LB5205 - Reflective Journal on Leadership & Communication Skills

This reflective journal delves into the author's understanding of leadership and communication within an organizational context, particularly within a retail sales and marketing department. The author reflects on the importance of communication, addressing issues like grapevine communication and implementing strategies for open and transparent feedback. Different leadership styles, including autocratic, transformational, and democratic, are explored in relation to team dynamics and individual employee needs. The journal highlights the importance of adapting leadership approaches to specific situations and the continuous effort required to build a positive and communicative work environment. The author also identifies areas for personal development as a leader, focusing on patience, perseverance, and leading by example to foster a motivated and productive team.

Organizational
behaviour and
management
Reflective assignment

Reflective journal 1
Introduction
Leadership and management play a significant role in the success of any business (Certo, 2018).
This course has helped me identify and deeply analyze various attributes of my personality that
define me as a leader. Various leadership theories have also been analyzed in order for myself to
understand the leadership style that suits me the most. From this course, I have selected the topic
of ‘Communication’ and I have worked towards analyzing my personality based on my learning
from this topic. Through this reflection, I have tried to highlight my understanding of the
importance of communication as well as my communication styles. I have also tried to
understand various leadership theories and aimed at identifying a leadership style that suits me
best.
To provide a context for this reflective journal, I work in an organization in the retail industry
where I am responsible for leading the sales and marketing department. My team includes
twenty-three people with an average age of twenty-eight. Most of the employees are men and
there are seven women who are a part of the team. The team is required to have a pleasing
personality and great communication skills. People working in sales also need to have excellent
people management skills in order to retain clients (Powers, Jennings & DeCarlo, 2014).
Through this report, I would like to highlight to important aspects of my managerial skills. The
first is communication and the second is leadership styles.
Communication
Grapevine communication is common in every organization. Grapevine communication refers to
an informal source of communication that exists within the business and often leads to gossip
(Quirke, 2017). My organization has often faced a lot of conflicts arising owing to grapevine
communications. People within the organization are often found discussing each other’s
relationship statuses and family problems as a source of entertainment. Not only does this
hamper the overall productivity of employees within the organization but also creates a negative
workplace environment (Annan-Prah, 2015). This further demotivates employees.
I noticed that in my organization, there were various informal groups that were established. Most
of the people did not get along well with each other. Eventually working in teams was becoming

Reflective journal 2
more and more difficult. I discussed the issue with the senior management and eventually
decided to take some stern steps. My discussion with the senior management emphasized the
importance of open communication within the organization.
Upon encountering this situation, I decided to use my position leadership power and called a
meeting. Through this meeting, I tried to address the issues that the employees were facing. I
even encouraged the team members to speak on the matter. However, I realized that there were
many people who were facing various issues throughout the organization. Some people felt that
the working environment was not motivating enough while some felt that the leaders of the team
were partial towards certain employees. Overall this led to a lack of trust and the employees
working together were not productive as a group.
Through the meeting, I laid down certain ground rules. I tried to restrict the formations of
informal groups within the organization. I also tried to create a positive working environment by
encouraging someone to be honest in the firm. I allowed the team members to go out every day
for fifteen minutes during office hours so that they can conduct their informal conversations
without creating a disruption in the office premises. Besides that, if any member of the team had
to communicate with other team members, they were asked to sit in the conference room and
conduct meetings in a professional manner. This created a sense of discipline within the
organization and allowed employees to create space around each other which is professional,
disciplined and improves productivity. As employees wasted less time in gossiping, their
productivity increased. People communicated with each other regarding work and this led to the
establishment of a more improved workplace environment.
As a leader, I also understand the importance of transparency in feedback. Feedback allows
employees to grow and enhance their learning. Communication is the backbone of a constructive
feedback (Zhang & Venkatesh, 2013). The tone of communication used plays a vital role in
ensuring that feedback given to employees is transparent and constructive rather than critical.
Hence in order to create an atmosphere which encourages the feedback mechanism, I installed
feedback boxes in the office. This way people could anonymously provide feedbacks to any
member of the team. My senior manager, as well as the human resource manager of the
organization, had access to the feedback box. It was left to their discretion about which

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feedbacks would be addressed and which will not be addressed. Since the HR manager, as well
as the senior managers, had more experience, they automatically took the feedback process in a
formal manner through which none of the feedbacks became the point of gossip among
employees.
My learning from this course massively helped in achieving effective communication within my
team. Communication is pivotal in order to build or maintain an important relationship in any
organization (Singh, 2013). This is why business schools throw immense light on the value of
communication. As an individual, I have always been an extrovert and hence I find it easy to
communicate with people within and outside the organization. Through this course, I have
learned that there are various communication styles that a person may adopt. These
communication styles include assertive, submissive, manipulative, aggressive and passive-
aggressive (Ergen, 2011). As a Leader, I conducted various activities which helped people
analyze their communication styles. This provided them with a clear feedback about how they
could improve their communication within the business as well as outside with clients.
Identifying the right communication style that fits well in a given situation is the key to
harboring a good communication relationship within an organization. As a leader, I would ensure
in the future too that there is an open and transparent flow of communication within the team.
Open communication in a team builds trust and also creates a positive working atmosphere for
people. Open communication in the team would also allow me as a leader to set clear goals for
my team members after considering their potentials and expectations in the long term. In the face
of a lack of communication in the team, leaders often set unrealistic targets for individuals. This
builds an unnecessary pressure on the team members to perform more than their potential. Not
only does this demotivates the team members but also reduces their overall productivity in the
team. They lose interest in the job easily and hence serves little purpose for the growth of the
team.
Open communication in the team is a culture that needs to be built brick by brick (Hammersley
& Reid, 2014). Therefore, as a leader, I would aim towards building a culture that supports open
communication and every person in the team can freely address their grievances and discuss
issues that might impact them. I would also try to bring people together and give them a platform

