Reflective Essay on Organizational Behavior

This reflective essay details a student's experience working on an organizational behavior (OB) team assignment. The essay uses three learning experiences to illustrate key concepts. The first experience focuses on team development, applying Tuckman's group development model (forming, storming, norming, performing) to the team's evolution. The second experience examines leadership, utilizing trait theory to analyze the team's leader selection process. The third experience explores organizational culture and behavior, applying Schein's levels of culture to the team's dynamics. Throughout the essay, the student reflects on their learning using the social learning theory, highlighting observations and the impact of peer behavior on their own development. The student concludes by identifying areas for improvement in future teamwork, such as enhancing communication and proactively suggesting improvements to team processes. The essay also includes an appendix detailing feedback from the tutor and the student's response to that feedback, demonstrating a commitment to reflective practice and continuous improvement.

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Reflective Essay

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Reflective Learning is a process which requires the students to think about the different topics
that they have read and learned and they need to relate the lessons that they have learned to
the real time situations and experiences. It involves factors such as review of experiences,
assessing and learning from those experiences.
One is able to work well when working alone, but working in a team is difficult and
challenging task. Everyone in the team have different ideas, attitudes and beliefs and working
style, which leads to conflict in the team, which further hampers the productivity and
efficiency of the team. Teams are complex and dynamic, therefore for the completion of OB
Module we needed to work in a team, analyze and make an assignment on the OB team
experiences. For making the assignment, it was required to apply topics and concepts of
Organizational Behavior.
This essay constitutes of reflection based report, on my personal experiences of working in a
team for the university assignment. All in all this reflective report will focus on three of my
learning experiences, where I will be applying theories of learning and other relevant theories
from the subject organizational behavior in the team I have worked in the university.
This essay will consist of my three learning experiences in the OB team, the first learning
experience is related to the Team and Group development, second learning experience is
related to the leadership in the OB team and third learning experience is related to the culture
and behavior of our team. In the whole report, I will reflect what I have learned by explaining
the learning theory and other concepts from the module. In this essay, Social Learning
Theory have been applied to all the three experiences. At the end, essay is concluded with a
brief summary of the learnings that have been made.
The first learning experience is related to the formulation of the team. For the completion of
the assignment a team of five members was formulated. All the members of the team are

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known to each other but have not worked together as a team, and do not know how the
person behaves while working in the team.
Thus the team formulated underwent through the different stages of the team formulation and
the team that was made was quite effective and was able to work quite efficiently. The team
had clear purpose and objective to apply the learning theories and other concepts of
organizational behavior in the team, and every team member was able to coordinate with
each other without any difficulty. The team consisted to diverse people two people were from
Asian background and rest were from UK.
Tuckman have given four stage of group formation in an organization. Those four stages are
forming, followed by storming, then norming and final stage in the group development
process is performing. According to Tuckman, these stages are necessary and unavoidable for
the formulation of team and then facing challenges, tackling and finding solutions for the
problems and then finally delivering the set target or objective. Stages of group formulation
of my team are as follows:
During the reflection, I related it with the experience with Tuckman’s group development
model. Forming is the first stage, in the first team meeting for the assignment all the team
members tried to know one another. In the first stage of group development, everyone was
careful and tried not to offend other members of the team. Members tried to gather necessary
information about each other like educational experience and personal likes and dislikes.
Besides this team members also discussed about the various requirements regarding the
assignment for which the team have been formulated. I also gathered necessary information
from every team member, which was needed to effectively coordinate with other team
members.

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Once every team member was able to know each other, the team moved to the next stage
which is storming. According to Tuckman, conflicts start to rise in this stage. Whereas in our
team all the team members were able to cooperate and coordinate. I tried to give ideas for
how we can achieve the objectives of the assignment and other also gave their idea and then
team members were able to agree upon the goals and objectives and schedule of the meeting.
As decided in the meeting team members were still was not able to agree for the time the
team will be working on assignment as everybody had to other assignments as well.
In norming stage members started to dissolve various disagreements and started to focus on
what needs to be done for the assignment. In this stage the team was able to decide the
direction of the team and its work. Each member was able to understand strengths and
weaknesses of the other team members and everyone tried to work around those for achieving
the goals of the team. I also helped everyone whenever help was needed. During this phase
team members become more open to each other and the arguments was done regarding the
project (Tuckman, B.W. and Jensen, M.A.C., 1977).
During the performing stage the team actually started to work towards the achievement of the
goals and objectives of the assignment. In this stage the team was able to decide and agree
upon the structure of the team. Team knew its purpose and objectives very well. The
environment was relaxing and comfortable and every one used to listen and understand other
ideas. Disagreements were solved by discussion and decisions were made by consensus of
every team member. There were communication problems with the Asian students, which
remained a problem during the assignment, but I tried to talk to those students for making
them understand every aspect of the assignment that all of us have to do together.
Through this experience I am able to learn that, how to work more effectively in a team and
contribute towards the achievement of the objectives. While the team was able to perform

