MBA401: Reflective Journal on People, Culture, and Leadership

This reflective journal assignment for MBA401 delves into the multifaceted aspects of people, culture, and contemporary leadership. The student reflects on various learning experiences throughout the course, including theoretical frameworks in recruitment and talent management, the use of online resources like videos and academic journals, insights gained from industry guest speakers, and the value of in-class activities. Furthermore, the journal analyzes the results of psychometric tests related to leadership and interpersonal traits, as well as feedback from previous assessments, to identify areas for future professional and personal development. The reflection covers the application of theoretical concepts, the importance of digital resources, insights from industry experts, and the impact of in-class activities. The student integrates these elements to foster a deeper understanding of leadership principles and cultivate a strategic approach to career advancement, highlighting the practical application of leadership theories within the context of the course.

Running Head: REFLECTION
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Reflection
Reflective Journal: People, culture and contemporary leadership
(Student details :)
5/11/2019

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Contents
Reflective Essay: People, culture and contemporary leadership...............................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Reflection...................................................................................................................................2
Theoretical frameworks learnt during the module.................................................................2
Online sources used across the module..................................................................................3
Learning acquired from industrial guests...............................................................................4
Learning from In-class activities of the module....................................................................5
Psychometric tests for interpersonal and leadership traits.....................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Reflective Essay
Introduction
In this essay, a reflection over the topic of people, culture and modern leadership
(referred as PCCL) will be covered. To do so, I will reflect upon experiences related to many
aspects of people, their different culture as well as contemporary leadership. Besides, this
reflective paper will contain several useful experiences while undertaking postgraduate
studies, along with the learning occurred from them. In this context, I have been experienced
many facets of PCCL, thus I am going to reflect on those events for extracting the key
learning for the future development. As my tutor instructed to reflect upon this topic hence
my reflection upon whatever I have studied, will help me to integrate learning for my future
career development. Therefore, with the help of this reflective practice I am going to identify
how my acquired learning during post graduate study can be useful to future professional as
well as personality growth. Moreover, this reflection will contain the theoretical frameworks I
learnt within the module, especially for talent and recruitment management (Bolman & Deal,
2017). Furthermore, I will be analysing an importance of digital resources in order to study
the module.
Reflection
Based on, here I am utilising my weekly diary which I have utilised to chronicle my
all useful experiences including positive as well as negative ones to complete the workshop.
In this way, I am converting my diary entries into my reflective journal so that it can assist
me answering key questions allied to future workplace leadership styles (Zheng, Yang, &
Mclean, 2010).
Theoretical frameworks learnt during the module
In this discussion, I am going to explain about the important theories which I have
studied while attending the module, in the context of recruitment and talent management. For
an example, important case studies over Apple, Westconnex and Telestra played a vital role
in my learning from this module (Cooren, Kuhn, Cornelissen, & Clark, 2011). Besides, I
learnt management theories of the recruitment such as HRM planning, external talent
attraction, succession planning, creating jobs, employment branding, and many more

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(Colquitt, Lepine, Wessaon, & Gellatly, 2011). While I was studying the module, I learnt the
theories of talent along with the recruitment management across the week 4 and 5.
In this context, from reading, I got to know that TM (talent management) is kind of
procedure where one can assist an individual while acting their current role in any
organization. I learnt that talent management allows people to make advancements into
upcoming roles of them for future career development. In addition, key learning theories like
pervasive learning including informal, formal as well as social learning have been
successfully explained during this workshop module. On the other hand, my knowledge about
On the Job Learning has been updated as the learning that enables all of us to arrange,
manage and apply our skills during working for a job role (Jones, 2013).
In addition to that, in the context of recruitment management I learnt the strategic
recruitment theory linking all of the recruiting activities to an organization’s culture and
business strategies (Huczynski, Buchanan, & Huczynski, 2013). While attending the module,
I realised that an individual can only be fit into a recruitment procedure within 3 means such
as organization fit, job fit, and environment fit. As per my perception built upon learning
gained from the leadership workshop, an external talent acquisition is an important means of
talent management (Goetsch & Davis, 2014). Furthermore, external talent acquisition can be
acquired from several measures like attractive advertisements, employee referrals,
recruitment agencies, educational institutions, outsourcing talent attraction, online talent
attraction, and an executive leasing (Greenberg & Baron, 2008).
Online sources used across the module
Now coming to the next important area of reflection, here I am discussing online
sources those I have utilised all across the module for completing the module tasks assigned
to me such as podcasts, videos, and textbook chapters.
In this context, in week-1, my module’s topic was ‘driving organizational
performance from the employees of the organization’; thus within an activity called Zappos I
accessed a video over YouTube and hence integrated the key learning into my assigned
activity. Here, the link of that video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifV7Pn-zlxU

