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Portfolio Reflection Essay A leader to me is someone who inspires, motivates, and builds people up. Someone who creates a vision, shares it, and encourages people to support that vision while working to achieve their own vision in the process. This course has taught me an array of knowledge when it comes to leadership. There are multiple concepts that I have learned including: becoming self-aware, socially aware, displaying emotional and behavioral intelligence, how to lead others and work as a team, how to communicate effectively, how to build and maintain professional relationships, value diversity of the community, build consensus and influence others, and lastly identifying and using strategies to effect change. The first learning topic I became knowledgeable about through this course is self-awareness. Self-awareness includes understanding your own feelings and emotions and being able to acknowledge and accept your own behavior towards others. Prior to being in this course, I had never even heard about emotional intelligence nor had I realized how important it really is in order to be an effective leader. I became more self-aware through the self-assessments taken in this class. In the Myers Briggs assessment I learned I am an ESFP. I am an extrovert, I learn through sensing, I make decisions through feelings, and I use my perceiving function to be more flexible and spontaneous in life. Being an extrovert means I am energetic, a “people person,”

and I like to talk out loud about things for better understanding. Through sensing I pay more attention to what I hear, touch, see, taste and smell. I am realistic and pay attention to what is actual and present. I am factual and detail oriented. I have a pretty good memory and can usually remember snapshots of an event that happened pertaining to my five senses. Through making decisions through feelings, I like to acknowledge the views of other people involved and I believe that is how the best decision can be made. I believe this goes along with being a “people person,” I am concerned about others and like to maintain harmony. I see the best in people and am very compassionate. Lastly, I am a perceiver. I am spontaneous and flexible. I like to be open-minded to whatever happens and roll with the punches. I am encouraged with energy when a deadline is approaching. It is important to know what kind of personality I have in order to learn my strengths and weaknesses. Through learning I have an ESFP personality and looking at the results of my strengths and talents inquiry I have learned more about my strengths and weaknesses. Some of my strengths include being energetic, practical, people oriented, compassionate, hardworking, organized, and kind. My weaknesses include being assertive, bold, public speaking, and time management. Both of these assessments helped me to learn how I am perceived by others and helped me to assess my potential as a healthcare leader. They also helped to guide

my personal leadership model. Self-awareness is just the first component of emotional intelligence and perhaps the most important. I learned a lot about myself and feel my self-awareness improved in this class through watching videos, Brenda Freshman’s article, the lectures, the textbook and the self-assessments. The second learning outcome was becoming socially aware, another emotional intelligence concept. This is an understanding of the behavioral characteristics and needs of people and putting others before yourself. As I stated in my Emotional Intelligence Reflection Essay, social awareness reminds me of the commandment in the Bible that says to love your neighbor as yourself. This includes considering other peoples feelings before you take action. As a future healthcare executive, I think I will learn to be an effective leader by always looking at how my leadership decisions affect those around me. Being socially aware will help me to work in teams and improve my communication. This will also help me in determining my leadership style based on the people I am leading. I strive to be a transformational and situational leader. I know that one style does not always work for all situations and I believe that by learning about social awareness, I will be able to identify with those around me and consider their needs before I make any decisions. It will also help me to influence and inspire others by adapting in ways they can recognize and relate to.

The next concept I learned was how to display emotional and behavioral intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes the previously mentioned concepts of self-awareness and social awareness, as well as three other concepts. The three other concepts that make up emotional intelligence are self-regulation, self-motivation, and social skills. Self-regulation includes ones ability to adapt to change, knowing when to say no, and accepting responsibility. I have learned that I am particularly good at being self-regulated. I stay true to my values and say no when I have to. I am also good at not saying hurtful or unintended things in a heated situation. When I get upset about something I like to step away and allow myself time to gather my thoughts and calm down a little before just blurting something out and hurting someone’s feelings. I think what helps me to be self-regulated most is my faith. My pastor always says that you choose how you feel, so if you are angry you are choosing that. When I am angry about something I always remind myself that it’s a choice and I like to question why I allowed something to make me angry. When I look at it that way, it really helps me to choose to not let little things bother me and I like to choose to be joyful and happy and be known as a smiley person. I think self-regulation goes hand in hand with self-awareness, because once you are aware of your feelings you can learn to regulate them. This is why all aspects of emotional intelligence of a whole are so important. Self-motivation is another concept of emotional