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very well and meet the deadline of the project, there were things which could have been
better, like communication between the team members, who were form diverse background
and waiting time for feedback from all the team members. This could have been corrected by
collaborating and making much friendlier environment with team members whose second
language was English besides their mother tongue. This would have helped in
communications and collaboration while working as the team. Time for feedback could have
been decreased by deciding a particular time, in which people will gather and review the
work if any done by that time. With these measures the team would have worked more
effectively and efficiently.
Social Learning Theory, emphasis on the capability of the people, to learn things by
observing other people in their environment. It contains models, which can be parents,
friends, teachers, colleagues, some celebrity or the person’s boss. The person learns new
information and knowledge, by observing the results of different behaviors exerted by their
model and what was the impact of that behavior on them. Thus a learner is able to gather new
skills and knowledge by vicarious or displaced learning (Bandura, A., 1969).
While I was working in the team made for the OB module, I learned new behavior and skills
by observing, what other people are doing and how they behave to a particular situation. This
helped me to learn those skills and behavior that were helpful to gain acceptance in the team
and helped me to work more effectively and efficiently with other in the team. Peers and
friends were the models, which I observed and gained sufficient knowledge regarding the
different situations and condition that may arise while working in a team. Then I applied
those behavior and skills in order to become part of the organization. This learning theory is
common to all three learning experiences in the team.

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Second learning experience in the team was related to the leadership in the team. Leadership
is very important for guiding and giving direction to people and make them work towards the
achievement of the goals or the objectives of particular team. It is difficult to select a leader
in a team when everyone in the team thinks that he is best suited for becoming the team
leader.
In order to complete the assignment in time everyone need to work collaboratively as team,
and thus there was need of a leader for the team. From my point of view, person who has
respect and trust from every team member should be appointed as leader for the team. The
project work needed to be started in time in order to deliver the required assignment in due
time, it was necessary that team members select the leader who will lead the team and lead to
the achievement of goals and objectives of the team.
For my reflection I have utilized the trait theory of leadership, which assumes that people are
born or have some qualities which will make them excellent leaders. Those qualities or traits
consist of intelligence, creativity, responsibility which makes any person having these
qualities and skills a good and effective leader. This theory focuses on analyzing social,
mental and physical characteristics which are found in the leaders.
In order to select the leader for the team all the team members decided that person having and
showcasing the qualities and skills of the leader according to the trait theory, will be elected
as the leader for the team. As per the theory, the person who is adaptable, ambitious,
energetic, persistent, tolerant and self-confident and have skills like persuasion, intelligence,
creativity and have knowledge regarding the work will be elected as the leader. All the names
of the team members were written on the white boards and every one need to put skills and
abilities in front of the name of the people, which will help in deciding and finding out the
person who have most of the traits of thee leader and thus will be elected as leader. Finally

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the person having most of the leadership skills was elected as the leader. I wanted to be the
leader of the team for the assignment but since everyone have agreed upon the selection
method, I did not said much in the situation and just did what other team members did. One
of the student from the Asian background become the leader and outlines and break the tasks
into various sections. He assigned the work to the team members with what they were
comfortable with. All of this on the part of the leader made the whole team work with
effectiveness and achieve the set objectives and was able to deliver the assignment in time
(Zaccaro, S.J., 2007).
Upon reflection and after observing the other teams as well in the university from my view
point the leadership is not about the skills you have but it is about how one can manage the
situations effectively in the organization or the team. A person who is able to lead the team
effectively and efficiently through all types of the situations is a good leader.
In future while selecting the leader for the team, instead of seeing the traits that he or she
have, I will prefer to observe various situations where the person have able to come out of the
situation and lead other people too out of the problem. There is no one particular style of
leadership, the person who is able to juggle different styles according to the different
situations will be able to lead well and will achieve the set targets and goal. If such a person
would have been selected for our team then, it would have resulted in much better
consequences for the whole team. In future I will like to present my ideas more openly
instead of keeping them to myself, so that it can help in enhancing the productivity of the
team.
The third learning experience was related to organizational behavior and culture of our team.
In this reflection case, I have tried to describe the culture of the team in which I worked for