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In addition, for an activity focused on determining people’s contribution into
organizational functions, I had to read the academic journals like books written by Jac-Fitz-
Enz and Wiley in order to gain the relevant useful knowledge. Additionally, YouTube videos
on employee turnovers have been watched by me for completing activities purpose, one of
the links is given as follows:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BP_cSA9UhH0
Likewise, an illustrative video over future of human resource department is available
on YouTube and has helped me while understanding the role as well as responsibilities of HR
in any organization. Thus, the link of the video is given below:
While studying in week-II, I accessed the below listed links in order to understand
useful and illustrative examples of organizational cultures worldwide:
Therefore, from this above discussion and reflection it is clear that digital resources
have helped me a lot while learning from the leadership module. Furthermore, it can also be
said that through all podcasts, videos, academic journals as well as textbooks, I identified that
role of digital technologies are very important in the area of graduation and post-graduation
education, I also learnt that digital resources and education is revolutionising the whole world

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for building a keener future of international education system (Borrego, Karlin, McNair, &
Beddoes, 2013).
Learning acquired from industrial guests
In this context, apart from learning from teachers, tutors, class-mates and peers along
with above mentioned digital resources, I acquired life-long learning from industrial guests
and professors who have visited our workshop module to share their precious knowledge
(Maxewell, 2013). Thus, I am reflecting on knowledge gained from the industry guests who
especially visited us in Week-6 to demonstrate the application of all important recruitment
management theories into this real world. I would like to explain about the three guests who
visited us into the workshop and taught us the practical execution of the entire module’s
frameworks, theories and learning. Here, the list of the guests’ names is as follows:
Guest ____,
Guest____ and
Guest ____.
In this way, industry guests made me learnt that role of guest faculties is vital as they
are the experts of their areas. I realized that industry guests have backed a lot to learning and
teaching basic and advanced concepts of a relevant field which is ultimately helpful for
others. Thus, it has been observed that industry guests who have reached at workshop venue
were carrying concrete knowledge over PCCL. Apart from this, I listened as well as analysed
real incidents, stories and events of the industry guests’ life, for learning real-life
implementation of the all theoretical frameworks those we all have learnt till that guest week
of the module (Rothwell, 2010).
Learning from In-class activities of the module
This particular step of reflective writing is containing the main learning acquired from
in-class activities across the leadership workshop module. Therefore, I am expressing my key
learning, feelings as well as evaluation of the in-class activities conducted throughout the
module. In this context, so many activities were practiced and conducted from which I have
learnt a lot for future career development, they were as follows:
During Week-I: activities like Zappos, Measures, Metrics, and Operational HRM have been
conducted.

