Developing Strategic Management and Leadership Skills [A Reflective Writing]

Running head: A REFLECTIVE WRITING
Developing Strategic Management and Leadership Skills
[A Reflective Writing]
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1A REFLECTIVE WRITING
Looking back on a trip and constructing a reflective writing on the experiences gained are
the good ways to enhance the learning capability and the knowledge base. Such works help to
pile up a lot of information which is very difficult to figure out while during the project (Shum et
al. 2016). It is of no doubt and I being a part of the residential trip have also understood that
reflective writing must be made a part of life. It should not be kept limited with tours only but
must also cover each and everything the one is associated with. Notably, it is difficult to predict
about a part of life which could potentially become a path guider to the career (Gustafsson, Swart
and Kinnie 2018). This study is aimed at delivering my self-reflection on a residential trip which
I had a few days back. I am concerned with this writing because I feel that I will be able to gather
a lot more information by reflecting back on the recent trip.
During the trip, we had done a lot of things and had a lot of fun as well. The tour had
lasted for three days and we were busy doing a lot of activities & games also. The games and
activities were not just entertaining but when I look on that in now, I find it educating as well.
During such activities and games, I had a lot of things to learn from. The trip was truly an
educative one for me and I had never realised that I will be able to learn that much thing at this
stage of my life. Today, reflecting back on the event I am able to make this point that the trip was
a much-needed thing for me. I had no such realisation when I was on the tour. However, the
reflective writing has helped me to figure out such things and extract out a few important
findings as well.
I will use “The Gibbs Reflective Cycle” to proceed with this study. The model is truly
very effective and I have also found this helpful in crafting a reflective piece of writing. The
model enables to make a stage wise coverage of an event or a tour that has happened in past.
Moreover, through its different stages the model takes to the action plan where one can plan for

2A REFLECTIVE WRITING
their personal and professional skills’ development (Allan and Driscoll 2014). The first stage in
the Gibbs cycle is about describing the experiences and collecting a fair bit of information from
it (Pianpeng and Koraneekij 2016). The information collected thereof will help to realise whether
the experiences have just the good things about it or there is something to learn from it as well.
Although, I did a lot of activities and participated in a lot of games as well still the boat ride
experience for me is the one activity which according to me is full of informative things. We
were a group of 11 members as a whole. We decided to get divided into two groups with each
comprised of 5-6 members in it. We were being asked to reach the destination within the given
time. The biggest challenge at that time was working as a unit or a team. On reflecting back to
that particular event, I find that we struggled to perform as a team.
The Gibbs cycle has helped me to figure out a few points which probably have caused us
to suffer during the boat ride. Therefore, the boat ride was full of issues such as communication,
behaviour, cooperation and the time management. I personally struggled to appropriately
communicate with my team. At that point in time, I had no idea of how to manage a team clash.
It took a long time for us to decide about how we will manage the rides. Few had other plans and
strategies whereas I had the mines. There were quite a few dissimilarities between thoughts
which were one of the reasons that delayed our ride and we reached late to the destination.
Differences in thoughts are actually the good things as it produces a pile of diverse strategies and
opens up also the several ways for just one task. However, I like others were not aware of how to
utilise the diverse thoughts and produce the positive outcomes. The Gibbs reflective cycle had
indeed helped me to figure out the mistake which I did during the ride. I have collected a few
issues which have caused the ride to suffer. Those few issues were the ineffective

3A REFLECTIVE WRITING
communication, mismanagement of time, lack of cooperation and the unaccepted behaviour
(Chang 2015).
The second stage of Gibbs cycle has helped me to figure out the weaknesses which were
revealed during my residential trip. Moreover, I did realise the urgency to put me into the
personal and professional skills’ development. At this moment while crafting a reflective writing,
I am finding myself helpless as I have a lot of weaknesses in me and have no such clues about
how to improve those areas. Although I have identified a few issues that really affected my
participation in the group, I still need to identify the exact areas for improvement. At this point in
time, the Gibbs reflective cycle is helpful again. Evaluation is the third stage in the reflective
cycle and is really very helpful to collect a few useful information or data (Bassot 2015). The
stage has helped me to evaluate the entire experience of the boat ride. Moreover, we got delayed
in reaching the destination because we had met with a number of issues. We failed to deliver as a
team in decision making and had also lacked in effectively communicating the plans. We also
faced challenges in the decision making. After so many conflicts of thoughts, we had finally
landed on the decision that we will head to the destination in two different boats. However, the
decision making took a long time indeed. The incident has helped me realise that I personally
need to improve in certain areas such as communication, teamwork, behaviour and cooperating
work.
I have found the reflective cycle as immensely helpful as it just did not help me in
evaluating the experiences but also to make an analysis of the same. Had I been good at
communication, I could have effectively managed the conflicts. This is one of the leadership
skills which are a must for the ever-growing skill based competitions at the workplace. An
effective communication is needed to effectively communicate with managers. This is also