MD4043 Leadership and Management: Reflective Writing on Trip

This reflective writing assignment details a student's experience on a university residential trip focused on teamwork. The student reflects on their personal challenges, particularly fear of failure and communication difficulties, and how the trip influenced their understanding of teamwork and leadership. The assignment discusses participation in a business simulation and a physical challenge, highlighting the impact of team support and personal motivation. Theories such as belongingness theory and reciprocal causation are used to analyze the student's experiences and growth. The reflection concludes with insights on overcoming fears, the importance of time management, and the development of self-confidence, emphasizing the value of the trip in enhancing communication skills and fostering a positive mindset. Desklib offers a platform to explore similar assignments and study resources.

A residential trip was organised by the university in the month of October 2017. The
core focus of the trip was in promoting teamwork. By means of reflective writing, I shall be
elaborating on my overall experiences that I had during those days. I shall focus on how that
trip has influenced my perception of teamwork and the challenges that I faced at that time. I
shall be also sharing my personal feelings that had changed eventually al-through that
residential trip, correlating them with some theories, models and researches.
Introducing the task here itself
However, during the trip I learned the most through the business simulation task as I
faced several challenges while doing the same. As I came from to an entirely different
background; there I had never engaged in any business operations or ventures. Therefore, It
took me long to understand the task. Finally one of my team mates explained me the entire
content that we were expected to do. I understood the entire assignment but then again I
found problems in the practical. I was not having any idea on how to deal with the same. As I
have not experienced in any business trip before, I thought that I need to join this trip, but
somewhere I was afraid. I felt that if I cannot articulate my view properly and if that result in
wrong direction of the task, what shall happen then? During my undergraduate degree, I got a
group project. While doing that project, I and one of my group member was engaged in a
conflict due to a difference in our opinions, but I failed to make him understand my view-
point and that had resulted in incompletion of the project within the given deadline. It was the
time when I realized that I fail to arrange my words while speaking to others in proper way
and therefore, they misunderstand me. Upon reflection this habit came from my childhood, I
love dancing but when asked to perform I could not overcome the fear and with that I
developed fear of speaking my mind. As said by Mindi (1998), motivation and willingness to
participate plays a very important role in encouraging man in doing certain task. I was
thinking I need to do it perfectly and if I couldn’t do it good enough so I did not try to do

because of other people felt embarrassed about my performance that make me felt bad about
myself. I am still struggling with this issue as I worry more about the outcome than
participating and this inhibits me. Furthermore, I learnt that teamwork is all about taking the
concern of each and every members of the team while decision making (Katzenbach and
Smith 2015). I understood the importance of it and benefits of a team work. I learnt that a true
leader is the one who takes a decision which involves the acceptance of all his team members
(Smith 2014). This task was very simple. We just had to carry out the business by completing
various tasks. Though most of the tasks were based on teamwork, but there was one task,
which I had to carry out all by myself. It was the pamper pole task. In this task, I had to jump
through a pole. As this task was related to height, my natural fear against height came out. I
wanted to give up, but after seeing that everybody else is doing it, I thought it would be
shameful if I quit. So I started preparing myself for the jump. I was so afraid that I told one of
my group members that I will be going after everyone finishes their parts because I wanted to
observe them doing it so that I can analyse the risk and final result of the task.
Actually I am not good at confronting new challenges because of the constant fear of
failing and this is the feeling that makes me give up easily, every time. As stated by Morgan
and Sisak (2016), the fear of failure alone has the potential to prevent a man from achieve in
goal. So, the same goes for me as well. It is within me since my childhood days. Whenever I
was confronted with a challenge like I always performed better in the mock exam than actual
exambecause mock exam does not carry as much pressure as actual exam so fear of failing
makes me perform below my expectations. On the other hand, in the situations where I had
confidence within me that i will surely succeed in this, made me attain success. This makes
me believe in the thought of De Castella, Byrne and Covington (2013), who stated that the
fear of failure stops us from the doing the things that could help us in achieving our target and
to move forward. However, not only my atychiphobia was making me nervous at that very

