Self-Analysis Reflective Essay

This essay is a self-analysis while comparing my own cultural background with others’ and understanding the importance of self-identity, personality, attitude, and behavior. It reflects on the use of tools like Johari Window, MBTI, and DISC in improving self-identity and conflict management in an organizational setting.

Running Head: SELF ANALYSIS
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Self-Analysis
Self-Analysis Reflective Essay
(Student details :)
4/2/2019

Self-Analysis 1
Contents
Self-Analysis Reflective Essay..................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Self-Analysis..............................................................................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................6

Self-Analysis 2
Self-Analysis Reflective Essay
Introduction
The purpose of this essay is self-analysis while comparing my own cultural background with
others’. Furthermore, with the help of this essay I will update my awareness of importance of
self-identity, personality, attitude and behavior. In addition, while reflecting upon my self-
identity as well as understanding of the reflection tools like Johari Window, MBTI, and DISC
utilized within this unit, I am going to write a reflective essay. Moreover, I will reflect on
how such tools and exercises have helped me while improving self-identity, personality traits,
attitudes and behaviors from the perspective of conflict management as well as
communication within an organizational setting (Triandis, 2015).
Self-Analysis
Here, this self-analysis is based on cultural dimensions through identifying, analyzing,
evaluating and providing evidence of my own life incidents while studying this unit. To do
so, I compared my own culture and cultural background with other group members of mine.
In terms of my cultural background I assessed cultural factors like language, nationality,
location, history, gender and religion (Triandis, 2015). I compared all of these factors with
others’ cultural background and hence understood the importance of cultural diversity while
working in a team. My culture identity assessment revealed that a culture can be seen majorly
within literature, food, religion, the community, family structure, art, music, dance, language
and hence could be summed up with all of the above symbolic levels (Thomas et al., 2016).
Moreover, influence of my group affiliation on my self-identity, behavior as well as attitude
was huge as my beliefs and opinions have been evolved after working with culturally diverse
group. Now, I believe that there are different disciplines within the humanities which carry a
significant value within the community and hence we all should respect them. Moreover, my
behavior towards different community people has also evolved after knowing the cultural
depths of different cultures. Knowing different languages, cultural backgrounds and the truth
behind them changed by attitude towards diverse cultures worldwide. Hence, I would like to
summarize my whole experience of working with the diverse cultured people groups as it has
evolved my whole identity, behavior and attitude at a large extent (Martin & Nakayama,
2013).

Self-Analysis 3
While I was doing self-assessment then I learnt a lot by understanding the tools such as
DISC, MBTI and Johari Window. For an example, with the help of Johari Window, I learnt
that there are 4 major squares include arena, façade, blind spot and unknown in order to
analyze an identity. I learnt that the Johari Window model illustrates the procedure of
offering and receiving feedbacks (Gelfand et al., 2012).
In this context, my learning about the first square, the arena, contains things which I know
about me as well as about which my group knows. Besides, my knowledge got updated as
arena is characterized by free as well as open exchanges of info between me and other group
members (Hofstede, 2011). Furthermore, I identified that an arena extends in size with the
level of trust increases amid individual persons or amid an individual and their group.
Moreover, I learnt about the second square of Johari window, as the Blind Spot. My learning
acquired during this unit suggests that blind spot contains info about which I am not aware of
about myself however of which my group may aware. Hence, people in a group learn this
info through my mannerisms, verbal cues and the way I express things, along with the style in
which I communicate to others. In addition, I learnt about the myers-briggs type indicator
(referred as MBTI) being a non-judgmental, self-assessment instrument which identifies an
individual's preferred info gathering as well as decision-making style (Zheng et al., 2010). I
learnt that MBTI assists persons while understanding their own behaviour as well as the
reasons why other people behave differently (Eisenberg et al., 2013). In addition, MBTI also
classifies orientations which impact their energy and life style as well.
Source: (Gelfand et al., 2010)

Self-Analysis 4
On the other hand, while studying this unit I identified, evaluated as well as analysed the
significance of self-analysis through many tools, and DISC was one of them.
Source: (Martin & Nakayama, 2013)
In this context, I identified DISC being a behaviour assessment tool which is based upon the
DISC theory given by psychologist William Moulton Marston (WMM). I analysed that DISC
tool is based on 4 distinct personality traits those are Dominance (DI, Influence (I),
Steadiness (S), and Conscientiousness (C) (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). In this context, the
major influence factors which come under Dominance include direct, firm, results-oriented,
strong-willed and forceful. Influence component of DISC covers and inspects factors like
enthusiastic, out-going, optimistic, lively and high-spirited. Further then, conscientiousness
factor covers personality aspects like reserved, analytical, precise, systematic and private
(Thomos & Peterson, 2017). In addition, fourth factor of DISC tool covers factors such as
tactful, humble, patient, accommodating and even-tempered (Triandis, 2015).
It got surprised me when I got to know that my all group members belong to diverse
countries and cultures. I frightened and got nervous about the project progress as I had no
idea how to communicate with different people from different countries (Thomas et al.,
2016). Later then, we all started working together while using our own cultural intelligence.
In this way, I experienced a positive change in my self-identity, beliefs, behavior and attitude
after working with diverse cultured peoples (Kim & McKay-Semmler, 2013). In this way, it
was a surprising thing that I could easily handle conflicts with the help of effective
communication tactics within an organizational setting (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). In
addition, another thing about my group members which surprised me a lot was that they