intelligence. Self-motivation is when you are “driven to achieve, being passionate over profession, enjoying challenges.” (Freshman 2002) This makes a person look at what motivates them to be successful. Do you look to others for encouragement and words of affirmation? Do you compete with yourself in order to achieve things? How are you motivated? Self-motivation can include being positive in order to build morale in the work place and inspire others to work hard to achieve their goals. I learned that finding ways to show appreciation to staff members is one way to motivate them to continue working hard. I also learned that I personally am motivated by intrinsically and externally. I compete with myself and like to set goals and reach them and I am also a bit of a perfectionist. This motivates me to work hard to be the best at things, even though I often fail. Those around me also motivate me. I appreciate words of affirmation, especially when I do fail at something and need encouragement. My friends and family are best at this. Even when I do fail at things, I think it is important to stay positive and set a new more achievable goal. By staying positive and transparent about your failures you set a good example for others and allow them to also grow from your mistakes. Lastly, social skills are another important aspect to emotional intelligence. Social skills include your ability to motive, encourage, and inspire others to work toward a common goal. Someone who is a good listener often has good social skills. They listen so that they know the needs of others

and can find ways to meet those needs. Good social skills also help you to know those you are working with and can help me when I am choosing a leadership style. Social skills are essential to be an efficient leader and communicate well. Along with the five main concepts of emotional intelligence, in one of the videos we watched by Dr. Adler, I learned there are four primary emotions. As a leader striving to be more self-aware it is important to note the four primary emotions are happy, sad, mad, and scared. This allows me to analyze my emotions and where they come from. Emotional intelligence has also helped me to better understand my behavior and actions and why I do certain things in certain circumstances. Emotional intelligence has been one of my favorite topics covered in this class, because it is important in everyday life. It helps me to act differently and be more aware of my feelings and the feelings of others. The fourth learning outcome I learned about in this class was how to lead others and participate as a team member. I learned a lot about this topic through the lectures as well as through writing the leadership essay. In my essay I decided to focus on the theories that I identified with most. I am a firm believer that there is no single best style of leadership and that you should look at each situation before choosing a style to lead with. With that being said, one theory I really enjoyed learning about is the situational leadership theory. This theory looks at the ability of those you are leading as well as their

commitment/ motivation. Once you assess these things, there are four different approaches you can take: directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. The directing approach is most appropriate when both their motivation and ability is low and the leader needs to take charge in order to complete something in a timely manner. Coaching is beneficial when your followers are willing but have low ability to complete the task. The supporting approach is when the ability is high but willingness is low. This is when the leader needs to find ways to motivate their staff. Lastly, the delegating approach is when your followers are motivating and able and need little supervision. It is also important to note that over time you can work your way up from one approach to another as you work on the ability and motivation of your staff. Another leadership style I learned a lot about and chose to focus on was the transformational leadership theory. I like this theory because a leader who is visionary, value driven, communicates well, people oriented, and has high popularity characterizes it. A transformational leader is someone who is concerned about other people and takes their needs into consideration. Taking care of the needs of your followers is important in order to be a successful leader. I also learned a lot about how to lead and be a team member through our group project where we had some tips for Jeff. We first identified factors that were contributing to his poor performance. The group project reiterated the importance of emotional intelligence,

communication, engagement, motivation, and the phases of a team. Jeff was not very self-aware and did not treat staff members with respect nor did he try to get to know other staff. In order to work well with a team and be engaged you have to communicate clear expectations, share information and be transparent, make others feel valued and appreciated, provide positive feedback, and display genuine apprehension about others opinions. In healthcare you are always working in a team no matter what area you go into, so this unit will be very beneficial for me in my future career. Communication is key. This is a learning outcome that is beneficial no matter what your profession is. As a future leader you have to be able to communicate efficiently and effectively. You will have to be able to communicate your mission, vision, values and goals to your peers. You will also have to communicate daily with other staff members and maybe patients. Communication can make or break you as a leader. Communication includes your leading style and how you lead. It includes being transparent and sharing information with patients, staff, and even the community. Two-way communication works best in my opinion. An organization where leaders seek input from other staff will be more effective than an organization where a leader is a dictator. We learned about communication through lectures, role-plays, group projects and reflection essays. The role-play particularly dealt with how to communicate effectively in the workplace

