Job Experience Essay: Analyzing Communication and Leadership Skills

This essay provides a detailed analysis of a job experience, focusing on the development of communication and leadership skills. The author reflects on their role as an assistant manager in a clothing manufacturing firm, utilizing Driscoll's model of reflection to analyze the experience. The essay highlights challenges faced, such as increasing productivity and motivating workers, and how effective communication, including empathy and negotiation, was crucial in overcoming these hurdles. The author discusses the 'Now What' phase, including proposed actions and the importance of conflict resolution. The essay concludes with personal reflections on how the job experience improved intrinsic and extrinsic skills, behavior, and professional orientation, emphasizing the importance of communication in organizational settings.

Running head: KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY
KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part A: Essay on Job Experience
Effective communication is an essential developmental aspect concerning both the job
and education sectors. It helps to ease the pressure that can affect the people that are engaged in
any professional or academic environments. The essay focuses on analyzing a job experience in
the context of communication effectiveness. I have worked in the position of assistant manager
earlier in my life for a short period of time. I was engaged in a manufacturing firm specializing
in the manufacture of clothing products.
Driscoll’s model of reflection can be utilized to undertake a useful analysis in the report.
The Driscoll’s model of reflection moves in a cyclic motion. It starts with having an experience.
Subsequently, the question of what?, so what? And now what? Are used to develop a better
reflection (Driscoll et al. 2019). This would help me to present my experience in a more
systematic manner. I secured employment for a clothing manufacturing organization as an
assistant manager of an operations department. I got to learn much from this job as this was my
first professional experience. I faced various challenges as an assistant manager that enabled me
to develop better communication with my peers and subordinates in the organization. One of the
most important event occurred when the factory required to increase productivity to a great
extent to meet the business requirements. However, the requisite number of workers were more
than the current capacity. This meant that the workers needed to work overtime and even more
then their normal working capacility. The responsibility to mobilize the workers were assigned to
the managers.
I was advised by my manager to communicate effectively with the workers to get them
motivated for the task requirement. This was an opportunity for me to develop effective
communication with my subordinate. However, this was also a challenging task as the workers
consisted of people with various levels of experiences and job demands. I went to communicate
with the employees and had to handle many of their queries in regards to the level of work that
was required. The most important communication aspect that I had to develop at this time was
empathy. I needed to develop effective communication with the workers by understanding what
it was like to be in their shoes. This helped to ease the communication process as they began to
agree with me. I gained more experieces about rapport building through this interactive process.
This part of the Driscoll’s model was in regards to the analysis of the event. Moving forward, it
is important to go to the next phase of the communication development process. This is the
“Now What” phase, which is dependent on the proposed actions following the event. After
communicating the requirements to the workers, this was the time for proposed actions. Some of
the proposed actions were to provide better assistance to the workers and provide them with
increased reward schemes during this period. This was the time when the negotiaon process
became very important. The reward schemes had to be negotiated properly with the workers to
ensure that they were willing to work beyong their normal working capacities. The workers were
not happy with the initial rewards that were provided. This prolonged the negotiation process.
The learning that I developed from this situation was that being on an equal level with the
negotiating parties requires some important communication from the negotiators (Pieterse and
Ulijn 2016). The learning that I was able to develop further was that the employees need to be
controlled effectively. Their mental contracts needed to be given much more importance. This
was an important learning phase in my communications development process. At the same time I

2KNOWLEDGE AND CREATIVITY
got to learn about conflict resolution processes. The workers were engaged in group discussion
sessions, team meetings and large group meetings to communicate the business requirements to
the workers. In the end the efforts reaped good results and the workers were effectively engaged
in production funtions. The business requirements were effectively met as a result of the same.
The experience I had at the clothing manufacturing plant helped me to develop better
understanding of the organizational environments. I was able to develop my communication
skills as a result of undertaking the role of the assistant manager. This professional experience
was a very important part of my career. I understood that communication development is of
prime importance in organizational settings.
Part B: Personal Reflections
The professional experience that I analysed above was very important for me in
developing some of my intrinsic and extrinsic skills and abilities. In the future, it would help me
to grow further in my professional endeavors. It is important to note that my performance,
behaviour and experimces were greatly influenced by the experience I gained.
My performances improved as a result of the experience I gained through the role. I took
up various other internships and completed them with great results. I was recommended by more
than one organizations and my CV improved much within just a year. I was still pursuing my
academic course and the experience helped me in improving my educational standards as well.
Another major area of improvement was my behaviour. Prior to this experience I never
had effective levels of communication. I used to be very uncomfortable while interacting with
strangers. However, I noticed a great behavioural shift within my self as a result of this job
experience. I was able to mix more freely with people whom I never met before. Moreover, I*
became a more mature person, both personally and professionally. I was greatly helped by the
experience I gathered as it helped me to become a more professionally oriented person.
Experience was one of the most important thing that I gathered from this endeavour.
Previously, I had negligible experience in the professional field. However, as a result of this
experience, I got to knew how organizations operate. I gained valuable insight into the workings
of large organizations and how they manage their people. Moving forward in life, I would be
able to use theses experiences in developing my career further.

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References
Driscoll, J., Stacey, G., Harrison Dening, K., Boyd, C. and Shaw, T., 2019. Enhancing the
quality of clinical supervision in nursing practice. Nursing Standard. doi, 10.
Pieterse, J. and Ulijn, J.M., 2016. Understanding the Relation Between Professional Discourse
and Organizational Change: A Discourse Study into the Influence of Poly‐Vocality on the
Effectiveness of Organizational Change in Three Dutch Organizations. In The 12th ABC
conference of Europe, Africa and Middle East Region.