BUSN304 - Reflective Essay: Managing Conflicts Through Self-Awareness

This essay delves into the challenges of conflict and communication within a cross-cultural team, using a personal experience as a case study. The author, as a team leader in a diverse production team, faced communication issues and cultural differences that hindered team performance. The essay ...Read More

Running head: MANAGING CONFLICTS THROUGH SELF-AWARENESS
MANAGING CONFLICTS THROUGH SELF-AWARENESS
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author's Note:

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The aim of this essay is to discuss the problems of conflict and communication of self in
a cross-cultural team environment. This essay will be discussing personal experience where the
conflicts started to create issues in achieving the team’s goals. This essay will also discuss
different types of personality identification and analysis tools to understand the reason of the
responses to the problems and how the issues has been mitigated with the help of these tools.
The experience of conflict appeared when I was operating in a small enterprise as a team
leader of a production team consisted of eleven employees. This was no doubt a small team to
manage but the problems in this particular team was quite critical to solve. In this particular team
the first issue was the communication problem as the ream was culturally diverse. Therefore, the
language difference created problem in proper understanding of the members’ ideas and
thoughts. This was one of the main reasons why the connectivity amongst the employees was not
present and this directly affected the team performance (Mardani, Jusoh and Zavadskas 2015).
Under this circumstance, I was introduced as the team leader of this team. My introduction as
team leaders made the team members unsatisfied because they thought their interests will never
be served as they were culturally different from me. In such a situation I was responsible to first
restore the integrity of the team then enhance the team performance by properly utilizing the
potential and skills of the team members. In this case, the personality tools like Johari window,
MBTI, TA and DISC helped me greatly.
MBTI model or Myers-Briggs personality test is an introspective self-report test that
indicates the different types of psychological preferences in the people’s understanding and
preference to see the world around them based on which they respond and behave. As each of the
person is unique but to the theorist every one of them have some aspect of their personality in
common which allocate them in a group (Wanget al. 2016). Thus, proper understanding of these

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personality types can help to gain interesting insights of the reasons of certain personality traits
and actions. In order to face this challenge within the team, the MBTI model helped me a lot. As
the leader of the team, I could recognize the types of my team members and improve my own
understanding as well as appreciating their personality differences. This has also helped me to
get along with the team and understand the related issues (Helmer et al. 2016). Myers-Briggs
personality test has four sets of psychological scales and each of these scales perfectly captures
the key points of the personality. The first scale is the extroversion and introversion, that deals
with the flow of energy. Through this dimension, I have understood that some of the team
members are introverts and they prefer self-reflection and self-discovery hence they do not
gather information from external environment. On the contrary, the extroverts communicate
openly with the people around them which help them to gain more resources.
Sensing and Intuition scale helps people to identify capabilities of their learning
information through the physical senses. The people with sensing nature like real-life and
practical experiences but the intuitive people rely on their instincts only. Thinking and Feeling
dimension captures the process how people make decisions. People with sensing personality can
use logical criteria whereas people with feeling personality depend on their values. The Judging
and Perception scales has helped me to identify the personalities of some of my team members
who are purposeful and prefer plans, organized and structured rules unlike others who are quite
laid back. By judging the team members’ personalities, I have identified their expectations and
style of decision making. This have helped me to strategize the actions to deal with them initially
(Goldenberg, Jung and Grantcharov 2017). Through this particular method, the behavioral
changes were seen in the team members and also of me. First, I gained insight about the methods
which I shall apply to manage my team members and communicate my thoughts to them to get a

