Introduction
This self-reflection report attempts to present a critical analysis of the development process which shaped my leadership and management skills while involved in a group for organizing an event. This report analyzes the role of different psychological domains that contributed to the development of leadership and managerial skills and abilities. These domains cover the application of cognitive, behavioral, affective and cognitive characteristics in the skill development process. The relative influence of these psychological domains on the personality development process will be dealt with by this report in an organized manner so that this report becomes cohesive and meaningful in expressing the flow of the developmental process. In order to be comprehensive and present a detailed account of the development process, this report will be related to the different tasks performed by me while meeting the requirements of the different steps involved from starting to completion of the event successfully. The analysis of each domain will involve a descriptive account of the four components composed in the individual domain. The analysis will be supported by examples from my personal experiences while going through the preparation and conducting of the event. Adequate academic support will also be included as part of the report to supplement my views on the psychological processes. Because of my relative position within the group the report will attach more significance to cognitive and conative skills. At the same time the role of behavioral and affective skills will also be analyzed to the required extent. Different stages in my personal development process will be backed by descriptions of events and activities that took place as part of the group performance along the process of preparing and conducting the event. The report also states the limitations and constraints to the developmental process pertaining to both myself and the group members. Necessary links to the external environment will be established along the narrations in the report.
Affective Domain
Self-regulation and development is a wider concept encompassing several interdependent elements including affective and cognitive capacities. Affective capacities signify the moods, feelings and emotions and cognitive capacities include beliefs, perceptions and knowledge. Learning and development are best achieved when one understands and appreciates the interaction between affective and cognitive process. There is yet another facet of cognitive capabilities that is important in the process of development, which is the’ metacognitive’ skills. Metacognitive skills enable an individual to understand one’s own cognitive skills and therefore includes memory, attention and problem solving capabilities. “The affective domain includes the manner in which we deal with things emotionally, such as feelings, values, appreciation, enthusiasms, motivations, and attitudes.” (Krathwohl et al., 1973) Affective domain controls strong emotions such as anger, frustration, anxiety and sadness and shapes up the personal traits of an individual. Affective skills enable an individual to understand the ways to communicate and interact with fellow human beings and thereby to develop and maintain relationships with different people. It also enables one to understand how these relationships actually work and the ways in which they affect others – whether positively or negatively by what is being said or done by one.
One of the issues connected with effective skills in organizing the art exhibition was the change in the plan from conducting the wine tasting event to art exhibition. Personally I was not in favor of organizing the art exhibition as I was keen on wine-tasting event as I thought that such an event would develop leadership and management skills apart from generating some cash. Even though majority people in the group were in favor of organizing the event of art exhibition, I was under the impression that since those people did not know what they are looking for they have consented to the conduct of art exhibition. I was disappointed on the selection of the art exhibition as the event, as I though wine-tasting event would have been challenging with more chances of raising some money whereas in the exhibition money seemed to be a less important issue. Even though I was not convinced with the idea of art exhibition since I did not see any possibilities of arranging an exhibition and also I perceived that business students must make profit creation as the potential objective. However, my affective ability and skills enabled me to come out of the initial resentment and involve myself fully in organizing the event of art exhibition. The other occasion where my affective skills helped me is when the other departments did not have any initiative to make protocols of the meetings and when they failed to take some action in meeting the venue authorities to collect the necessary information. My effective skills enabled me to control the emotions and work along with the group to conduct the exhibition successfully.
Working with a group requires the exercise of utmost trust with other members of the group and building trust and relationship is the foremost determinant of the success of the group activity. Despite my unwillingness to accept the change in the activity, I accepted the majority decision to conduct the art exhibition. Considering my reaction to this situation, I should say that I have successfully demonstrated my ability to control my feelings and emotions. Another important contribution by this group activity was the development of an inquisitive quality within me. This enabled me to develop a set of multiple questions on the event and answers to those questions provided the necessary information for successfully discharging the function of logistics. The development of this nature, I am sure, would help me more in finding out the information in a more detailed way in any real life situation. My ability to imagine likely situations have tremendously improved and I could visualize potential problems and work out probable solutions to solve those problems. I consider the practice of controlling emotions and feelings as one of the major lessons I learnt from this group project.