time but I was afraid of the height as well. In my past days, I have tried many times to
overcome my fear of height by diving into a swimming pool, but I had failed every time, as
my fear has always made me quit. Meanwhile, my turned has come and everyone started
cheering me up and encouraging me. Then I got more tensed to do the task and started
thinking of quitting the game. I knew I would not be able to overcome my fear. However I
motivated myself thinking that Mark is watching and I wanted to complete it in front of him,
so I finally motivated myself and took a deep breath and finally made the jump I saw that I
finally was able to push myself out of my comfort zone to jump towards the objective.
Although my fear factor was acting as a barrier to my success, I decided took it as a challenge
to attempt this task, as I remember that this fear has always made me to step back in life.
Therefore, I was determined that this time I will overcome my fear. Though I did not achieve
the expected result from that attempt, I am happy that I finally took that step. Now I can
understand how important it is to work in a team to achieve a difficult task. As according to
the theory of Erhel and Jamet (2013), motivation always plays an important role in achieving
targets. If I did not get the motivation from my team, or the push from Mark, how I would
have been able to jump from that pole? As stated by Baumeister and Leary (1995), in his
belongingness theory, the desire for death is usually caused by experiencing failure and by
failed interpersonal processes. I think their motivation has helped me a lot in moving forward
to jump from the pole, neglecting all my fears
Before climbing up the pole, my perspective was to win the game by jumping and
touching the target. But after I reached on the top of the pole, my target was to just overcome
my fear and not make Mark think I am stupid.This was very important to me as I wanted to
impress my teacher and make him feel proud of me. He waited for so long for me to complete
the task and I did not want to let him down.

Now after completing the task, I have got a new learning experience, which will help
me to face more challenges in my near future. After completing the task, my team members
and Mark, both appreciated me a lot. This was the first step to push myself out of my comfort
zone and I realized what true satisfaction is. I too want to be loved and respected in my social
circle. I also wanted to be appreciated. Williams and Bryan (2013) stated that people always
grow in an environment where they feel respected and valued, and they always confront to
failure where they are disrespected and mocked at. I don’t want to be laughed at by
colleagues or team mates as what I have experienced in the past. One more thing I realised
from this task is that, the main thing that makes me step back from taking new challenges is
my lack of self-confidence. When I overcame my fear of height and failure, I understood that
the task was not that difficult I thought it to be.
As from what we see in Banduras Reciprocal Causation (1982) model, a person’s
nature is influenced by his environment and behavior. Similarly, there were many incidents
due to which I am lacking in self-confidence. When I was in my seventh grade, I was forced
by my tutor to participate in a debate which resulted in a very big failure and embarrassment
as I was unable to communicate properly. Due to improper communication skills I was
struggling to express my views. Through this incident I came to know about my weakness in
communication after which my confidence became very low. In that debate, my language
was poor, this resulted in a very big embarrassment for me in front of my classmates. Since
then I have developed a stage fear. Since this incident I have been afraid of participating in
any of the group work, or in which I have to face many individuals. Additionally due to this
incident, I have built up many more insecurity within me regarding my personality. Many
opportunities came in front of me, but due to the lack of confidence and my fear to face those
challenges, I have just been running away from them, instead to facing them. However, after
these many years I got a chance to overcome my fear in my residential target task. Though I

failed in it, but at least I tried my best and I developed a sense of confidence within me that if
I try, I can overcome my biggest fear.
From this task, I learnt one thing- winning or losing does not matter. The thing that
matters is how well did I contributed and performed (Sarton 2016).I learnt that over thinking
is the one of the most negative factors within me. I understood that if I over think, then it is
likely that the fear in me will control my mind and I will go blank in my thinking. So finally I
have received a good experience which I will be able to apply in my further group tasks.
From here I have learned how to work in a team without fearing the number of individuals
and also how to organise things within the given time and how to show good cooperation in a
team. I will apply all these things in my future situations and I have understood that if I
remove this fear of communication inside me, then I can even lead a team very nicely (Kok et
al., 2014). I realized that simply over thinking and taking tension before starting an operation
has lead me achieve such personality of mine, where I get tensed, under confident and fear in
confronting challenges. Now my target and focus is to work on a positive personality
development. I also came to know, how time management plays a key role in each and every
task. So in every situation of life I should take time very seriously and should give a lot of
importance to time management.
In conclusion, I can say that I have learned many things from this residential trip such
as and the most important is facing and overcoming my fears. I, along with all my team
members had faced several ups and downs during this trip, but we had made through all that.
The whole trip, along with the tasks that i was given to complete have contributed to improve
my communication skills as well to develop a sense of self-confidence within me, which we
really help me in my coming years. In this trip I have realised that I have the potential to face
the problems and fears, I just need to be more focused and try my best. Truly speaking, this

residential trip will remain as a golden memory for the rest of my life. This is the trip in
which I have learnt the best lessons towards achieving a successful career.

References:
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