Reflective journal 4
to work together. For sales, people often have to go for meetings to clients. I would try to send
two people together who do not interact much. Therefore when they work together towards a
single goal, they will interact with each other better and create an atmosphere of communication
within the team.
Leadership
Leadership is critical to the success of any team. As a leader, there are various responsibilities
that an individual as bestowed upon. It is a crucial responsibility and it is imperative that
leadership roles are given to people who are competent enough for the same (Wright, Moynihan
& Pandey, 2012). One such incident that occurred in my office was when I was asked to appoint
assistant team leaders within my team. My team comprises of twenty-three people besides me.
The senior management thought that for effective flow of work, it is imperative that three more
assistant team leaders are appointed. Each of them would have seven to eight members of their
team. This would increase the overall efficiency of the team and ensure that employees are well
coordinated and their grievances or issues are immediately addressed by their seniors. This
process also reduced additional pressure on me because I realized that it takes immense hard
work to coordinate effectively between twenty-three people who come from diverse
backgrounds.
My team is diverse in the sense that most of the employees do not have a background in retail
sales. Therefore they often require additional training. Owing to this, it is difficult for them to
coordinate effectively among team members since they all have different experiences. As a
leader, I decided to hire three assistant team leaders and divide the team in a manner where the
member’s best complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I tried to ensure that a
single team has a sufficient number of clients. This is where leadership theories came into the
picture. Through this process, I divided my team into three subgroups. I realized that I personally
need to apply different leadership theories and styles while dealing with these people.
One of the leaders hired has an autocratic leadership style. She has immense experience in her
field and has also contributed largely to the organization through her tenure. Her biggest strength
is her set of loyal clients which has been achieved due to her excellent people management skills.
I put seven people on her team who are relatively new in the industry, work best under pressure

Reflective journal 5
and often required guidance. This way, they did not have a problem working with an autocratic
leader. During her introduction, I also tried to establish sufficient trust within the team about her
competencies.
The second team that was defined has eight employees. All of them are motivated, highly
ambitious, creative and willing to make a difference. Whenever I work with them I need to
employ a transformational leadership style. The team is always asking for more and in order to
establish myself as a leader to them, I often have to create changes, introduce new things, give
them new strategies to reach out to clients and conduct meetings. Therefore, the second leader
that I appointed is a transformational leader in all aspects. He is creative, thinks out of the box
and almost never agrees with status quo. This created a perfect combination of a team and leader.
Transformational leaders work best towards making a difference in the organization (Harvey &
Allard, 2015).
The third team is diverse. It has people eight people coming from various backgrounds. They are
often motivated but also sometimes require sources of external motivation. Whenever I interact
with this team, I try to adopt a democratic leadership style. I give the flexibility of work and
allow them to make their own decisions. I also try to create open communication within them
and aim to create a sense of increased ownership for work. When I appointed a leader for this
team, I tried to explain to the leader that this team needs to be motivated.
There is no single leadership style that can work for the entire team or for every situation
(Goleman, 2017). Therefore for a leader to be able to control and coordinate a team effectively, it
is imperative that different leadership styles are adopted. Every situation needs to be examined
critically and the best course of action is taken.
For the future, in order to improve my leadership ability, I need to build patience and immense
perseverance. I have realized that I often lose temper and this creates fear in the minds of my
team members. Moreover, I need to continue to work hard and lead by example. Most of the
team members are highly ambitious and therefore I must not take my leadership role for granted.
I need to continue to build my expertise, ensure my clients are satisfied and continue to generate
revenue as well as bring new strategies to the table. Leading by example is imperative for any
leader to earn respect (Bedford, 2017). Through my tenure, I would continue to lead by example.

Reflective journal 6
This course and specifically this assessment have been highly fruitful for me to be able to reflect
upon my communication and leadership abilities and has helped me gain a deeper insight into
my personality.

Reflective journal 7
References
Annan-Prah, E. C. (2015). Basic business and administrative communication. Xlibris
Corporation. The United States of America.
Bedford, H. (2017). Leading by example. Community Practitioner, 90(4), 20.
Certo, S. C. (2018). Supervision: Concepts and skill-building. McGraw-Hill Education. India.
Ergen, E. (2011). Turning the informal communication network of an organization into a
knowledge tool through communities of practice. City College, International Faculty of
The University of Sheffield, Thessaloniki, Greece, 1-13.
Goleman, D. (2017). Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics). Harvard
Business Press.
Hammersley, R., & Reid, M. (2014). Communicating successfully in groups: a practical guide
for the workplace. Routledge.
Harvey, C. P., & Allard, M. (2015). Understanding and managing diversity: Readings, cases,
and exercises. Pearson.
Powers, T. L., Jennings, J. A. C., & DeCarlo, T. E. (2014). An assessment of needed sales
management skills. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 34(3), 206-222.
Quirke, B. (2017). Making the connections: using internal communication to turn strategy into
action. Routledge. The United Kingdom.
Singh, A. (2013). Achieving sustainability through internal communication and soft skills. IUP
Journal of Soft Skills, 7(1), 21.
Wright, B. E., Moynihan, D. P., & Pandey, S. K. (2012). Pulling the levers: Transformational
leadership, public service motivation, and mission valence. Public Administration
Review, 72(2), 206-215.

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Zhang, X., & Venkatesh, V. (2013). Explaining employee job performance: The role of online
and offline workplace communication networks. Mis Quarterly, 37(3), 695-722.