Cognitive Domain
“Cognition may be defined as that which becomes to be known through the creation of knowledge as the result of awareness, learning, reflection, perception, reasoning, intuition, judgment, and wisdom.” (Columbia University, n.d.). Cognitive skills are the basis for the development of basic mental abilities for the human beings. This mental ability enables a person to think, study and learn and helps him/her in the process of self-development. Cognitive skills include a number of mental processes which one can use to analyze sounds and images. Cognitive skills help one to recall information from memory. It also enables the association between different pieces of information, collate them and enable one to focus on specific tasks the individual is performing. It is possible in certain instances to individually identify and measure these skills. The strength and efficiency of cognitive skills may be correlated to the learning ability of an individual. Cognitive skills are built up through the process which involves the creation of intellectual arrangements. The process involves the following components.
I could demonstrate an exceptional ability to understand the need for collecting more information to gain adequate knowledge on the subject. This became evident when I perceived my responsibility of obtaining all the relevant information regarding the event as to what types of arts or works are needed from the artistes and what are the materials that are needed to put the art works up in the exhibition. I was also curious to gather more information on what is expected of us to conduct the art exhibition successfully. There were a number of questions that haunted my mind like whether the art works had to be hanged on the wall or would they be placed on the tables, how many of them would be presented, what is the mode of transportation to bring these pieces of arts, what are the timings during which the arts will be exhibited, will there be a sale of art works and if so how much the artist will get and how much will be paid to us for our efforts to organize the event and whether all the other teams are aware that there are so many questions that need answers. The cognitive skills present in myself has enabled me to process all the questions and note down them for getting informative answers so that I would gain the required knowledge to facilitate the event using my behavioral skills.
Through this process I was able to successfully demonstrate my ability to understand and apply management theories of leading the group and directing the team members. According to Hersh & Keeling, (2008) when the individual roles are defined within a group, individual members should stick to the allotted task and should not attempt to interfere with the tasks allotted to others. I could demonstrate the application of this principle by not interfering with others’ assigned tasks. Hersh & Keeling, (2008) are also of the view that one should not undermine the leadership ability of others in short-term projects. Having understood the ability of Heidi to act as an efficient leader, I accepted her leadership unquestioningly for this event and decided not to undermine her role at any time during the project was in progress. I based my actions on advanced concept-based thinking and applying logic throughout the process of organizing the required things. I gathered the necessary data to develop my knowledge and used my judgment and wisdom based on such knowledge. By working on the project of art exhibition I could develop my managerial skills to a great extent as I started off from the scratch to conclude the exhibition. My organizing ability enabled me to arrive at the questions on the whole affair before the event started and this helped in concluding it successfully.
Behavioral Domain
Behavioral skills are considered playing a predominant role in developing a successful career in business as a leader/manager (CharteredInstituteofManagementAccountants, 2005). Behavioral skills are acknowledged as equally important as technical or other professional competencies. They include personal skills involving self- management, interpersonal skills that enable one to interact with others and organizational skills enabling an effective organizing of resources. Behavioral skills enable an individual to develop an awareness of effective facilitation skills and behaviors contributing to the success of an event. By using behavioral skills one can understand effective event management techniques and good facilitation techniques. Generally three core skills are involved in leading an effective team process – meeting management, facilitation skills and problem solving/team building. In this context meetings may be of different types including one way information sharing meetings or briefings, project update meetings, decision oriented meetings or problem solving meetings. Good facilitation includes the exercise of specific behavioral skills like asking open ended questions, responding positively to contributions from the group, asking more specific examples, redirecting comments or questions to other group members for responses, avoiding stating one’s own opinion while facilitating and presenting the views of the group members more precisely and clearly.
Planning, doing and reviewing are all covered by the basic behavioral skills. In an effective meeting the objective is established and a clear agenda is set to meet the objectives. Logistics get arranged and roles and responsibilities are defined. Key contributions by the group members are pre-positioned to identify potential barriers and overcome them. The set agenda is followed and a proper record of group thinking is made for future reference.
When the actual action takes place good meeting behaviors are practiced and group participation is encouraged. Identification of the next steps takes place and benefits and concerns of the actions are noted for evaluating the effectiveness of the decisions. Meeting summary is circulated and follow up actions on next steps are discussed. The process also involves incorporating benefits and concerns into the next meeting plan.
Personal, interpersonal and organizational behavioral skills helped me to organize the art exhibition by conducting periodic meetings, sending emails to all the group members on the minutes of the meetings for initiating follow up actions, establishing contract with central proud gallery the exhibition venue, formulating possible questions for getting answers from all concerned, discussing with Janine (manager of the venue) about the arrangements, visiting the venue and taking pictures, arranging for the printing labels and posters, preparing the schedule of events and timings, entering into email correspondence with the venue authorities, team members and artistes.