and what was and was not appropriate. My group’s role-play, for example, included communicating with an employee who showed up late to a meeting with their boss and their bosses superior. The tardiness hindered the effectiveness of the meeting by not allowing time for all topics to be discussed. The boss had to have a discussion with their employee after the meeting about her frequent tardiness. He effectively communicated the importance of being on time as well as taking the time to see what he could do to help his employee. He asked if they had unrealistic expectations for her at work that was causing her to be late. The employee expressed she is easily caught up in other work and loses track of time. There are multiple ways the leader could have confronted their employee about this issue. By first asking if he could help in any way he showed concern for his employee rather than just getting upset. I learned that two-way communication is important and one-way communication will often times not gain followers or inspire others. I also learned about verbal and non-verbal communication skills and how significant gestures, facial expressions, and body language can be. Active listening is also a component of your communication skills and shows you are engaged in the conversation. Active listening can also help prohibit misunderstandings. This unit taught me how important it is to care for your employees in order to be a successful leader. I learned to take note of how I am communicating with others both verbally and non-

verbally. This has already been of value to me in my schoolwork through presentations as well as with friends. I am now more aware of how I come across to others and I strive to be open-minded and seek opinions of other people. The sixth learning outcome I became more knowledgeable about through this course is how to build and maintain professional relationships. We learned how to be professional through certain tasks such as punctuality/attendance, communication, listening and responding to input, personal issues at work, using the proper channels, and ethical behavior and conflicts of interest. By knowing what behaviors are and are not appropriate at the work place will help aid you in how to network and build these professional relationships that are key to success. It is important to know how to build these relationships because it is reported by Mintzberg that leaders spend close to 44% of their time dealing with people in external agencies and other stakeholders. Networking includes the trading of information between people specifically relating to business. Networking with people to build positive relationships will help me in the future to get a job. This reminds me of the saying that “it is all about who you know.” In the business world, who you know goes a long way. People have connections to businesses and can help you get a job if you form a positive relationship with them. I have learned a variety of tips on how to build these kinds of relationships. One tip is to avoid trying to fix

other people. In the workplace you may have to work with people you find challenging to work with, rather than trying to fix them you should focus on yourself and allows others to learn through their own mistakes. You should also try to avoid difficult people and not allow yourself to be stressed out by them. You should also try to be an observer; watch other people and see how they communicate with others and try to learn from watching them. Never interrupt people and allow them to finish their thoughts before inserting your own input. You should also watch your nonverbal actions to see what kind of a message you are sending as you communicate with people and be sure to make eye contact, actively listen, and smile. Trust is a key component of forming a quality relationship. Trust enables the sharing of information and data and helps to form a strong bond between people. I have joined FHE and LinkedIn in order to try to build more professional relationships and network with people. As a student who is graduating in the Spring I have learned the importance of maintaining contact and taking initiation in pursing and maintaining relationships I have built. I have reached out multiple times to people from my internship from the summer and worked to preserve the positive relationship I build with them this summer. I am sure to always be enthusiastic and positive and I exchanged contact information in order to continue our relationship. I also made an initiative to set up a lunch with my preceptor and his boss just two

weeks ago in order to talk about future plans. I have high hopes to continue working at Grifols, because I have learned from this class how to enhance relationships. I am confident my relationship building skills will also help me in the future. Wherever I end up next I now know the importance of building relationships and how to effectively build them. I know to be conscious of my facial expressions and non-verbal signals. This was another one of my favorite units in this course. The seventh learning outcome from this course included the value of diversity in the community. In the office it is imperative that you will be surrounded by an assortment of people of different races, social classes, demographics, etc. It is so important to know how to work with people of different cultures. In class we watched a video about a potential employee going through an interview who was obviously uncomfortable with the diversity that was in the office. We watched as he interacted with a woman superior, an African-American man, an Indian woman, and a disabled woman. After watching we discussed in groups whether or not we would hire the man who came off very rude to people who were different than him. Our group decided that despite his high qualifications, we would not hire him because he would present many challenges and intensify cultural barriers that already exist. We feared he would discriminate and be prejudice against those people and would not be able to work effectively with them. We also read about a situation where an x-ray

technician told an African-American to remove her hair because he assumed it was not real. She was very offended by this and reported it to management and did not feel it was handled correctly. This taught me the importance in having a standardized protocol for every patient despite his or her background. Both of these situations were very realistic and it could be easy to offend someone who is different from you if you do not have cultural competence. This reiterated the significance of valuing diversity to me. The textbook talks about ways for leaders to promote cultural competence that were beneficial to me. It is important to include “culturally appropriate” services in the establishment’s goals and assess these goals frequently to view progress. It is important to hire people of different cultural backgrounds who can help to teach you and others about their culture incase you have a patient who is similar to them. As a leader you need to consider the needs of people from multiple cultures before making a decision. All of these tips help to create an organization that truly values diversity. Valuing diversity goes hand in hand with being socially aware of the needs of others. This unit helped me to become more knowledgeable in diversity and expressed its importance. The eighth learning outcome was building consensus and influencing others. One way I learned about this was through working to improve a dysfunctional team. We had a group project that dealt with a dysfunctional team that we had to identify the dysfunctional