Self-Analysis 5
taught me cultural intelligence through allowing me to work and deal in a culturally diverse
business environment. However, initially I was thinking it is a bad idea to put culturally
diverse people together for completing a single project yet acquired learning changed my
views about the same and left me surprised as well (Hofstede, 2011).
While I evaluated my personal strengths and weaknesses while communicating with others
within an organizational setting then results suggested that, strengths of my personality are:
 My effective listening skills
 My friendliness
 My ultimate confidence
 My open-mindedness
 My way of giving feedbacks
 My non-verbal communication
However, some major weaknesses of my personality include poor time-management skills,
poor eye-contact, less precise communications and many more.
Furthermore, while studying this unit I identified many ways to improve myself while
managing diversity as well as conflicts within an organizational setting in future. They are as
follows:
 In order to manage diversity, I will always respect different workplace diversities like
disability, thinking styles, religion, gender as well as ethnicity.
 To manage workplace conflicts, I will build strong relationships prior conflicts occur
within organizational settings (Gelfand et al., 2010).
In addition, I would like to quote two solid examples of my recent work experiences during
which I got failed to manage a conflict.
Example I: recently in a scenario at workplace, I faced performance review conflicts as one
of my close friends became angry after not getting expected salary hike and promotion.
Although I counselled him for staying calm yet that friend of mine started arguing directly
with our supervisor during performance review meeting.
Resolution: to resolve this kind of conflicts at future workplace, I will suggest colleagues to
for setting goals in order to increase their dedication towards achieving their organizational
goals (French, 2015).

Self-Analysis 6
Example II: I observed one of my colleagues during a common conflict amid customer and
salesperson though I could not help because it could result conflict among colleagues. I saw
that an unsatisfied customer who was feeling personally defrauded through an individual
salesperson generated conflicts.
Resolution: in future, for resolving this kind of conflict I will involve my manager who has
the right to offer discounts, refunds, or any other conciliatory gestures for satisfying the
customer on an urgent basis (Gelfand et al., 2012).
Conclusion
In whole, this reflective writing has helped me to analyze my own attitude, identity, behavior
with the help of two kinds of cultural diversity include primary dimensions of diversity and
secondary dimensions of diversity. I learnt that diversity dimensions like gender, race, and
ethnicity are essentially unchangeable. In addition, learning suggests that people usually have
more control on secondary diversity dimensions such as education, political affiliation as well
as work experiences rather than primary diversity dimensions. Therefore, this self-identity
reflection essay suggests that the process of modification of secondary cultural dimensions is
based on cultural context, attitude, self-identity, behavior and personality traits.
References
Eisenberg, J., Lee, H.J., Bruck, F. & Brenner, B., 2013. Effects of cross-cultural management
courses on cultural intelligence. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(4),
pp.603-21.
French, R., 2015. Cross-cultural management in work organisations. UK: Kogan Page
Publishers.
Gelfand, M.J., Erez, M. & Aycan, Z., 2010. Cross-cultural organizational behavior. Annu.
Rev. Psychol, 58, pp.479-514.
Gelfand, M.J., Leslie, L.M., Keller, K. & de Dreu, C., 2012. Conflict cultures in
organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational-level
consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), p.1131.

Self-Analysis 7
Hofstede, G., 2011. Dimensionalizing Cultures: The Hofstede Model. [Online] Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=orpc [Accessed 20
March 2019].
Kim, Y.Y. & McKay-Semmler, K., 2013. Social engagement and cross-cultural adaptation:
An examination of direct-and mediated interpersonal communication activities of educated
non-natives in the United States. International Journal of Intellectual Relations, 37(1), pp.99-
112.
Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K., 2013. Intercultural communication in contexts. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Thomas, D.C. et al., 2016. Cultural intelligence: Domain and assessment. International
Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 8(2), pp.123-43.
Thomos, D.C. & Peterson, M.F., 2017. Cross-cultural management: Essential concepts.
England: Sage Publications.
Triandis, H.C., 2015. Cultural intelligence in organizations. Group & Organization
Management, 31(1), pp.20-26.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. & Mclean, G.N., 2010. Linking organizational culture, structure,
strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management.
Journal of Business research, 63(7), pp.763-71.