Organizational Effectiveness and Professional Development - Intra and Interpersonal Effectiveness - Assignment Example

Title: Name: ID: Lecturer: Date: Semester: Word Count: 2148 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..3 Intrapersonal Effectiveness……………………………………………………………….4 Interpersonal Effectiveness………………………………………………………………..6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………….8 References…………………………………………………………………………………10 Introduction The purpose of this portfolio is to give an incisive reflection of my organizational effectiveness, intra and interpersonal effectiveness in a bid to expound on my professional strengths and preferences. The portfolio will help me discover areas where I still have much to do in regards to professional development. This paper also focuses on improving my knowledge in intercultural relationships and how I can move from the point of just knowing they exist and actually use them in a beneficial manner that will improve my organizational effectiveness and develop me individually within my profession. The content of this portfolio is actually based on the lecture and tutorial activities together with group experiences. I have also included a considerable amount of relevant literature review to help me articulate my arguments better. This portfolio is divided into two parts. The first part I concentrate on intrapersonal effectiveness where I focus on my emotional intelligence. The second part I concentrate on interpersonal effectiveness where I put my focus on my preferred team role as determined from the self-perception inventory. In each of the sections I try to keep my argument and discussion to the context of organizational effectiveness as much as possible. Section 1: Emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence as I have come to learn is a relatively new phenomenon to be studied by psychologists. However it is an interesting subject to study as it has helped me improve on my organizational effectiveness and interpersonal skills a great deal. I learnt that emotional intelligence has been a subject of fascination to a number of researchers in the recent past. Daniel Goleman is probably the most prominent of them all with his landmark book ‘Emotional Intelligence’. I learnt that emotional intelligence or otherwise known as EQ (Emotional Quotient) has been very instrumental to companies as they settle for their choice of employees (Jerrel and Mourad, 2008). As a matter of fact as I have come to discover through a random research , most of the human resource departments are switching to this mode in interviewing, profiling jobs and human resource development. In light of these facts then I believe that developing high level of emotional intelligence will improve how effective I am in any organizational set up in a way that will be beneficial to the organization and also develop me as a person. A high emotional intelligence will improve my people skills and I will be able to develop excellent people skills that will make me foster even productive interpersonal relationship with the people I am working with in any organizational set up. I scored average on schutte-emotional intelligence scale. I had a score of 23. What this meant is that I had average emotional intelligence. The scale could not be so wrong about my emotional intelligence at all. At the group discussions I could not quite well relate with some peoples ideas as I could feel they are too inferior, this would put me into conflict with some group members as we tried to debate on the validity of their proposal. However as I have come to realize. It is important to avoid personal conflicts especially in a group that is designed to work coherently, instead I can have intellectual conflict by not attacking the person but the idea it self. What I came to learn from this course and my research at large is that emotional intelligence can only be achieved by first understanding your own emotions. What I have learnt from that is that when relating with people in an organizational set up which is diverse with many cultures and personalities, it is important that I first recognize my emotions and how they affect my thinking and determine my strengths and weaknesses. One of my emotions that I actually noted could impact negatively to my effectiveness in an organization is intolerance to other people’s ideas. The implication of this is that I might almost tend to be dictatorial in group activities and when in a leadership position there is the danger of making the decisions on my own without consulting others. I think as a part of getting a high emotional quotient it is fundamental I learn how to manage some of my emotions. The first step in my strategy to improving my emotional intelligence should be to lower my stress levels. According to Gerald and Richard (2004) Stress could actually alter how we react to different situations. Once I am done away with stress reduction then I can be able to freely know my emotions like intolerance and the kind of implication they have on my interpersonal relationships. I can learn to know when actually I have stated being intolerant and judgmental of other people’s contributions and tell myself that I should actually give a benefit of doubt to everybody and a fair hearing of some sort. I have also learnt that good communication skills especially non-verbal communication can go a long way in improving my effectiveness in an organizational set up. I could actually note that once I studied and practiced some body gestures like a maintaining eye contact when communicating in my group then the effect of my message was big judging by the level of nods I could see in agreement to what I was saying. Getting to understand other people’s emotions is part of improving your emotional intelligence as I have to discover. The good thing with this understanding is that you can actually identify with the situations the other person is going through at a particular time (Robert, Vinod and Manas, 2008). I have been able to understand when to give in to an argument that shows no signs of ending and as well approach conflict situations in a manner that will not expose my emotions so much. Improving my emotional intelligence is actually a career development goal that I have set and I am actually committed to achieving it through the strategy I have outlined in the preceding paragraph. I will monitor my progress by looking at how best I have been able to be in harmony with group members, how effective are my non-verbal skills, how much I appreciate and compliment others contributions, how motivational am I to the people I am working with, and finally how good am I at not letting emotions overcome my reactions. Section 2: My preferred team role As can be evidenced in myself perception inventory analysis