Reflective Report on Personal and Interpersonal Skills Development

This report is a reflective analysis of personal and interpersonal skills, focusing on the development of self-awareness and effective interaction with others in a professional context. It begins with an introduction to the concept of understanding self and others, emphasizing the importance of these skills in the workplace. The main body of the report delves into four key skills: assertiveness, negotiation, team working, and focus and attention. Each skill is defined, and the author provides a self-assessment, along with feedback from peers and mentors, to identify strengths and weaknesses. The report highlights contradictions between self-perceptions and external feedback, offering insights into areas for improvement. The discussion includes the application of these skills, personal development planning, and strategies to enhance professional conduct. The report concludes with a summary of findings and reflections on the importance of these skills for future career success.

Understanding Self and
Others

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Understanding of the range of personal and interpersonal skills and knowledge required to
work effectively with others...................................................................................................3
Applying a range of approaches to develop self-awareness and self-confidence..................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Understanding self and others is a phenomenon of developing an understanding about
attributes of other individuals in order to work with them. This concept helps individuals to
interact with other people who are often known as colleagues in work place environment. The
main aim of this project report is to develop an reflective report comprising self experiences. In
this project report various skills are identified and recorded as entries in order to discuss their
importance along with contradictions and relevancy. Apart from reflection, an action plan is also
prepared in order to outline strengths and weaknesses identified along with areas of personal
development. It is considered that in order to effectively work with other individuals it is
important to possess some attributes which can make this process easier due to which these four
skills are identified in this file along with three areas of personal development (Baron-Cohen,
Tager-Flusberg and Lombardo, 2013).
MAIN BODY
Understanding of the range of personal and interpersonal skills and knowledge required to work
effectively with others
Personal development plan is a set of operations which are planned to be executed in
order to develop personal and interpersonal skills. I work in a business organisation and in order
to effectively communicate with other personnel of my organisation, there are few skills which
must be possessed by me. Four skills along with their description is mentioned below in
reflective personal development plan journal:
Assertiveness -
Assertiveness is a skill which enables to take stand for things which are considered as right or
correct by an individual. This skill focuses on being calm and positive and able to get self
confidence. Being working in an organisation it is important to express feelings, wishes,
issues and other aspects with someone so that stress can be burst and productivity can be
improved (Cozolino, 2014).
Assertiveness helps an individual to resolve all the conflicts of an organisation which are
occurred due to various personal and professional issues. Among the ten skills mentioned, this
skill is selected for reflection as it I find difficulty when it comes to keep it calm and positive
in order to resolve issues between me and my colleagues. Understanding this skill can help
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me to gain it's positive attributes. Theory of professional behaviour states that an employee
should behave professionally when there is a situation of conflict. Assertiveness helps an
individual to follow this theory.
Main aim behind selecting the skill of assertiveness is to build an understanding about its
attributes as it is considered by me that this skill is somewhere lacking in my behaviour.
Working in an workplace where numerous other individuals work it is important to build a
healthy professional relationship with everyone in order to ensure working effectively.
According to the various aspects it is observed that this skill and its attributes are
underdeveloped in my personality and required to be improved. This observation is concluded
by various evidences. In order to provide justification to above statement, evidences are stated
as follows. To assess my assertiveness competence I acquired a feedback from my mentor and
my peers and according to them, I sometimes act impatiently and is enable to handle conflicts
in an effective manner. It is considered that no one can understand us better than ourselves.
Using this consideration, I self assessed my capabilities and came to an conclusion that there
is lacking of assertiveness in my personality as the primary thing in conflict resolution is
understanding both sides which is observed to be a difficult task for me to perform. During
the period of conflict, instead of being calm I received a feeling of anxiety and anger due to
which my thoughts only tend towards one side of the conflict and avoids the other side of
issue.
Contradiction is the situation when thoughts of my peers and tutor doesn't match with my
thoughts. From the above analysis, it has been analysed that there are no contradictions
between the thoughts and assumptions of me and other individuals from I gained a feedback
such my peers and my tutor.
This skill can help me to develop a major attribute of problem solving which will enable me
to handle managerial position at my workplace. This skill can also help me to effectively
tackle future situations of interpersonal conflicts.