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the university assignment and have also analyzed the effect of team culture on my work and
what are the aspects that can be improved.
Culture varies like the type of work is different of every organization. Organizational culture
consists of beliefs, norms, values that are showcased in the behavior and practices of the
organization. Similarly the culture of the team is created by the people who are working in it
and how they communicate and interact with each other. It also involves the values of the
individuals. Some teams are risk taking and some may boycott those individuals who go
against the rules and regulations.
In the context of my team we had culture of free reign, every team member was allowed to do
his or her work as per his liking, but the only thing that needed to be taken care of was that
the objective of the whole tasks should be met. In this learning experience I have applied the
Schein’s level of the cultures in the organization, which are as follows:
According to these levels, an artifact refers to those aspects which are clearly visible in the
organization and still can be hard to understand. The team in which I was working has no
regulations for the team members, and thus all the members had freedom of choice to work as
per their own wish. Besides the freedom to work, other thing that needs to be taken care of
was the work that was required to be completed by all the members and any other person who
was not the part of the team should have not recognized this particular part, they could have
seen our team as happy go lucky. I liked the working culture of my team, but I personally
thought there needs to be done some changes, for making the things work faster in the team.
Espoused Values are active goals, strategies and long term philosophies of the organization.
The team in which I worked also encouraged creativity and innovation in various ideas by
which can make assignment on OB module much better than the other teams. New ideas and
suggestions were welcomed in the team and no one was criticized for giving suggestions even

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if they did not proved to be useful. This really helped everybody to discuss things regarding
the assignment and made the whole assignment much better. I presented everybody with my
idea that the team should have some minimal regulations, for making our team more efficient,
two of the Asian members agreed but others did not liked my idea that much. Thus, we kept
on working as we were working earlier.
Every culture has some of its core assumptions and values that led to the formation of the
overall culture of the organization. They give explanation for the things that happen and why
they happen in the organization. According to the Schein’s levels of culture, our team has
showed democratic style of leadership and providing flexibility in work made people work
more effectively towards the achievement of the overall goals of the team (Schein, E.H.,
1990).
After reflecting upon the situation I realized that the culture of the team had a positive effect
on me and my performance in the team. With the help of learning by observation, I was able
to gain skills and knowledge that helped me to gain acceptance in the new team. In future if
will have to work in a different team, I will pay attention to the overall culture of the team,
whether or not I would be able to fit it in. In future, I will come up with some plan that can be
implemented easily in the team, so that I will be able convince every team member, for
accepting my ideas.
The team formulated for the task had open culture, which I really appreciate and in future I
will try to gain much more knowledge in order to be effective and efficient. I will try to share
information and knowledge as much as possible and will also try to give new ideas and
suggestions, in order to show that I recognize and appreciate the culture of the team I work in
and feel proud to be the part of such team. Besides this I will give respect to every team
member’s work, as is this is what has been encouraged in our team.

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After doing the reflection of three different experiences in the team and explaining them with
the help of relevant theories, I have come to know much about myself and how can improve
my behavior in the future and work more effectively in similar conditions. By reflecting upon
the experiences, they have given me in deep understanding of the real time working
conditions. I have learned through reflection that how can I improve by behavior and achieve
much better results in same conditions in the future.
All of the learning made in these experiences will allow me to work in the organization very
well, without any difficulty. All the experience and feelings that have surfaced during this
team work have showcased me the other side of myself where I can work as a part of the
team. In future if my job will require working in a team I will be able to work more
effectively and will be able to understand the different situation in a mature way. All of the
experiences have showed there are lots of things which can be improved, and everyone can
learn from their past mistakes, which will further help the individual to develop and grow.
After working in the team and reflecting upon the learning done during the process, I have
come to know my strengths and weaknesses as a team member. Reflection have also make
me learn that how useful it is for enhancing the learning of an individual and completion of
the assignment of OB have made me realize that I will be able to utilize these things when I
will start to work in an organization. At that time all the learning will pay good results in the
form efficient performance in the team and organization as well.

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References
Bandura, A., 1969. Social-learning theory of identificatory processes. Handbook of
socialization theory and research, 213, p.262.
Schein, E.H., 1990. Organizational culture (Vol. 45, No. 2, p. 109). American Psychological
Association.
Tuckman, B.W. and Jensen, M.A.C., 1977. Stages of small-group development
revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), pp.419-427.
Zaccaro, S.J., 2007. Trait-based perspectives of leadership. American Psychologist, 62(1),
p.6.
Wenger, E., 2009. A social theory of learning. Contemporary theories of learning: learning
theorists–in their own words. Routledge, New York, NY, pp.209-218.
Schermerhorn, J.R., Hunt, J.G., Osborn, R. and Osborn, R., 2004. Core concepts of
organizational behavior (pp. 146-147). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Rollinson, D., 2008. Organisational behaviour and analysis: An integrated approach.
Pearson Education.