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During Week-II: activities such as Atlassian espoused values; Deutsche Post, Types of
Culture, and Change have been conducted successfully.
During Week-III: I have participated in the activities like Minimising Bias in the Workplace,
Tefal Vacuum Cleaners, why work for us, Creating Jobs, and Hiring.
During Week-IV: I have joined the activities like Rating Scales, Reward Preference,
Ineffective Performance, Reward Anomalies as well as Performance Conversations for
learning.
During Week-V: activities such as OTJ Learning, Talent Matrix, Retention, You, and Journal
Reflection have been conducted.
During Week-VII: activities like Leadership Roles, Types of Followers, video and Journal
Reflection were conducted.
During Week-VIII: I have participated in activities include Numi Tea, Motives, Gender &
Leadership, and Emotional Intelligence.
Finally, in Week-IX: I have learnt from participating in the activities such as
Leadership styles, Reflected Best Self, Strengths Based Leadership, Dimensions of
Leadership and Standing True or False,.
Psychometric tests for interpersonal and leadership traits
Here, I am discussing over the psychometric tests accomplished into the module, to
get the leadership and interpersonal traits for future development. The psychometric test
assisted me for assessing my own leadership abilities and interpersonal skills in order to
evaluate my future learning effectiveness.
While completing the psychometric tests on leadership and interpersonal traits I
realized that leadership is a mutual responsibility amid the leader and his or her sub-
ordinates. In addition, I learnt that a true leader always shares purposes and objectives while
possessing the qualities like right to say no, joint accountability and absolute honesty.
The psychometric tests during the module made me analyse my own personality with
key attributes such as emotional stability, reasoning, warmth, liveliness, dominance, social
boldness, rule consciousness, vigilance, abstractedness, sensitivity, privateness, apprehension,

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openness to change, perfectionism, and self-reliance. Such tests have evaluated my leadership
attributes, while providing a way to measure my self interpersonal traits effectively.
Conclusion
In whole, a practice of writing this reflective journal made me acquire learning
through the PCCL workshop. Besides, this journal has majorly emphasized the whole
learning into six chief steps include theoretical concepts, digital resources, learning from
industry guests, learning from in-class activities and the psychometric tests. Apart from this,
in order to reflect on the leadership module, I re-assessed my feedback after submitting the
assessment-I and it has given a cultivated learning over the mistakes I have made in the past.
On the other hand, writing this reflective journal taught me how to reflect, analyze,
evaluate as well as learn for advancing my skill-set for my future career development.
Moreover, few great industry guest lectures offered a life-long learning over practical
operation of the theoretical concepts and contexts. Based on all above reflective steps I will
utilise extracted learning for evolving my future action plan. Thus, the people, culture and
leadership workshop has been successfully proved as an exclusive means of learning from the
perspective of contemporary leadership in the future career and personal development.

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References
Bolman, L.G. & Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership.
London: John Wiley & Sons.
Borrego, M., Karlin, J., McNair, L.D. & Beddoes, K., 2013. Team effectiveness theory from
industrial and organizational psychology applied to engineering student project teams: A
research review. Journal of Engineering Education, 102(4), pp.472-512.
Clarke, I., 2017. Can You Assess & Manage Your Organizational Risk? [Online] Available
at: https://linfordco.com/blog/organizational-risk-assessment-management/.
Colenso, M., 2012. High performing teams in brief. London: Routledge.
Colquitt, J., Lepine, J.A., Wessaon, M.J. & Gellatly, I.R., 2011. Organizational behavior:
Improving performance and commitment in the workplace. London: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Cooren, F., Kuhn, T., Cornelissen, J.P. & Clark, T., 2011. Communication, organizing and
organization: An overview and introduction to the special issue. Organization Studies, 32(9),
pp.1149-70.
Goetsch, D.L. & Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. New
Jersey: Pearson.
Greenberg, J. & Baron, R.A., 2008. Behavior in organizations. London: Pearson.
Huczynski, A., Buchanan, D.A. & Huczynski, A.A., 2013. Organizational behaviour.
London: Pearson.
Jones, G.R., 2013. Organizational theory, design, and change. London: Pearson.
Maxewell, J.C., 2007. The 21 irrefutable laws of leadership: Follow them and people will
follow you. London: Thomas Nelson.
Maxewell, J.C., 2013. Be a people person: Effective leadership through effective
relationships. NY: David C Cook.
Rothwell, W., 2010. Effective succession planning: Ensuring leadership continuity and
building talent from within. UK: Amacom.

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Zheng, W., Yang, B. & Mclean, G.N., 2010. Linking organizational culture, structure,
strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management.
Journal of Business research, 63(7), pp.763-71.