Personal Development and Leadership Skills

The assignment reflects on the importance of self-awareness and leadership skills for personal development as a future manager. The writer acknowledges their current limitations in being aggressive when things don't go according to plan and needs to work on this aspect. They also recognize the need to develop creative thinking, effective communication, and decision-making skills to become a good leader.

EMOTIONAL AND
CULTURAL
INTELLIGENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
1. ......................................................................................................................................................1
Role of continuous self-development and self-awareness in improving leadership and
managerial qualities ...............................................................................................................1
2........................................................................................................................................................3
Template One: Incident from Residential weekend...............................................................3
Template Two.........................................................................................................................6
3........................................................................................................................................................8
Strengths.................................................................................................................................8
Weaknesses.............................................................................................................................8
Pattern of behaviour...............................................................................................................9
Personal development area.....................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to understand the emotions of self and
others and to align emotional information for achieving desired goals. The self analysis and
development can be considered as the effective tool to enhance the leadership qualities. The
report will discuss the significance of self development approaches and self awareness for
boosting the leadership skills in an individual. Further it will also demonstrate the various critical
incidents which helps to explore opportunities and learnings through self-analysis.
1.
Role of continuous self-development and self-awareness in improving leadership and managerial
qualities
Self-awareness is defined as the ability to be well aware of different perspectives of our
own personality such as strengths, beliefs, weakness, emotions and beliefs. It can be considered
as one of the most important element of the emotional intelligence (Caldwell & Hayes, 2016). In
order to be successful leader or manager I must have self-awareness so that I can use my skills to
achieve team objectives. Self-awareness will allow me to understand the importance of team
work and efficiency. Thus, I will be inspired to communicate with team members and to interact
with them easily.
Though communication is an important part of the team coordination and efficiency but it
holds great significance in cross cultural teams. When team members have cultural diversity then
it becomes challenging for the leaders to align their differences so that common goals can be
achieved. I believe that the self-awareness is helpful for me to understand that like me every
other individual has its own strength, weakness and identity which must be respected. In order to
control the team efforts in accurate and desired direction the leaders are required to use their
emotions in a controlled manner (Day & et.al., 2014). If I will not be able to control my
emotions, then I may fail to lead my team members which will create a question mark on
performance of my team and leadership.
The long term and short term objectives of the leaders varies with time thus as an
efficient leader I must enhance my skills as part of continuous self-development. Through self-
evaluation I can analyse that which drawbacks of mine are restricting me from achieving my
development targets. The self-awareness motivates me to learn new skills which can help me to
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take better decisions in the future. For instance, when I will be aware that I am weak at analysing
risks then I will work to enhance my skills so that as a team leader I can analyse these risks and
can make better decisions.
Another important benefit of continuous self-development is that I will be able to have
better understanding of situational requirements. For instance, when some project or team work
demands technical skills then I will have clarity that for accomplishing the project I need
technical skills or team members who can support me with their skills. This understanding is not
possible without self-awareness. It also supports me to analyse the emotions and thus the
probability of counterproductive reactions is reduced. This skill and benefit is critical for the
success of the leadership goals and team efficiency.
The self-awareness and development skills will assist me to fill the gap in management
and leadership process. Through these skills I will be capable to distinguish between situations in
which I will take better decisions. The continuous self-development can be considered as a
milestone in achieving the success. I will not be able to analyse the available growth
opportunities for my team but will also set an example among other team members that they
should never hesitate in learning new skills. The learning is never ending process for sustaining
growth and development. This learning can be assured with the help of continuous development
process (Effective leadership starts with self-awareness, 2018).
The team members may not consider this as an essential part for achieving their team
goals. However, it is critical for the long term growth. Thus, as a team leader I can motivate and
encourage my team members that they can enhance their skills and this will not only great for the
team but is essential for their own journey of self-development. The critical situations can lead to
psychological stress on the leaders.
For instance, in future when it will require for me to deal with the conflicts between team
members or the lack of resources to accomplish the task on given timelines then myself learnings
and awareness can help me out in the situation. These skills will guide me that diversities and
cultural differences are quite common while working in teams. Thus, as a team leader I must be
prepared to deal with such conflicts (Holt, Hall & Gilley, 2018). With the help of analysis of my
strengths I will be able to evaluate the most effective strategies to resolve the critical situations
affecting overall team performance.
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My psychological stability during the hard situations will inspire my team members that
they can achieve their goals by overcoming different challenges. Team coordination is one of the
key attributes for assuring the success of teams. The continuous development empowers the team
members to identify their role and to execute actions which helps them to achieve those goals.
As a team leader it is my responsibility to manage the various resources and team members.
Through self-awareness I can analyse the ways in which team efforts can be made more efficient
and productive. Continuous learning is considered as critical to assure innovation and
productivity in the execution processes.
In the development process the innovations serve as the most assured elements for
enhancing the probability of success. As a team leader, I cannot make my team performance
excellent without innovative practices. The self-development will encourage me to discover the
new aspects and innovative methods for enhancing the team efficiencies. The self-development
is based upon the principle of identifying own personality and to analyse the possible future
situations so that the necessary skills for accomplishing and managing future situations skills can
be developed. The self-awareness enable leaders to assess their qualities as well as to recognise
the skills and performance efficiency of other team members (Fonagy, 2018). This ability can
also help other members to analyse their skills and to bring improvement in their performance.
Thus, for successful leadership and management process it is essential to focus on continuous
self-development and self-awareness.
2.
Template One: Incident from Residential weekend
My chosen toolkit is: Management Competencies
My results for this toolkit are: This toolkit helped me to realize my mistakes and made me
learn new things about myself with main elements which are leadership, resource
management, people management, organizational awareness, decision making and
creativity and innovation.
Summary of critical incident: explain how the critical incident arose and why it is
significant to your learning and development
Our organization organized Art of Living 2 days activity camp and I was the in-charge
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of that camp and as the in-charge, it was my responsibility to manage all the
arrangements for everyone, check whether everyone was following protocols and rules
and if anything happened I was responsible to handle that situation. Before reaching art
of living camp I had emailed everyone all the rules, regulations and protocols and asked
everyone to email their contact details to me. But things didn't go as planned and only
half of the people read all the rules, regulations, protocols and emailed me their contact
details as a result I had only of the details of all the people. After reaching the camp no
one followed the protocols and didn't reach the activity area on time as a result it became
difficult for me to handle them because I didn't have details of everyone so that I can
contact them and explain their mistakes as a result organization blamed me for all the
mismanagement that was happening. My leadership qualities, people and resource
management qualities were questioned. It became difficult for me to manage other
arrangements on time as I was engaged in managing all the people and check that all the
protocols, rules and regulations were followed (McPeck, 2016). All these things created
a critical situation for me to manage all the culturally diverse group of people and all the
arrangements of everyone which created a chaos at the end. I realized that I should have
done all the resource management and should have explained all the protocols to people
by myself which could have avoided that situation to happen.
How does your behaviour (thinking, feelings and actions) in this critical incident
reflect the findings of your chosen self-analysis toolkit? How has the toolkit enabled
you to understand why you think, feel and behave in the way that you do? What
have you learned about yourself that you didn’t know before?
I realized that I should have used management competencies as a toolkit to make all the
arrangements, manage all the resources, people which would have given me a chance to
show my leadership qualities required to manage that two days activity camp. I should
have shown my leadership qualities by taking charge of all the people and all the
arrangements in a better way and should have explained all the protocols and rules to all
the people and actions which would have been taken in case of not following all the
protocols so that everyone would be on time and follow all the regulations. I should have
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checked whether all the people have given their contact details initially only so that it
would have been easy for me to manage all the people. I should have also checked all
the arrangements at the camp side at initial level only so that all the chaos and
mismanagement happened would not have happened as I was accountable for all the
people and resource management and to develop awareness for this camp within the
people so that things would have been different (Berthelsen, Lindhardt & Frederiksen,
2014). I learnt that I blamed others for all the mismanagement and all the allegation that
were pointed towards me but the fact was that I committed mistakes at initial level only
because of which I had to face all the questions and mismanagement happened.
Identify how you will use this learning in the future to become an effective leader,
manager or team-worker
In future I will focus on all the management to be done weather it is resource
management or people management at initial level only so that at the time of any activity
at the camp everything and everyone doesn't become a burden on me. I will focus on my
leadership qualities and take a charge of all the things so that I can manage, influence and
inspire others to follow all the given instruction, rules, regulations and protocols so that
all the things and management goes on smoothly. I learnt that I need to focus improving
my flaws and mistakes that I have committed in this camp so that I do not repeat all these
mistakes in the future. I also learnt that to be a good leader and manager first we should
be a good team-workers so that we can understand others and help them to follow all the
instructions properly to reach our goal. I should also try to develop innovative ideas and
try to implement them in a better way to make things go on more smoothly.
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Template Two
My chosen toolkit is: Emotional Intelligence
My results for this toolkit are: This toolkit is an important self-awareness toolkit which helped me
understand my mistakes and improve myself to be a better leader with its five main elements i.e. self-
regulation, self-awareness, empathy, motivation and social skills.
Summary of critical incident: explain how the critical incident arose and why it is significant
to your learning and development
I was a newly qualified teacher, so I used to observe other staff members, their way of teaching
and their behaviour towards students. I continuously noted and learned how other teachers used to
communicate with students. After observing other teachers, I tried to behave and communicate in
a firm and strict tone with the students and with time I became stricter with my expectations and
used to scold students if they made any mistakes. Unfortunately, this didn't work for me and other
teachers and students started to hate us or their reaction was totally opposite of what I thought.
They didn't respect me as they thought that I wasn't being myself and only shout at them if they
committed any mistakes (Crowne and et.al., 2017). This incident became very much critical with
challenging students after my realization that I used to scold them instead of making them
understand and ended up with students standing outside the class room. This incident was a wake-
up call for me that I should be myself and should not act the way I was behaving towards the
students. I didn't want things to get any worse than they were at that situation and wanted to
change students perception towards me.
How does your behaviour (thinking, feelings and actions) in this critical incident reflect the
findings of your chosen self-analysis toolkit? How has the toolkit enabled you to understand
why you think, feel and behave in the way that you do? What have you learned about
yourself that you didn’t know before?
After analysing my behaviour, I realized that I was wrong to think that students can only be
handled with strict behaviour and because of this my actions towards the students were also
wrong which created this situation. Emotional Intelligence helped me to realize that the way I was
behaving, thinking and acting was wrong. I got self-realization that strictness towards the students
only made them hate me and didn't let them open up with me or let them ask any of their doubts. I
was aware that if I had behaved in better way things would have been different. I realized that my
thinking, actions and my feelings were wrong which resulted in this situation. I should have

communicated with the students in politer way and instead of scolding them I should have made
them understand their mistakes and encouraged them to improve themselves. I should have also
encouraged students to ask if they had any doubts regarding the topic instead of scolding them. I
motivated myself to bring changes in my behaviour, way of teaching which will help me to
improve myself and bring myself in a better position where students can easily approach me to
clarify their doubts instead of hating me or being scared of me. Emphatically I tried to put myself
in their situation and realized that how wrong my actions were towards my way of teaching and
communication with the students. I understood how they felt and which helped me bring changes
in my teaching. At last I tried to communicate my point of view with the students, explained them
why I behaved in a particular way and will act in a better way towards them (Tan and et.al, 2017).

Identify how you will use this learning in the future to become an effective leader, manager
or team-worker
I realized that I need to bring many changes in my behaviour, thinking style and need to change
my actions towards them so that I can be a better teacher, leader, able to manage my work as well
as students and encourage them to work as a team. First thing I learned that strictness cannot
change anyone in-fact it makes them hate you and feel scared of you. No one can understand
others without being in their situation and understanding their feelings. Scolding and shouting at
anyone doesn't make them realize their mistake; in-fact it makes them point out your mistakes.
We need to understand that we can bring changes in anyone or make them realize their mistakes
in a better and polite manner so that they can bring changes in them without misunderstanding
you. I realized that my feeling was not wrong but my actions were wrong.
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Strengths
 One of my major strengths is self-realization, whenever I commit any mistake or anything goes
wrong because of me, I try to improve the situation by bringing required changes in myself. I can
adapt myself in kind of working situation.
 I am a patient and supportive person i.e. I do not give up on any situation easily and try to find out
all the flaws or any kind of mistake that needs to be rectified. I can get along with anyone in a
supportive manner which makes me a good team player (Briley and Tucker, 2014).
 I am an expressive person i.e. I can easily communicate my ideas or my thoughts with others in an
enthusiastic and imaginative way, which help others to understand my point of view easily. I
always try to think and remain positive in any kind of situation.
Weaknesses
 One of my major weaknesses is that sometimes I go too far as I need things to be done in a perfect
manner. To achieve perfection, I sometimes shout at my co-workers in order to make the things
done perfectly.
 I am way too rigid or we can say demanding of others and myself. If I want something to be done
then, I do not see what I am demanding off, I want all those things to be done in any manner
possible to achieve our goal or objective and because of this many times my co-workers get
annoyed because of me.

 Another weakness is that I am a day dreamer and because of which sometimes I get deviated from
my work. I start thinking of unrealistic things. I move to a virtual world thinking about those things
and get deviated from my work.
Pattern of behaviour
Behavioural pattern is a way of acting by an individual or group towards a given object or others in
a given situation. I have observed that whenever I start working on a project or on any given task; I work
patiently on that task in a supportive manner with my team mates but if anything goes wrong I lose my
patience and sometimes get aggressive and end up hurting others.
Personal development area
 I need to work on my strict and demanding behaviour. I have observed that in order to do things
in a better and perfect way, I become way too demanding of others and sometimes even myself,
so that things goes on smoothly and perfectly and if still things don’t turn up in a way I want,
then I end up strictly scolding others. So, I need to work on my demanding and strict behaviour;
and try to behave in a friendly manner (Klimstra & et.al, 2018).
 I also need to work on my aggressiveness; whenever things don’t turn up according to me, I act
in an aggressive manner with others. I do not see who I am talking to or where I am talking to
that person. I start arguing with that person an aggressive way and at the end I turn up regretting
because of my aggressive way of speaking. So, I need to work on my aggressiveness for my
personal development as a future manager.
 I need to work on my leadership qualities i.e. I need to start thinking creatively and in an
innovative manner in order to inspire others. I not only need to be a good communicator but
also a good listener, so that everyone gives their input and their efforts to complete a task. I also
need to improve my decision making so that me and my team do not get diverted from our goal
and complete our work in time.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Berthelsen, C.B., Lindhardt, T. & Frederiksen, K., (2014). Inhibiting Interference--a grounded
theory of health professionals' pattern of behaviour related to the relatives of older patients
in fast-track treatment programmes. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences. 28(3). pp.609-
617.
Briley, D. A., & Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2014). Genetic and environmental continuity in personality
development: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin. 140(5). 1303.
Caldwell, C. & Hayes, L.A., (2016). Self-efficacy and self-awareness: moral insights to increased
leader effectiveness.Journal of Management Development. 35(9). pp.1163-1173.
Crowne, K. A. & et.al., (2017). Leading nurses: emotional intelligence and leadership development
effectiveness. Leadership in Health Services. 30(3). 217-232.
Day, D.V. & et.al., (2014). Advances in leader and leadership development: A review of 25 years
of research and theory.The leadership quarterly. 25(1). pp.63-82.
Fonagy, P., (2018). Affect regulation, mentalization and the development of the self. Routledge.
Holt, S., Hall, A. & Gilley, A., (2018). Essential Components of Leadership Development
Programs. Journal of Managerial Issues. 30(2). p.214.
Klimstra, T. A. & et.al., (2018). Personality development and adjustment in college: A
multifaceted, cross-national view. Journal of personality and social psychology. 115(2).
338.
McPeck, J. E. (2016). Critical thinking and education. Routledge.
Tan, Z. S. & et.al., (2017). Team‐Based Interprofessional Competency Training for Dementia
Screening and Management. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 65(1). 207-211.
Online
Effective leadership starts with self-awareness, 2018 [Online] Accessed through
<https://www.td.org/insights/effective-leadership-starts-with-self-awareness>