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Appendix
Response to Formative Feedback
Summary of my tutor’s comments on the assignment
My tutor has told me that I have relied more on telling the stories instead of explaining the
required topics as necessary. Tutor has asked me to focus on my personal experience in an
explanatory manner for drawing meaningful resolutions that need to be changed in the future.
Tutor have asked me to focus on theories of learning and other organizational behavior
related theories and asked to apply those theories for analyzing my own behavior and
experience and how I can improve such situations in the future. Tutor have also emphasized
on proof reading and checking grammar, sentence formation and spelling.
My response to comments – how I have used my tutor’s comments to improve my
reflective essay
Keeping in mind the guidelines of the tutors, I have focused entirely on my personal
experience in the organisation, and have explained my personal working experience by
relating concept and theories of Organisational Behaviour. I have related different theories of
learning and theories related to concept like Leadership, team work and organisational culture
and behaviour. I have tried to implement these theories to my working experiences in the
organisation.
What went well/ what I found more difficult in writing the assignment
It was easy to explain the theories from theoretical point of view, but when relating them to
my experience was quite difficult. Determining which theory will relate to my particular
experience was difficult to know. Besides this putting the relevant content and not going out
of the context was a challenge too.
My response to comments – how I have used my tutor’s comments to improve my
reflective essay
I have tried my best to work on every comment and improve the overall reflective essay on
organizational behaviour, and mainly focusing on my personal experience and how I will deal
with similar situations in the future.

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Learning Experience 1
LOG
The team in which I worked used to work
together for the achievement of the goals and
targets. I was also put together with five
other team members for a particular
assignment, in the university.
DIARY
All the team members were able to work well
each other and were able to achieve the
objectives of the assignment in time.
Everybody was able communicate and take
proper feedback for their work from the other
team members. Sometimes the team
members faced the problem of
communication with the Asian team
members.
JOURNAL
It can be analyzed from the experience that
the team was an efficient one as it was able to
achieve all the objectives set before the
formulation of the team. Besides this
problem area was regarding the
communication with Asian students and the
time that was needed for taking the feedback
for the work done.
Theory - Tuckman’s Group Development
Model.
LEARNING
While the team was able to perform very
well, communication between the team
members could have been better by
collaborating and making a friendly
environment with team members. Time for
feedback could have been decreased by
deciding a particular time, in which people
will gather and review the work if any done
by that time.

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Learning Experience 2
LOG
While working in the team formulated for the
OB module, all of the team members have to
select the team leader who will lead us it was
quite difficult for everyone, as people were
not familiar to each other. In order to
complete the assignment in time and work
collaboratively as team, there was need of a
leader for the team. According to me, person
who has respect and trust from every team
member should be appointed as leader for the
team.
DIARY
All the team members wanted to select their
leader of the team which will be able to lead
the team through various situations. Selecting
a leader was also necessary as the leader is
the one who can take care of the ongoing
activities and make sure that everything is on
schedule and nothing is lagging behind.
JOURNAL
It can be analyzed that selecting the leader
according to the traits that a person have was
not the best way to select the leader for the
team, just because someone have some traits
does not mean he will be a good leader.
Strength of the team was that people were
working together for the achievement of the
goals and objectives in order to complete the
task in time.
LEARNING
In future while selecting the leader for the
team, instead of seeing the traits that he or
she have, I will prefer to observe various
situations where the person have able to
come out of the situation and lead other
people too out of the problem. There is no
one particular style of leadership, the person
who is able to juggle different styles
according to the different situations will be
able to lead well and will achieve the set

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Theory - Trait Theory of Leadership. targets and goal.
Learning Experience 3
LOG
In this reflection case, I have tried to describe
the culture of the team in which I worked in
the university. Besides this I have also
analyzed the effect of team culture on my
work and what are the aspects that can be
improved.
DIARY
When the team was formulated and people
coordinated and talked to each other for first
few days, everyone was quite excited that
how well everyone is performing under the
current situations and team culture.
JOURNAL
It can be analyzed that the team have very
open culture which induce the team members
working in the team to be comfortable in the
organization. The culture of the team has also
led to reduction of barriers and everyone was
able to talk and communicate easily without
any barrier. Weakness that can be analyzed is
that too much of open culture may led the
team members to think that they can do
anything can make them lazy.
Theory - Schein’s levels of culture.
LEARNING
The team in which I worked had democratic
and free culture, I will try to share
information and knowledge as much as
possible and will also try to give new ideas
and suggestions, in order to show that I
recognize and appreciate the culture of the
organization where I work and feel proud to
be the part of such team. Besides this I will
give respect to every employee’s work, as is
the culture of the team.

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