Self-Analysis Reflective Essay

This reflective essay explores self-analysis from the perspective of cultural background comparison among a group, assessing self-identity, attitude, personality, and behavior. It discusses the use of self-reflective frameworks such as MBTI, DISC, and Johari Window, and how they contribute to learning about communication tactics and conflict management in an organizational setting. The essay also highlights the importance of cultural diversity and the impact of group affiliation on self-identity. Overall, it provides insights into self-improvement and strategies for managing diversity and conflicts in the workplace.

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

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 aim of this essay is doing self-analysis from the perspective of cultural background
comparison among the group. In addition, while reflecting I will assess my self-identity,
attitude, personality as well as behaviour. I have learnt a lot about self-reflective frameworks
being tools of reflection such as MBTI, DISC and Johari Window while studying this unit.
This reflective essay is based on my learning related to cultural diversity at workplace
acquired during this unit. Hence, this reflective paper will contain my changed personality
traits and behaviours after studying this unit in terms of learning related to communication
tactics and conflicts management in an organizational setting (Gelfand et al., 2012).
Source: (Triandis, 2015)
Self-Analysis
To reflect upon my cultural diversity experiences in the context of working at workplace, I
will identify, evaluate, analyze and then provide evidences gained through my journey while
studying this unit. In this context, for analyzing my personality I compared my cultural
background with that of others. To do so, I observed changes in my attitude and behavior and
hence measured the influence of my group affiliation on my self-identity (Triandis, 2015).
While I was working in a group, I noticed that my all group members were from different

Self-Analysis 3
cultural backgrounds. Initially, I took this as a challenge as we all know that communication
with different cultured people is always a challenging task. In this way, I got to know my
own strengths, skills and attributes related to people management, conflicts management and
effective communication. Due to working with the diverse cultured group, my self-identity,
attitude and behavior influenced in a positive way. In order to support this, I would like to
share my evolved views over cultural identity (CI) as I experienced that CI is the feeling of
belonging to a distinct group (Thomas et al., 2016). In addition, I learnt that CI is the part of
an individual's self-conception as well as self-perception and hence related to ethnicity,
nationality, religion, generation, social class, locality or any social group which has their own
distinct cultures.
Source: (Hofstede, 2011)
Furthermore, I learnt about two major cultural dimensions of diversity from the impact of my
group affiliation. In this context, my updated knowledge over cultural diversity suggests that
there primary dimensions of cultural diversity include ethnicity, race, gender and cultural
history, which are not changeable. On the other hand, secondary dimensions of cultural
diversity are political affiliation, work experiences and education which can be controlled by
an individual during their life-span. Therefore, such secondary cultural dimensions of
diversity are those changeable personality characteristics which are gained as well as
modified easily throughout the life-span. I also learnt that procedure of changing secondary
dimensions majorly depends upon self-identity, cultural-context, personality traits, attitude
and behaviours (Zheng et al., 2010).

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Source: (Triandis, 2015)
As I already mentioned that I learnt and acquired detailed understanding about the self-
assessment tools like DISC, MBTI and Johari Window, hence now I am reflecting over the
same (Martin & Nakayama, 2013). While studying Johari Window, I learnt that the tool has
four important self-analysis windows include arena, blind spot, façade and unknown. I also
analyzed that Johari Window tool significantly illustrates the process of receiving and
offering feedbacks in a group. In this way, about Johari Window my learning has been
upgraded with the help of these four concepts. I identified arena as an open area of one’s
personality which means that it is that part of a personality which is open to be known by
anyone include the person and the group. Later then, I learnt that blind spot is the personality
attributes which are not known to self however it may be known for the group members. In
addition, façade is the hidden area of self-identity which is not known to others. Furthermore,
I learnt that Unknown is that window of Johari self-assessment tool which is even unknown
to the person and the group (Triandis, 2015).
Besides, my learning about the myers-briggs type indicator (referred as MBTI) suggested that
it is a broad-minded, self-assessment tool that majorly classifies a person’s favoured info
gathering and decision-making styles (Zheng et al., 2010). Hence, MBTI helps people while
understanding their self-identity, behaviour and attitude along with the reasons behind
people’s different behaviours (Eisenberg et al., 2013). Moreover, I learnt that MBTI
categorizes orientations those impact people’s energy as well as life styles (Hofstede, 2011).

Self-Analysis 5
Source: (Martin & Nakayama, 2013)
Furthermore, one thing which has surprised me about myself was my adaptability skills.
Before working with the group within this unit, I was not aware of my adaptability skills as
well as cultural intelligence (Thomos & Peterson, 2017). Hence, while I was working with
my group members I could easily adapt while communicating with others with the help of
developed cultural intelligence (French, 2015). Moreover, prior joining the group my
thinking over working in a culturally diverse group was containing so many challenges
however, while working I got surprised with my group members. The reason behind was that
they all put efforts beyond their capabilities and range to make the team-working successful
(Zheng et al., 2010). Although, everyone was belonging to different culture yet the team
cohesion and collaboration surprised me a lot.
Source: (Martin & Nakayama, 2013)
I learnt about DISC being a behaviour assessment tool and based on the DISC theory given
from the psychologist William Moulton Marston (WMM). Furthermore, I evaluated that

Self-Analysis 6
DISC works on 4 distinct personality traits include Dominance (DI, Influence (I), Steadiness
(S), and Conscientiousness (C) (Gelfand et al., 2010). Moreover, I came to my strengths and
weaknesses while communicating with others in an organizational setting, they are as
follows:
 Strengths: collaborative nature, team-working skills, good communication, critical
thinking and analytical thinking.
 Weaknesses: time-management, less-efficient leadership, conflicts management skills
(Kim & McKay-Semmler, 2013).
In addition, learning acquired during the course allowed me to improve myself for managing
diversity as well as conflicts within a future organizational setting (Thomas et al., 2016).
Thus, thorough respecting workplace diversities such as thinking styles, religion, gender,
ethnicity and disability, I will manage workplace diversity at my future workplace (Martin &
Nakayama, 2013). On the other hand, for managing conflicts, I will attempt to create strong
relationships with colleagues, seniors as well as management people before conflicts
occurring so as to avert conflicts within an organizational setting (Gelfand et al., 2012). For
an example, whenever I will face performance review related conflicts then I will work over
it through assessing my performance driving factors as well as working over them hard.
Besides, another workplace conflict example can be a conflict between customer and me. I
will resolve such clients’ related conflicts at my workplace through involving managerial
position persons in order to satisfy clients as efficiently as possible (Gelfand et al., 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, this reflective writing over past experiences helped me to learn that
modification process of secondary cultural dimensions of diversity depends upon a cultural
context, attitude, self-identity, and behaviour as well as personality traits. I realized that self-
analysis along with self-reflection helped me as an individual for enhancing the modification
process of my own personality. In addition, I learnt useful strategies with the help of real-life
examples for better communication as well as conflict management within an organisational
setting.
References

Self-Analysis 7
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.
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.

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