Negotiation –
Negotiation is a skill which enables an individual to settle differences between two or other
parties. In the process of negotiation, an individual convince involved parties to compromise a
bit in order to reach at a common decision. Negotiation skills results in great benefit in the
situations of conflicts. Negotiation is a interpersonal skill as it helps in to effectively
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communicate with other people at workplace (Hassenzahl, 2018).
Negotiation skills helps an individual to ascertain the difference between a beneficial
comprise and loss. In a workplace it is considered that there will always be conflicts but the it
is important to build an ability to solve them. Especially in business world, negotiation is
considered to be an effect interpersonal skill as it helps in understanding others and achieving
reliable results. Negotiation is skill is the most important ability among all of these skills as it
helps in attaining various attributes such as confidence and fairness. Negotiation doesn't has
any accurate or pre mentioned approach as negotiation differs for every situation. Attributes
of negotiation states that an individual should not be intimated by the idea of negotiation,
compromise must be done by evaluating the situations from all the aspects. Another
importance of this skill is that it reduces the chances of loss which can occurred from
conflicts. Among all the personal and interpersonal skills, the reason behind selecting this
skill by me is that there were various situations at my workplace which were resolved by the
process of negotiation so in my opinion by enhancing negotiation skill in my personal will
improve my problem solving skills too.
In my opinion my current competence regarding negotiation skill is 50%. This statement is
developed by me with the reference of various feedbacks of my peers and tutor. According to
my peers and tutor degree of negotiation competence in my personality is above average as
they think that I have ability to convince people about negotiate on our terms. In order to
conclude a more accurate and reliable result I self assessed my attributes. According to my
self assessment findings I ascertain that I have ability to negotiate with people and my to
prove my point of negotiation which is supported with various benefits and arguments. The
reason behind giving 50% to this skill is that I have observed other individuals to apply this
skill even with more efficiency which is why I think that there is more scope of learning.
From the above analysis contradictions which are ascertained are related to the differences
between the thoughts of my peers and me. As according to me, there is still a wide scope in
learning skill of negotiation due to which i provided 50% to my Negotiation attributes. But
according to my peers I have more ability to negotiate with people and convince them for my
terms.
This skill can also help me in my future as in current scenario it is considered that at every
level of our career we will has to face certain issues in which negotiation ability will help a
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lot.
Team working –
Team working is the skill which enables an individual to combine their individual skills with
other personnel's abilities in order to ensure organisational goals. Attributes of this skills
include helping and guiding other workers, persuading, sharing and willingly helping.
Team working is an essential skill which allow an individual to motivate unity by working in
a team. This skill can not be acquired by individual efforts as it requires skills of the whole
team. This skill has attributes which foster friendship and motivate employees to have a close
knit relationship. Team work is considered to be a task for several individuals due to which it
involves efforts and creativity of several people. By having perspective, opinions and
creativity of various individuals there are high chances of effective solutions and productivity.
The reason behind using this skill is that this ability is great for a workplace. This ability is
not a personal but is an interpersonal skill which allows to build healthy relationships with
peers by which efficiency is enhanced (Horney, 2013).
Team working is an ability which is beneficial more for an organisation. According to me
peers and reviews my competence against this skill is average as in their opinion I work better
when I work alone. My views about the ability is completely opposite with the views of my
peers and tutor. As according to me, growth and development of organisation is more
important for me rather than my personal development due to which I believe that I possess
this skill and I have high competency in team working.
From the above analysis, it has been ascertained that there are major contradictions between
the thoughts of my peers & tutor and my views. As according to them I am not that good
when it comes to team working. But in my view, organisational development is a priority due
to which I give my 100% in team task.
Team working is an ability which can help aj individual in every organisation despite of its
nature. By possessing this skill efficiently I can attain better working results in future and can
even acquire ability of leadership.
Focus and attention –
Focus and attention are skills which enables an individual to concentrate it's attention on a
target for any period of time. This ability makes it possible to quickly detect relevant stimuli.
This ability is based on mental focus which combines internal and external stimuli to enable
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individual to take careful decisions about organisation (Mischel, 2014).
Focus and attention is an important skill which helps in controlling thoughts which can bring
positivity. It is important for individuals working in a competitive environment to be calm and
patient, and this skill helps me to gain inner peace by which mind can be free from irrelevant
thoughts. Focusing to important things even helps to improve memory power of an individual.
This skill even conserve all the energy and direct it towards things which are actually requires
attention. The skill of attention strengthen intuition. Concept of mental focus is relevant for
this skill as it will help to gain mental peace and focus towards important aspects.
