.
Logical thinking and recognizing patterns
The sponsorship team was able to establish a high level of team leadership during the whole duration of the project planning process. This was because there was a immense balance of contribution from each team member and using the Kinlaw’s guide to become an effective team certainly helped us to achieve several goals efficiently (Kinlaw, 1998)
I regret that I did not have the skills needed in the first place to become the leader of the whole project mainly because it would have been an excellent opportunity to learn and gather experiences for my future life. Nevertheless, on the small scale I did enjoy being part of the sponsorship team, mostly because I was able bring in my ideas and play an important role in an important department. On top of that I experienced a progress from rather limited managerial capabilities to a key contact for our team members. Logical thinking and open-mindedness lead to better planned actions that helped the project to remain within the conceptual framework explored above, which is a reflection of the theory of learning organizations (Senge, 1990).
Conative Skills
This is a psychological field that evaluates and analyses how open I am in terms of innovation, changes, risk taking and creating opportunities as well as how effective and efficient I am in creating alternative opportunities (Hayes, 1998).
Envisioning the future and creating unique opportunities
As I was not having an overall leadership position in our project I was often a part of searching and creating opportunity processes. In my opinion that was my most developed and h3est field prior to the start of the process planning of the project. In many occasions I did try to use and proof conative skills:
- Always when my ideas of finding sponsors have been rejected
- and when Mickael Francis from Deptford Green came up with new suggestions and more tasks for our team which had to be solved
The Path-Goal theory is suitable to evaluate the conative domain. Hence I do feel that I was capable of motivating my students and cheer them up in difficult situations, so they could become followers and I proofed my abilities to direct, picture and guide a clear goal. (Northouse, 2001). Nevertheless there were not only positive aspects regarding my conative skills. First of all I did not manage to validate my first sponsor from Germany which was due to communication problems I made and secondly I failed to tell Mickael Francis in a diplomatic way that the weekly increasing work load for our group was barely manageable.
Due to his constant changing mind which differed quite significantly from the original scope it would have been important to mention it to him without upsetting him.
Consequently those errors cost the group an almost secured amount of sponsorship money and put us into quite a lot of trouble managing the workload. I feel that I did well creating and communicating opportunities, but I failed to finalise them and get results. Since adversity is the school of wisdom I learned to work more accurate and precisely as well as bringing my tasks to a termination. It is also emphasized in the situational leadership theory that leaders need flexibility, which I think I applied successfully at some points of the planning process, for example when it came to negotiate with the shop owners on sponsorship money. (Zigami et al, 1985). Although I had to make some mistakes to learn from them.
Decision making and change
In my opinion in the retrospective, my role was a motivating and supporting one and I was meant to come up with new ideas especially regarding the sponsorship kit. This mostly was followed by a democratic decision making process from the entire group. Therefore I always attempted to bring in new ideas and motivate my fellow students to do the same during the whole project. I also tried to reach and maintain a high level of motivation by anticipating and avoiding personal fights among the group. Henceforth I think my behaviour was mainly relationship based and displayed a concern for people (Blake et al, 1985). This required different channels of communication which is why I believe I was a key contact to the rest of the group and knew what was going on in all departments of the group. Nevertheless I did have some troubles convincing my teams of some ideas which can be seen in the process evaluation. Again it became essential for me to be flexible (Zigami et al, 1985).
I feel that I improved my flexibility and learned how to be a decent leader. Although I only could apply my skills when I had a situation that I was able to compare to a changed and better plan and base my modifications on. On the other hand I had problems listening to others and showing patience towards them as well as being helpful when it came to many changes had to be made until the finalization of the project. (Northouse,2001).
Affective Skills
This section deals with the question to what extent I have been able to develop my internal and external image towards stakeholders and if /how my behaviour in a group environment got affected by my emotional involvement during the project (Hayes, 1998).
I trust that I left a positive image of me and my work in my team member’s heads. I do believe that because I was there for them if they needed anything, I communicated a lot via email, phone and face to face conversations and I tried to organize the sponsorship in cooperation with the marketing department. I also did my best to bring in new ideas and different perspectives to achieve our common goals. In fact I tried to link our work to the work of the other departments which might have led to the impression that I was a bit bossy. I also hope that my high level of involvement in the whole project left a positive impression amongst the entire group.
Based on official and unofficial feedback I received from a few fellow group members, these co-operations were appreciated and helpful. My main aim was to be respected as a supportive and encouraging leader and a person in the end and maybe be seen on one level with the overall leaders Hubertus Halmburger and Matthias Muehlbacher.
I feel like I achieved this goal and like I developed my skills of being tolerant towards different opinions coming from a very distinct group of people with many different cultural backgrounds.
Although I was aware of the fact that I could not do all the workload by myself I tried to do as much as I could by myself instead of trusting others. Nevertheless I did admit personal mistakes and tried to be open for discussion at all stages which was important to keep our working environment friendly and harmonic. I was impressed how much I could gain from this course and from planning such a charity event as I never made this kind of experience before. It was a very practical thing which cannot be taught but which must be experienced in order to gain something out of it. Although I am not a very emotional person I developed a lot of passion and had to deal with personal success as well as personal failures. Now, after having completed the whole project I have to admit that sometimes I was glad to not get affected by emotions easily. They are useful when used towards colleagues but in the end those ups and downs are inevitable and did affect the project on a business level. Some of my major outcomes are that business I never easy, recognition is not always given- even when deserved- and that working a lot does not lead necessarily to success. Those are the reasons hurt persons and only can be compensated with the solidarity and support of the rest of the team.
Behavioural Skills
This special psychological domain is focusing on non- verbal forms of expressions, reactions to certain situations and habits for inter-communication (Hayes, 1999).
