Developing Global Management

Competencies 1
Individual assignment
Student ID-16027728
Name-Ashish R. Wadhwa
MSc. Global Logistics, Operations and Supply Chain Management
Semester 1- December 2016

Word Count-3077
 Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Self-Awareness 2
Self-Development 3
Critical Incident 4
Template One: Incident from Residential weekend 4
Template Two 6
Conclusion 8
Reference 10

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 Introduction

Self-awareness and self-development of any individual or employee have a vital effect and
long lasting impact on its surrounding or on any organisation. According to Lee, C.
(1989), many organisations believe that all the training they provide to the middle and top level
management is in the direction of leadership development. Moreover, to achieve higher gains
and outcomes in the development of any leader it is important to concentrate more on
developing the leader from within. Considering this fact many organisations have implemented
self-awareness and self-development programs in their training and development department
to prepare an individual for the roles of a manager or a leader (Baldwin, T.T. and Padgett, M.Y.
1993). In today’s competitive global market, it is important for an organisation to have a leader
who leads by an example and not force. To be competitive an organisation needs someone
who has the capability who can solve the problems in a different, easiest and quickest way. A
leader of this quality will be aware of his or her strengths and capabilities, will be the one who
understands the mistake, agrees it and tries to correct it. He or she is nothing but a leader with
strong self-awareness capability and is ready to adapt to self-development.

Self-Awareness

According to Goleman, D. P. (1995) self-awareness is the base of emotional intelligence.

Leaders won’t be able to display compassion without self-awareness (Richards, Y. 2004) and
the extent to which a leader is self-aware helps them to choose an adequate approach for
working in an organisation (Albrecht, K. 2006). Atwater, L. E., & Yammarino, F. J. (1992, p.
143) defines self-awareness as ``the individual's ability to assess other's evaluations of the self
and to incorporate these assessments into one's self-evaluation''. Jordan, P. J., & Troth, A. C.
(2002) based on the study of Kegan (1982, 1994) describes self-awareness as “awareness of
the behavioural habits, emotions, desires, thoughts and images that tumble through our being.”
A precise explanation was suggested by Ashford, S. (1989); Wegner, D. M., & Vallacher, R. R.
(1980) stating that people who are aware of their attitude, nature and personality in front of
other are good at absorbing the information from others into their self-evaluation and in their
behaviour. Tolbert, S. H., et al. (2004) summarise self-awareness as supervising ourselves
and being attentive to what is going on around us. It is like having a deep consideration of owns
emotions, strengths, needs, and drives (Goleman, D. 2003). In an organisation individuals are
involved in decisions, setting objectives, working attitude, leadership influence and
performance. Individuals who are self-aware have a high level of work satisfaction, good in
decision making, setting goals and turn out to be more effective leaders and managers than
those who aren’t self-aware (Atwater, L. E., & Yammarino, F. J. (1992, 1997); Sosik, J. J. 2001).
Thus self-awareness can help us evaluate our self and develop on things in which we are not
good at. According to Goleman, D. (2003) people who have firm self-awareness are more
practical and not immensely critical. Individuals who display this level of self-awareness are
able to relate to their feelings which irritate or affects another individual, and their job
performance.

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 Self-Development

Self-awareness and critical reflection are vital for self-development. Until and unless you
are not fully aware of your strengths, weakness, skills, personality and attitude it is not possible
to enhance yourself. “Self-development translates into an enhanced ability to solve problems
quickly and generate creative ideas that support organisational adaptability and growth”
(Phillips, K. 1993). According to Phillips, self-development can be defined as the means by
which an individual or a group takes the responsibility to analyse and use the assets required
to improve their professional and personal learning. Self-development is basically increasing
capabilities of an individual to manage the activities and a process of their own development
Pedler, M., et al. (2013). He further explains that it is the learner who is in-charge of the learning
by identifying his or her improvement areas and working accordingly. According to Pfeffer, J.
(1994) investing in human resource is a key to success for an organisation but to be
competitive and cost effective companies need to adjust to various new strategies for
developing managers. So, emerging companies who composed of self-focused trainees who
are willing to self-develop have an extra superiority over the competition. Leaders self-
development not only empowers companies to hold on with the motions of a growing
surrounding (Antonacopoulou, E. P. 2000), it is also a less costly way of enhancing human
resources (Youndt, M. A., et al. 1996). According to Johnson, S. K. et al. (2008) if an
organisation needs to gain positive outcome using this strategy they need to involve other
organisations as well and plan group activities.
As it is evident that self-awareness and self-development are important in today’s competitive
world, adapting to these strategies will surely help me to fulfil my role as a successful leader
or a manager in the future. Being self-aware will help me to identify my strengths and
weakness, which I can work on and improve my strengths and convert my weakness into
strengths. It will also assist me to identify my key skills and areas where I can use them as a
future leader or a manager. Self-awareness will aid me to improve my attitude at the workplace
and embellish my personality as a future leader or a manager. However, just developing the
capability of self-awareness will not create me as a successful leader or a manager, after
recognising the areas of improvement transforming myself by developing on those points will
prepare me as a favourable leader or a manager in the future. Self-development will help me
to remodel myself and cultivate the skills, knowledge, expertise and competence for the benefit
of the organisation. It will also encourage me to develop my attitude and personality.
Successful leadership is aggressive, effective, energetic, charismatic and compelling. It
merges a range of rare skills and techniques into an integrated whole.