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positive response in the team. Secondly the personality traits when disclosed before everyone, a
healthy communication had been started in the team.
DISC or Dominance, influence, steadiness and conscientious model actually helped me to
manage the differences and similarities of my team members so that they can achieve the
maximum personal growth and then contribute positively to the organizational goals. DISC
model mainly helps to understand the self or create scope for self-awareness (Dodds et al. 2018).
This model has assisted me to eliminate the biasness based on the cultural differences in the
team. DISC model has been used to discuss the behavioral tendencies as well as differences. I
could understand how my team members tend to act or communicate among themselves.
However, I could not measure the values, skills, experience, intelligence and educational
qualifications but properly identified the behaviors and emotions which the team members
display to one another. In addition to this, DISC team tool has also helped me to utilize the
strength of the team and manage these differences based on the diversity of culture. I used this
diversity to incorporate different ideas as more indirectly means more perceptions.
Johari window is another tool that has helped me to understand the relationship between
me and my team members as well as among themselves. This technique is used mainly in the
self-help groups or corporate settings like heuristic exercise. Under this research, each of the
team members picked a number of adjectives from the list which they thought, best described
their own personality and attitude (Dierdorff, Fisher and Rubin 2018). These adjectives then are
inserted in the four cells of the Johari Window namely Façade or hidden, open or area, bind spot
and unknown. Through this method, the team members could understand their own personality
both open as well as hidden. Through this, the individual members of the team have started to
build trust among themselves as they disclose personal information to the others and learn the

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strengths and weaknesses, preferences and personality of the others through this window. This
particular model not only helped the team members to identity their personality both open and
hidden, but also helped me to realize the scope of personal development and improvement of the
interpersonal relationships and communication along with the group dynamics. This is the best
model to help me in the team development process and maintain an inter-group relation. Under
the influence of the feedback of this particular test, the behavioral changes could be captured
among the team members. First of all, this model is the perfect tool for disclosing the feedback.
The model of self-awareness along with information processing tools affected the minds of the
team members. They expressed requirements to introduce the trainings process so that they can
overcome their weaknesses to increase the potential of teams.
TA or Transactional Analysis is one of the most potent techniques of managing the
culturally diverse teams. According this theory, we all converse or communicate with others
from the one of three parts or the ego states of our personality (Caruso, Fleming and Spector
2014). We have the knowledge that we can make the choices which ego state to use for
communication. In addition to this we also choose the process how the communication or
relationship will be developed and whether we need it to prosper or not. to this model, there are
three ego state always prominent within us while we interact will others. These three ego states
include the parent state or the taught state, an adult state or the thought state and the child state or
the felt state. The communication between these three ego states create various patterns (Davis
2014). At the time when the receiver and sender remain in the same ego state, it is called
complementary transactions and any communication between the dissimilar states are referred to
as crossed transaction. In most of the cases, the conflicts emerge when the parent state and child
state communicate. Through this model, I have understood that the ego states must be used more

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responsibly so that this help in growing developed communication. The change in behavior
among the team members is captured immediately as there was a demand to avoid conflicts
regarding any cross-cultural issue. The team members started to follow the logical and rational
communication method so that the conflicts can be mitigated and learning of skills and behaviors
can be increased in the team.
Therefore, it can be concluded that the personality tools like Johari window, MBTI, TA
and DISC helped the process of team building and maintaining method. There were some
problematic situations that affected the performance of the team but by applying these models, I
have effectively brought changes in the behavior of the team members and made them realize the
importance of collaboration and cooperation to increase the team performance. However, this
experience has increased my effectivity and talent in the team management. Thus, the team
problem emerging from diversity was mitigated.

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References:
Caruso, D.R., Fleming, K. and Spector, E.D., 2014. Emotional intelligence and leadership. In
Conceptions of Leadership (pp. 93-110). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Davis, J.H., 2014. Group decision making and quantitative judgments: A consensus model.
In Understanding group behavior (pp. 43-68). Psychology Press.
Dierdorff, E.C., Fisher, D.M. and Rubin, R.S., 2018. The Power of Percipience: Consequences of
Self-Awareness in Teams on Team-Level Functioning and Performance. Journal of
Management, p.0149206318774622.
Dodds, R.M., Kuh, D., Sayer, A.A. and Cooper, R., 2018. Can measures of physical performance
in mid-life improve the clinical prediction of disability in early old age? Findings from a British
birth cohort study. Experimental gerontology, 110, pp.118-124.
Goldenberg, M.G., Jung, J. and Grantcharov, T.P., 2017. Using data to enhance performance and
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Helmer, S.M., Pischke, C.R., Vriesacker, B., Van Hal, G., DEMPSEY, R., Akvardar, Y.,
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Mardani, A., Jusoh, A. and Zavadskas, E.K., 2015. Fuzzy multiple criteria decision-making
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Wang, X.Y., Hattaf, K., Huo, H.F. and Xiang, H., 2016. Stability analysis of a delayed social
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