It would helpful to get some of my fellow team members opinions on this matter. I think my management style can rather be described as leadership style, as I was the one who got allocated to be leader of the sponsoring. That is why I tried to find a team for my department where each member had his own strengths and specialties. Above all, I tried to make use of my communication skills as well as to appear to have a h3 personality which seemed to be essential for this part of the work. Leading the sponsoring group with Ana was only in the beginning a bigger issue when the members had to adapt to each other and when we had to discuss possible opportunities for finding sponsors. After the first meetings I had the feeling that a leader was not really necessary in a traditional way, since a very impressive group dynamic kicked in where leading often became redundant. Only from time to time I had to to keep the group focused and suggest new things in order to reach the target. I always tried to keep the focus on the main objective and to provide the group with new ideas. I also set up some contacts in Germany as potential sponsors as well as I went to see more than 40 shops in High Street Kensington in London. Every task has been completed by me in time with a focus on efficiency and effectiveness. It also has been important to me, never to miss a meeting or to show up late which might be a part of my (German) culture. As the being in charge of the sponsoring, I did come up with new ideas and concepts to increase potential profits or deliver a h3 message of our event. My weaknesses clearly can be found in listening to others, as I tend to undermine different opinions or to adapt to a supportive or subordinate role ( see Belbin). Sometimes was not able to fade out emotions when it came to personal issues in the group or when we experienced a setback regarding our project. This I consider one of my greatest weaknesses as being objective and neutral is essential for taking the right decisions in a business environment.
The attitudes and values that impacted on our interaction were defined by differences in gender and cultural background. Many examples can be found that underline the dissimilarities in cultures, especially when it came to problems or mayor issues. Stereotypes are tried to be avoided but for Germans, it apparently is not unusual to come to every meeting and be dependable but rather limited in emotions. On the other hand has it been considered as very helpful that the South-American and south European culture is more laid back and facilitates to release tensions. This variation of backgrounds sometimes led to problems but most of the time it assisted in the process of creating new ideas and being innovative.
Group Dynamics
To analyse the
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. ( Heartquotes, 2009) This quote by Henry Ford reflects the importance of being able to work through the potential problems that can occur when working as part of a team in order to successfully achieve a common goal. To analyze my affective skills and what kind of image of myself I left in the head of my colleagues a model Based on Kurt Lewin is used. It is based on the fact that each team goes through a process of transformation.(infed,2007). The entire applied model can be found in the appendices.
The intra-group behaviours and interactions were formed by understanding, mutual respect, communication and a good team spirit..This is why the group dynamics shall be analysed by the following stages:
Forming phase
In the beginning the team members dealt with each other on a basis of respect but caution at the same time. I feel this certainly was a good way to start off but posed some problems for all of us. This is because some team members were reserved and did not dare to speak frankly while others were quite happily to say what they needed to say resulting in an imbalance between the exchange of ideas and knowledge. In my role I tried to encourage everybody in my group to talk and share his idea.s
Storming phase
In this phase it came to some intense discussions and indicated which role which member would take.. But before getting to the best performance possible, my team also had to go through some difficulties when defining roles, getting things into shape and partly internal dissatisfaction. (Angelfire, 2009)
Norming Phase
I believe the group was now very dynamic and everyone tried to put in as many ideas and creativity as he/she could. There was still a respectful atmosphere and members dealt with each other and the task within the context of the contract’s clauses which made working together very convenient. It was also obvious that everyone was more secure in its role and therefore happier which show that some of them just need some encouragement by the leaders.
Performing Phase
In this phase our group already had developed a high level of confidence with each other. Another advantage was the low hierarchy within the team. I think that even though a few members can be considered leaders, the contribution of the whole group much better distributed than in the first place. As aforementioned, respect played an important role, hence nobody ever put somebody’s ideas down or disrespected another team member. (Mullins, L. 2006, p275).
Ending Phase
In this phase, the project has been completed successfully and as already stated, the end result was a content group with a proud sense of achievement.
This only was possible because the group got a combination of anxiety and security, so they could go from the’ Norming’ to the ‘Performing’ phase.
(Angelfire,2009)
1. Conclusion – Learning Outcomes based on domain analysis
Despite the fact that I had to put in a lot of effort and -above all- time into this project I consider it one of the best and most useful experiences that I have made during my entire educational career at EBSL. Even though some major problems, like the lack of sponsorship money, occurred it was a very exciting process and project. Above all, my group was an almost perfect assembled team consisting of strong personalities with individual strengths and weaknesses. Throughout the duration of the project the passion of each team member and the whole group grew constantly which made it far easier to work under pressure and to create new ideas and opportunities. In the end, the self evaluation also was very time consuming but gladly by analyzing the four psychological domains I now understand how I function in a team and how I react to changes. It also showed how to apply the theoretical knowledge taught in class to real-life situations.
The leadership and management course offered this precious opportunity to take responsibility and make decisions in many different contexts. In this framework I do think that there is not one right way of leadership, but that the most versatile personality will be of the greatest value for a group project and the outcome of a common work (Bolden et al, 2003). An effective leader is also able to switch between a supportive and a directive behaviour according to the current needs of the followers. (Zigami et al, 1985).
The whole course including the self and process reflection made it possible to improve my understanding of myself, my weaknesses and strengths and what/ how I can change and make better in the future. It also provided me with a profound knowledge of leadership theory which enabled me to think of how I want to be as a leader and what I want to achieve as one. This would not have been possible by only using a theoretical approach but needed the actual real life situation challenge. Hence I did enjoy a very useful outcome from this course.
Eventually, I consider myself very lucky for having this opportunity and I am proud to have planned and organized a successful event for a good cause. I am glad that EBSL and the Leadership and Management course offered me this opportunity.
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