sheet, I actually scored very high on completer and finisher while scoring very poorly on monitor and evaluator. What this means is that there are some personality traits and of course self perception factors that make me be very good at being the type of a team player that does his work painstakingly to ensure that very limited mistakes are made. I like following the due procedures as I also recommend we stick to original plans during our group discussions. I am particularly obsessed with following the order of doing things in any organizational set-up. To some organization they might prefer somebody who can be somewhat creative and change the order of doing things to the benefit of the organization at sometime (Andrew, John and Susan, 2004). But what I have learnt in big organizations, flexibility is very limited and preference to people like me is high (Peter, 2011). But then in a changing business environment it is good to be flexible and do things the unconventional way to adapt to changing times rather than sticking to traditions and not letting go of old practices. I think this is very good especially if I learn it early enough at this career level I am in as it will boost my ratings and employability. To be dynamic should however be not confused with being plant; the feeling of being a self acknowledged genius who wants to do things on his own and disregard all the set protocols. From my self-perception inventory, I scored very poorly on this I am therefore nowhere near being such kind of a team player. But I must improve my dynamism and be a bit sharper, this way I will be able to capture emerging opportunities at amazing speed. However I should be keen as this trait borders on being self deceiving and can make an individual prone to provocation and being intolerant to differences in opinion. From my results it is notable also that I am a poor monitor and evaluator as a team player. This actually tells of a character that is not so endearing to the people. I am very intolerant to poor performance and contributions. I always believe that somebody could have done better than he has. This I have learnt is a highly judgmental attitude which according to (Meredith and Meredith 2012), can damage my interpersonal relationship with others as to them I appear as an unemotional person who they cannot find easy to relate with. This means that it is very difficult to motivate people for me. This is not desirable at all as at some point I have actually behaved in such a manner in my group work. It did not improve my effectiveness in organizational contribution neither did it add anything of value to the group. Instead it only served to bring about some few disagreements in the group with some people choosing to avoid conflicting situations and as such we could not deal with some matters conclusively. At some point in my career I have been entrusted with a responsibility to lead people and I know even in future my employers will be looking for an effective team player who can be able to motivate his fellow colleagues towards a target. Therefore it will only be prudent I develop my professionalism by improving on this behavior. I also scored very well at being a team worker; I had a score of 12. Teams should work coherently if at all they are to achieve all their objectives. This calls for an ability to listen to people and know how they would want certain situations handled (Nicky, 2002). However this may lower my indecisiveness at some critical moments as I look towards moving in tandem with the team spirit. This trait is good but should not entirely be relied on due to the major undoing of making a person value the team so much than concentrate on the overall good that is to be achieved by the organization the team is working for. I will use several indicators to analyze my progress in developing more effective team role. One of the ways I will know my improvement is to see that I am more flexible and can actually avoid turning to the manual to get directions of how I am supposed to react to situations but rather react to a situation using the knowledge I have in dealing with an emergent situation. I will also challenge protocol at least to the allowable limits. It’s all in the sense of being creative. I will know how far I have achieved this by the level of drive I will develop in dealing with challenges head on. If I stick to the old habit of letting things improve on their own, then I will know I am nowhere near achieving sharpness. To be a motivator I will try out a few skills like holding general conversations with all the team members in an organization. I will know how much I have achieved this by the feedback I get from satisfaction inquests by a third party. Conclusion From this two part reflection I have learnt several lessons that will go a long way in improving my professional development. I learnt that emotional intelligent as part of ones intrapersonal skills is one of the key attributes of a successful people motivator. By analyzing myself to understand my emotions and how they influence my behavior and how they impact on my socio-cultural relations, I will become a better person who can contribute positively towards the productivity of the organization I am working for. There are several ways to improve my intrapersonal skills and more specifically emotional intelligence which I hope to use in improving my intrapersonal skills. Some of these ways include developing an attitude to listen to everybody within an organization and control my emotions as much as possible. Interpersonal skills are the other skills that I have discovered are very beneficial whenever I want to create an environment that promotes organizational effectiveness. By learning how to play a part of the team by maximizing on my strengths and improving on my weaknesses then I will be an effective team player. I have gained considerable knowledge from the class activities in BSB124 and my personal studies relating to the course. It will only be prudent to say the whole experience has developed me holistically as a professional and as a social being. References Andrew. K, John. B, Susan. V, (2004), Working in Organisations, Gower Publishing Ltd Gerald, M, Moshe, Z, Richard, D, (2004), Emotional Intelligence: Science and Myth, MIT Press Jerrell, C, Mourad, E, (2008), Emotional intelligence: Perspectives from Educational and Positive Psychology, Peter Lang Publisher. Meredith. R, Meredith. B, (2012) Team Roles at Work, Routledge Publishers Nicky. H, (2002), Managing Teams: A Strategy for Success, Cengage Learning EMEA Peter. H, (2011), Leadership Team Coaching: Developing Collective Transformational Leadership, Kogan Page Publishers Robert, J, Vinod, S, Manas, K, (2008), Emotional Intelligence: Theoretical and Cultural Perspectives, Nova Publishers Read More