Focus and attention is a personal skill which is necessary for personal development of an
individual to effectively work within the working environment. According to the feedback
provided by my peers and tutor it stated that I have excellent focus and attention skills as I am
capable to work in any environment without any difficulty. To provide an more effective
conclusion about my focus skill I self assessed my situation. Various strengths and
weaknesses were identified by me and after that I came to an conclusion that I completely
agree with my peers and tutor as I am capable of being focused and attentive even after
various issues.
From the above analysis it has been observed that there are not contradictions between me,
tutor and my peers. The reason behind this agreement is that I possess this skill and I received
various opportunities to showcase my focus skills due to which it is clear to me and my peers
that I have excellent focus and attention skills.
Focus and attention is a personal skill which can help me develop my personality in future.
This skill is not limited to a company or industry, this ability can be used at various stages of
life.
Applying a range of approaches to develop self-awareness and self-confidence
In order to develop a personality development plan, it is important to prepare a action
plan in which all the activities must be mentioned which are required to be done by the
individual. After developing above entries, I have ascertained my strengths and weaknesses
which are required to be considered while identifying areas of development. My major strength
which can help me on future is my focus and attentive behaviour by which I can attain efficiency
and productivity. Apart from this assertiveness and negotiation are also my strengths which can
help to understand perception of others which further lead towards effective interaction with
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team members. By reviewing various personal and interpersonal skills it has been identified that
team working is my most influential weaknesses which degrades my performance and charm of
my personality. Assertiveness is ascertained to be my strength as well as my weaknesses. As
there is a high scope of improvement when it comes to assertiveness and its attributes of problem
solving (Rochat, 2014)
The above strengths and weaknesses are identified with the aim of ascertaining three
areas in which development is required. The first area in which development is required is team
working. From the analysis which developed above, it has ascertained that my tutor and peers
thinks that I am not able to work effectively when I work in a team which affects impact of my
personality. In order to improve my team working, I can request my tutor to provide me training
and develop my team working skills from conducting various activities. It is considered that the
attributes of team working are friendliness and will to help which can be improved by me with
the help of self assessment. My peers can also help me in this skill as they are the ones with
which I have to work together, so it is better to attain detailed feedback. The second area in
which development is required is enhancing ability of assertiveness. Assertiveness helps in
resolving issues and conflicts in an organisation by which I can attain future promotion and can
even get managerial position. Along with assertiveness, negotiation is also an area which should
be improved by me in order to negotiate with people and effectively convince them on my terms
(Van Veluw and Chance, 2014).
CONCLUSION
From the above project report it has been analysed that personal development plan is a
concept of preparing a future plan for areas which must be improved. By developing personal
development plan and action plan, various problems areas are concluded which are negotiation,
assertiveness and team working. Strengths and weaknesses are used to evidently justify for this
plan. Four out of all the skills is selected by which reflection about development is prepared.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal:
Baron-Cohen, S., Tager-Flusberg, H. and Lombardo, M. eds., 2013. Understanding other minds:
Perspectives from developmental social neuroscience. Oxford University Press.
Cozolino, L., 2014. The neuroscience of human relationships: Attachment and the developing
social brain. WW Norton & Company.
Hassenzahl, M., 2018. The thing and I: understanding the relationship between user and product.
In Funology 2 (pp. 301-313). Springer, Cham.
Horney, K., 2013. Our inner conflicts: A constructive theory of neurosis. Routledge.
Mischel, W., 2014. The marshmallow test: understanding self-control and how to master it.
Random House.
Rochat, P., 2014. Early social cognition: Understanding others in the first months of life.
Psychology Press.
Van Veluw, S. J. and Chance, S. A., 2014. Differentiating between self and others: an ALE
meta-analysis of fMRI studies of self-recognition and theory of mind. Brain imaging
and behaviour. 8(1). pp.24-38.
Vohs, K. D. and Baumeister, R. F. eds., 2016. Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory,
and applications. Guilford Publications.
Wagner, W. E., 2016. Leadership for a better world: Understanding the social change model of
leadership development. John Wiley & Sons.
Wiklund Gustin, L. and Wagner, L., 2013. The butterfly effect of caring–clinical nursing
teachers’ understanding of self‐compassion as a source to compassionate
care. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences. 27(1). pp.175-183.
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