areas and find ways to improve the dysfunction. Some elements that can cause an ineffective team include: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoiding accountability, and inattention to results. The absence of trust hinders communication among team members and teammates often will have a lower morale and dread meetings. Fear of conflict can lead to a dysfunctional team never addressing their issues and therefore never improving. In order to be successful you have to address conflicts and work to fix them. A lack of commitment can lead to tasks never being accomplished. There needs to be someone who is committed and works to motivate others in order to prevent the team from constantly working in circles and never finishing a project. Lack of commitment can also lead to subpar results instead of quality work. In healthcare it is so important to be committed and work hard to establish an organization that provides quality services. A team that avoids accountability also encourages mediocrity and is unlikely to get work done in a timely manner. Lastly, a team that does not pay attention to results lacks growth. This is a team who lacks motivation and fails to make progress. Teams that are dysfunctional will often times do work quickly and carelessly in order to finish the project and not have to work with their team members any longer. In healthcare I learned the importance of teams and how to work effectively together. In order to improve a team that contains the five elements of dysfunction there are some suggestions I learned

about concerning the improvement of this kind of team. There are a variety of team building exercises that can be done; this can include anything from playing a fun game to going out to dinner to help try to get to know one another better in a less stressful setting. Organizations can also hire external mentors to work with a dysfunctional team and monitor their work. It is also important to set ground rules for group meetings such as no cell phones, don’t interrupt others, and raise your hand to talk. Meetings can be more effective if there is a set agenda prior to starting the meeting. This helps with the organization of the meeting and will help manage disorganization. Personal and group evaluations are another way to try to improve a team. It is always important to evaluate and assess teamwork to make sure the teams are making progress and are effective. Seeking suggestions for improvement through evaluations can also be beneficial. It is also important to design an open and clear communication system that encourages input from everyone. If teams lack motivation a reward system can also be created for members who help improve quality of the team or put in hard work to the group task. All of these tips and the action plans we have created throughout the semester have taught me how to assess dysfunction and how to adjust teams to make improvements. Over the summer I worked with two other interns on a few minor assignments and although we got along and finished our work, at times I felt one of the other interns was not

paying attention to the results and was completing mediocre material. I was not sure how to motivate her to work harder and produce higher quality work, but from this class I feel I would be able to motivate someone like her in the future. The ninth and final learning outcome from this semester included identifying and using strategies to effect change. I learned most about this outcome through chapter ten where we talked about transformational leadership. A transformational leader is a person who creates a vision and can inspire others to implement change in alignment with the vision. Transformational leadership has helped to guide my personal leadership model throughout the semester and I have appreciated learning about it through many units. The textbook talks about the CEO of General Electric who is an icon of transformational leadership. Dobbs is effective in motivating his workers to feel energized about their work and not just come to work and “punch the clock.” I admire Dobbs and his work especially because my father is employed by GE and loves his job. Throughout the semester, along with PowerPoints, group projects, and essays I also researched Dobbs further to provide more insight on transformational leadership, since that is the theory I strive to follow. Randy has five skill sets he uses to describe a transformational leader. He says transformational leadership should: build a culture, improve “esprit de corps”, communicate issues and actions, change the financial results,

and leave behind a team of future transformational leaders. (From his book Transformational Leadership) In order to build a culture a leader must present a clear and appealing vision. The leader must be dedicated to the vision in order to set a clear example of its importance. “Improving esprit de corps” is essentially improving morale. Randy works to achieve this by assuring everyone in the company shares the some vision and is energetic about working to reach their goals. Set a vision that is attractive and achievable and be passionate about it in order to receive buy-in. In the workplace you also need to communicate issues and actions. As I talked about earlier in my essay, communication is one of the most important factors of being a leader. Communication can help build trust and commitment in the organization. Randy also says to never assume what you say is as clear and understandable to others as it is to you. Strive to be open with your employees and allow them to get to know you so they are comfortable to seek guidance and ask questions. Randy has an “AskRandy” email message program where he personally replied to hundreds of messages. This kind of openness is what has made Randy such a key transformational leader. Changing the financial results pertains to getting everything else right in the organization in order to produce the financial results desired. All other elements are important in order to see these desired outcomes. Lastly a transformational leader leaves behind a group of future transformational leaders. There

are three things Randy searches for when creating a team: people who see his vision as an opportunity for the business to grow and as a personal career development plan, people who believe in themselves and have visions and goals of their own to bring to the team, and people who want to be respected in their organization. I decided to focus on Dobbs a lot through this course as a role model of who I want to become. The resources provided in this class, along with his tips have really helped me form my own kind of leadership model. Transformational leadership is all about effecting change in a positive light. In the future I hope to become a transformational leader who is well respected, motivating, and inspirational just as Mr. Dobbs is. I learned a lot about transformational leadership in the class and I am thankful for that. The leadership essay we wrote towards the beginning of the semester is when I first researched all the different styles and models of leadership. I personally look up to leaders who are inspirational and lead by example, as I mentioned Randy Dobbs. That is why I chose to write about transformational leadership in my essay as well as situational leadership and the contingency theory. Situational and contingency theories are kind of similar in the sense that they believe there is no single best strategy of leadership. I agree with this in the sense that no two groups of people will be the same, so you will have to change strategies throughout your career. However, I always chose

transformational leadership because even if I have to change whether I am directing, coaching, or delegating, I will still keep transformational leadership concepts in mind and apply those as well. I am interested in the situational and contingency theories because they helped me to learn how to assess a group of people I am leading. The situational leadership theory taught me to look at the group’s ability and commitment to a project, while the contingency theory taught me to look at the individual differences among employees, the different features in the health organization, and the different features of the organizations environment. The contingency theory identifies the complexity of the health system, while the situational theory identifies the individuals I am working with. My leadership model includes both of these theories, because I felt it was important to be able to evaluate both the organization and the individuals before choosing how aggressively to lead them. The transformational theory ties in to all of this, because it takes into account the concern for the individuals. Whether I am directing people or coaching them through a task, I will always keep their needs in mind. The self-assessments taken in this course have helped me identify my strengths and I know I can use my kindness, compassion, and patience as I work with different kinds of people in my career. I believe that in order to inspire people you have to remember to take care of them first, so that they are committed to putting in hard work

to achieve a goal. If you do not take care of people they will not be dedicated to their work. I want to be people focused and optimistic so others see that and are inspired by my positive outlook. In my Myers Briggs results, as mentioned earlier, I learned I make decisions through feelings. I always like to consider the emotions and needs of others and be aware of how my actions can affect them. This assessment further confirmed the use of transformational leadership in my personal model. In the future I plan to enhance my learning by using a variety of resources. I plan to buy Randy Hobbs book about being a transformational leader so that I can read about how he became such a successful leader. I learn best from other people. Scott Roth, the director I interviewed, also suggested the book The Challenger, which is about different kinds of sales approaches and how to be a successful sales representative. I am interested in being a sales representative in the future, so this is a book I am definitely interested in reading. I love hearing personal experiences from successful leaders in order to motivate me. With this in mind, I also plan to ask questions and seek guidance in my future job, wherever that may be. In my internship I enjoyed asking questions to directors and managers about where they started their career and how they made it to where they are today. I realized that people in the workplace are very open and willing to share their life stories with you in order to help you grow. At my

internship prior to my last day I set up interviews with a few directors just to talk with them about their jobs and their pasts. One specific person I interviewed told me about how he became involved in the Biotech industry through being a security guard for Bayer. This was eye opening to me, because he told me how he literally started at the bottom of the totem pole and is now the Director of Customer Services for the North American division at Grifols. He told me that his key to success was through interviewing people, as I did, being a good communicator, hard worker, and always capitalizing on every opportunity he was provided. I believe I will continue my learning through networking and building relationships with others who have more experience than myself. I would like to join a professional network such as the ACHE in order to be connected with all kinds of people in the healthcare field. Throughout this challenging course, I have learned an array of information about how to be a successful leader in healthcare. Every learning outcome was of great value to my future career and I am confident I will be able to use what I learned in this course in my future. I will continue to seek evaluations from those around me, because I enjoy self-assessments that can teach me what areas of improvement I need to focus on. I also like knowing my strengths and how I can use those to become the transformational leader I aspire to be. I am pleased I understand emotional intelligence, the importance

of networking and building professional relationships, the significance of diversity, and all the other concepts we talked about. Although this was a difficult course with a lot of work, all of the assignments were valuable to my learning and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you Dr. Lane for your assistance in my college career and for helping to shape me into a better candidate as I enter the healthcare field after graduation!