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 Critical Incident

Template One: Incident from Residential weekend

My chosen toolkit is: Beblin

My results for this toolkit are: Coordinator and Monitor evaluator

Summary of critical incident

During the “Gridlock” task at residential weekend, I volunteered to lead the team when the
team was not able to find the solution. After the task got completed, at the time of feedback
my approach to the situation was very much appreciated. The positive feedback from my
team members indicated that I was good in understanding the team and coordinated it very
effectively. Few team members added by saying that I was good at listening to what team
had to say and considered the ideas given by them. The facilitator’s feedback actually
featured my ability stating “I guided the team perfectly and provided a direction to work on”.
Later, I did realise that I acted very matured and was very much able to handle the situation
in the team. I was able to get the team together when nothing was going right and coordinated
the team effectively. I always do this kind of things i.e. stand up to a situation but never ever
realised about this quality of coordinator before this feedback.

How does your thinking and behaviour in this critical incident reflect the findings of
your chosen self-analysis toolkit?

My Belbin profile indicates that my preferred roles are Coordinator and Monitor evaluator.
Where contribution of a coordinator is that they identify talent, have goals set in the mind, is
confident enough and executes effectively. A monitor evaluator is the one who is very much
aware of the things going on, knows the situation very well and have ideas/plans to tackle
the situation. Moreover, the Johari window for me also suggests that I am a good planner,
executor and motivator which are some of the qualities of a coordinator.
When I see the way I handled the stage and team I do believe that I am a good coordinator.
My reaction to the situation was dynamic and was very much as per the situation. My
approach was matured and confident enough to lead the team, control the situation and
efficiently complete the task. In addition, I was listening to team members who had various
ideas, understanding their point of view, identifying the key points and then using it together
to solve the task. After considering all the opinions and suggestion I had a target set in my
mind and was able to convince all my team members and made them believe that we can
achieve it. These conclusions reflect my ability to stand up to the situation and manage the
team with different cultures. Comparing the results from the framework and the feedback
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 received at the residential weekend I was able to evolve the inherited quality of coordinator
about which I was not aware of before.

Identify how you will use this learning in the future.

The above outcomes show that I can be a good manager. Harold Koontz defines
management as “Management is the art of getting things done through others and with
formally organised groups”, so as a manager (coordinator) I will organise people and
resources as per their strengths, skills and understanding. The above situation also made
me realise that leadership style is very important when we are handling a team full of
individuals who come from different cultural backgrounds, so right leadership style is what I
will adapt to lead the team. A leader is a team member whose impact on the team’s character,
accomplishments, or decisions considerably surpasses that of the average member of the
group Simonton, D. K. (1994). One more important requirement of being a good leader is
working with the team, so to get the work done effectively and efficiently it’s important to listen
to people, understand their needs, encourage them to come forward and present their ideas
and thoughts. So with the experience gained from this task, I will form or create a team
structure which will allow the employees to pool their skill in the development of products and
company. In conclusion, I will help my company and employees to achieve goals by fulfilling
all the functions mentioned above in the right way.

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Template Two
My chosen toolkit is: MBTI
My results for this toolkit are: Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Prospecting.

Summary of critical incident

When I was working in my previous organisation I was asked to lead a team of 5 people at
the time of sudden demand upside from the customer for 2 months. The project was new
and I was given a team in which 3 of the members were colleagues with whom I had worked
before. After 2 months when things got normal my manager called me for a one on one
session and gave feedback on my team lead role. My manager described my personality
and the way I carried it when I was leading the time was based on emotions and feelings
and is not what a leader should do. My nature was too soft and my decisions were person
centred based. As most of the team members were my friends I was not acting like a leader
when I was dealing with them in crucial situations. I am normally a person who will prefer
not to hurt people near me by my actions or words, but when you have responsibility on
your shoulder you should not work in harmony and be sympathetic.
Using this toolkit realised me my weakness which I was aware of but never worked upon.

How does your thinking and behaviour in this critical incident reflect the findings
of your chosen self-analysis toolkit?