Even though I am more expressive and emotional by nature, the involvement in this group task has changed my character to a large extent. My expressions and interpersonal communication pattern have undergone a tremendous change in which I am now able to communicate with others more clearly and coherently. The interpersonal communication skills developed through this project enabled me to control my emotions while communicating with others. As I was belonging to the logistics group I had to interact with all the other departments to cater to all their requirements. This opportunity has helped me to approach the issues in a more detailed way so that nothing escapes one’s attention. I had to practice noting down everything said or discussed so that something important is not forgotten causing embarrassment. I could feel that my introvert personality is changed and I started interacting with everyone without any inhibition. I was constantly encouraging and motivating other group members so that everyone contributed their best to achieve the desired goal. In situations where there was no consensus on some issues, I could intervene boldly and contribute my ideas to resolve the issue.
Conative Domain
Conative domain assumes importance in the development process as it is the one that activates and directs the individual’s behavior and actions. There are various terms used to describe some of the conative aspects – “intrinsic motivation, goal-orientation, volition, will, self-direction, and self-regulation”. The Conventional domain generally deals with the purpose of one’s life and the aspirations, intentions and goals. It also defines the ideas, objects and events to which the individual should focus his/her attention to achieve the set goals. Therefore conation defines the set of actions which the individual should take in pursuit of achieving the goals. Development of conative abilities is always subjected to behavioral and environmental resistance. This makes helping an individual develop conative skills and attitudes with self-direction and personal efficacy more critical. It must be understood that one of the critical factors in the successful use of conative abilities is that the individual possesses a freedom of choice and the ability to control the thoughts and behavior. This aspect allows human beings greater latitude in their range of behavior. Sometimes the behavior may be more adaptive and in some other occasions less adaptive. Similarly the degree of morale may also change in different circumstances.
In the context of organizing the art exhibition I could feel that there is a clear display of conative skills which are essential to initiate actions for the successful organizing the art exhibition, the group planned to undertake. I initiated actions like putting all the questions that came up to my mind because of the exercise of the cognitive skills to Janine, the manager of the venue and to other team members so that as a logistics team member I could take the necessary steps to ensure that all the materials and other requirements are transported to the venue or otherwise arranged within the venue with the help of Janine, the manager. I formulated the questions and transformed into a questionnaire with an indication of the person(s) responsible for answering the questions. Once I got adequate knowledge, the first thing I did was to visit the venue and to take pictures of the venue so that it was possible to arrange for everything required. On arriving at the venue I could get an idea on the number of artists that we could invite based on the space available. I planned for everything that may be required from setting up the place until the place is cleaned including the printing of labels. I also organized the working schedules for the artists including the break times. I constructed a floor plan with possible location for each artiste and created a complete schedule for the complete day of the event. Another job to be accomplished was printing of the poster and distributing to every person attending as per the directions of the marketing team.
I clearly understood the process of transformation which the group is going through as I consistently followed the group activities through weekly meetings and through informal interactions with the group members. It was also evident that I took part in a decision-making process through attending all weekly meetings and I could also observe that the group meetings enabled everyone to express their concerns and ideas to supplement and strengthen the decision-making process. With the majority deciding to pursue the art exhibition project, the meetings turn out to follow a pure democratic process which allowed everyone to participate on selection of the event as well as the venue for conducting the event. I also could observe that I possessed the quality of openness and adaptation to change. This became evident when there was a change in the event from wine-tasting to art exhibition. Even though initially I was not in favor of conducting the exhibition, later on I actively involved myself in organizing the event which proved my ability to perceive changes.
Conclusion
To summarize, organizing the logistics for an art exhibition by the group has been found to be instrumental in a perfect understanding of the interactions of psychological domains in one’s actions. A perfect combination of affective, behavioral, cognitive and cognitive skills appears to be of vital importance in shaping up the personality of an individual. This becomes evident when one is involved in organizing an event or indulging in some action along with fellow human beings. These skills enable a person to deal with real life issues more meaningfully and with profound professionalism. Such skills also teach an individual as to how he/she can fit into working in a group environment without affecting others’ feelings and sentiments. More than anything else these skills provide a definite opportunity of developing the leadership and managerial skills which are taught theoretically in the academic courses, more with a practical approach.
Reference List
Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, 2005. Record of Skills Development. Web.
Columbia University, Cognition, Knowledge and Paradigms. Web.
Hersh, R.H. & Keeling, R.P., 2008. Liberal education: Lessons beyond the classroom. Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(47), p.A 64.
Krathwohl, D.R., Bloom, B.S. & Masia, B.B., 1973. Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, the Classification of Educational Goals. Handbook II: Affective Domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc.