Reflective learning journal

Name 1
Reflective learning journal
Student’s Name
University

Name 2
Reflective learning journal
a) Compulsory topics:
Effective team membership and leadership
The experience that I had was working on a project that had been assigned to a group of
five people. We were to work on a project in groups of five people where each group was
assigned a task. The work was done effectively since we distributed the tasks out to each other
based on the different capabilities that the members had. From the experience of working in the
group, I believe that I did well since we managed to effectively complete the required task. Here
the focus was ensuring that I show my ability and group ability. In this case, the role of the team
was to allow each member of the group to function by playing a role that was supposed to be part
of the larger group. This required good communication skills, coordination and teamwork
elements of work. My personal believes when working on the task was based on the challenges
of group dynamics which can affect the success of a team. In most cases, group dynamics have
been regarded as influencing team performance in different ways. This means that the best way
to learn from the team is to look at the importance of team leadership and how it shapes the
performance of the team. Although I had a feeling that I was going to have difficulties managing
team performance, I think the experience of this group was different as compared to what I have
witnessed and experienced in the past.
My personal beliefs when working with the team was based on the view that teams are
not effective and cannot lead to the intended outcomes. This belief was wrong since working
with the team taught me how to reap the benefits of teamwork. Here I learned that team members
have different abilities that come into play when they relate well with others. However, the
biggest challenge here was effective leadership and communication since it has been described

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as the pillar of successful teams. The role of leadership is to provide direction, distribute roles
within teams and create a team culture that will define the way members engage with each other.
This aspect was addressed by having rotational team leaders so that each member was allowed to
lead. This led to a strong and cohesion between the team members thus leading to the easy
achievement of the required objectives. Hendrawan (2018, P. 5) suggests that to achieve
effective team performance there need to be clear communication plans between team members
to ensure that they can adequately communicate within the team environment. From this
experience, I learned that communication and leadership are important elements of teamwork.
Leadership leads to an organized team that is focused on meeting the required team needs. On
the other hand, communication is an element of coordination of tasks within the team
environment that allows team members to work together (Fapohunda 2013, p.4). This implies
that the effectiveness of a team is based on the ability of the team leader to create an environment
that allows members to thrive.
Reflection on a critical incident
One critical incident that I participated in when I was given the team leader role when
working on a five-day project. In this case, my role was to ensure that the tasks set out in the
team were achieved as required. I was supposed to ensure that tasks are allocated to each of the
members on an equal basis. I also was supposed to ensure that the deliverables for the project
that we were working on are achieved as required. In this case, leadership in a team setting was
challenging and required both communication, leadership and decision making skills (Duygulu
& Ciraklar, 2018, p.4). My feeling from this exercise was that I did not have the best qualities to
lead the group and achieve the required outcomes. This is because I believed that leadership
required competencies that were not in me. However, my personal belief is that I was always a

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team player and could work well with other people. What I did not understand was how I could
transform my team player abilities to leadership competencies that can yield better results. The
biggest difficulty when working as a team leader is how to deal with the inclusion of all
members and ensuring that the team members share the responsibilities equally. In most cases,
team dynamics affect the way people behave in teams and even how they react to situations. In
this case, it implies that the role of the leader is to understand the dynamics within the team so
that an environment can be created that allows all team members to thrive. In a situation where
members come from different backgrounds and have varying levels of ability, the leader is
charged with the role of understanding the dynamics within the team and creating an
environment that best reflects the needs of the members.
What I learned from this role is the fact that leadership is not only based on natural traits
but rather, one can learn and develop the attributes of a good leader. In this case, I realized that
the situational leadership approach was the best since it reflects the leadership style that changes
continually based on the situations that present themselves (Ghazzawi, et al., 2017, p.104). In
this case, all I needed to do as a leader is to understand the leadership attributes that are required
and then apply them differently based on the situations that I was in. This led to my better
understanding of leadership skills and the weaker areas of my ability that I have to address. For
example, I realized that I had challenges in communication which made me understand that to
communicate well, I needed to work on my communication skills so that I can exercise
leadership authority.
Safety, diversity, and inclusivity in engineering workplaces in the student’s field of practice
(engineering major