The MBTI toolkit describes my personality as an Extraverted who tends to focus on the
outer world, an intuitive who prefers logic, possibilities and relationships, emotional when
taking decisions, prospecting in terms of approach to work and planning. This toolkit actually
compares the two opposite preferences for each of the four scales reported by the MBTI.
These scales are based on where one’s natural energy is directed (EI scale), what kind of
information or details one notice and remember (SN scale), how one decides and gets to a
conclusion (TF scale) and the approach to work or life (JP scale).
As I was working with my old colleagues and leading them I carried the same personality
when I was leading them. In critical times when some work was needed to be done in the
given time spam and it was not done, I was lenient with them. I didn’t make decisions
objectively and ignored the evidence when anything went wrong. My decisions were based
on the facts that how the outcomes will affect myself and my relations with colleagues. I didn’t
focus on the realities of a situation and didn’t analyse what was going wrong and how the
work is being done. My dealing with my team was over friendly and to open which could have
been a setback for the whole project as many facts were ignored and many objectives were
not considered.

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Identify how you will use this learning in the future.

Emotions can get in the way of rational decision making and managers or leader who
understand these inclinations can help reduce their negative effect on the organisation
(Palmquist, M. 2016). The feedback given by my manager will surely help me to improve the
qualities as a leader, as now I understand that emotions can play a very impactful role in
success and failure of any project. As Larina Kase, M. (2016) said that “Great leaders
understand how to balance emotion with reason and make decisions that positively impact
themselves, their employees, their customers and stakeholders, and their organisations.”
One cannot picture a successful leader who doesn’t have the power to make challenging
decisions, such as the objectives or ways in which their project or organization should move
in, to fire an employee if he or she is underproductive even if they have been a part of a team
for a long time, transferring them to some other location so as you if he or she is not suitable
for this role, to involve with stockholders and be brave enough to share everything even bad
news, and many more challenges that come up day by day. Being able to understand and
control the emotions in the critical situation makes a great and a successful leader and I will
try to develop myself and use this in future. A Leader leads by example not by choice (Sun
Tzu).

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Conclusion

Analysing the above two critical incidents and by using various toolkits from this module I am
able to identify few of my strengths and weakness which I can work on. Below are the various
toolkits I have used.
Belbin-
My Belbin profile defines my major strengths as a good coordinator and monitor evaluator. As a
coordinator, I am able to stand up to the stage and can lead a team in a right direction. Moreover,
I am good in understanding a situation and evaluating the tasks by keeping activities as per
schedule. Belbin also displays my weakness as a poor team-worker, where I try and avoid
confrontation.
Emotional Intelligence-
As per Goleman’s emotional intelligence toolkit, I was able to identify my some of my major
strengths based on five domains and twenty-five competencies. The five domains are self-
awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill. According to Goleman, effective
leaders have at least one strength in each of five domains. Few of my strengths are: I am having
a strong sense of my own self-worth and capabilities, I am flexible in handling change, I am
always striving to improve, I am good in understanding others and developing them, and I always
come up with effective tactics for shaping the behaviour of others. Likewise, the tool also shows
areas of development which are: I need to take responsibility for my own performance, I am not
persistent in pursuing goals despite obstacles and setbacks, I also need to build and nurture
instrumental relationships.
Management Charter Initiative (MCI) personal competence model
The MCI personal competence model is a useful way of reviewing your skills and sharing your
strengths and learning. According to MCI toolkit, my strength is building teams where I can build
effective teams, encourage team efforts and motivate the team members. Moreover, it also
displays that I am good in taking important decisions while managing personal learning and
development. The learning areas indicate as a manager I should learn to act assertively which
should show resilience and determination to succeed in the face of pressure and difficulties.
MBTI- Thinking about yourself
The MBTI toolkit actually compares the two opposite preferences for each of the four scales. As
per the results my strengths are:
1. Extraverted- I always tend to focus on the outer world,
2. Intuitive- I prefer logic, possibilities and relationships,
3. Prospecting- I prefer perceiving like to live in a flexible and spontaneous way.
As per results, my weakness is basically “Feelings”- I am emotional when taking decisions which
can cause a huge impact in an organisation.
In the above-mentioned four toolkits a pattern can be seen which resembles my behaviour as a
responsible manager/ leader. I have qualities required to be a good manager/ leader as I am a

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good coordinator, I can build an effective team and I understand others. Moreover, I believe in
developing others and can encourage as well as motive others.
Three areas of personal development as a future manager that I will work on.
1. Working in a culturally diverse team.
In this process, I need to try and learn that how can I handle a cross-culture team more effectively
and can get people involve in decision making as a team. This aspect of behaviour can be
developed by analysing and understanding people from different background and countries.
2. Develop emotionally while taking decisions.
One of the major weakness is I can’t control my emotions while making decisions and this might
cause a huge impact while taking important decisions in the organisations. I will learn to keep
my personal emotion aside while taking decisions and try to concentrate on the organisational
goals.
3. Be a team player
I will try to embellish myself by working in a team and being a team worker. I will try to handle
tasks which are group oriented and which involves collective decision making. Will try to work
with people having different personalities and from the various cultural background.

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Reference

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