Reflective Essay: Self-Analysis of Communication and Conflict Skills

This reflective essay provides a comprehensive self-assessment by a student, focusing on communication and conflict management skills within an organizational context. The essay delves into the student's cultural background and its influence on their personality traits, behaviors, and attitudes. It utilizes self-assessment tools such as the Johari Window, MBTI, and DISC analysis to identify strengths and areas for improvement. The Johari Window reveals insights into the student's self-awareness and interpersonal relationships, while the DISC assessment highlights behavioral patterns and preferences. The MBTI assessment categorizes the student's personality type, offering further understanding of their approach to the world and decision-making. The essay also includes real-life incidents where the student has experienced conflict and how these experiences have helped to refine their conflict management skills. The student aims to improve their leadership skills and communication strategies, particularly in managing diversity within the workplace. The overall reflection emphasizes the importance of continuous learning, emotional intelligence, and effective communication to navigate organizational challenges and foster a positive team environment. The student reflects on how they have developed their skills and the impact of these tools on their professional development.

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This essay is a reflective essay about my own personality traits, behaviors and attitude with reference to
my skills on communication and managing conflict in an organization. Self-assessment is about analyzing
oneself in order to explore and learn more about oneself. In order to have a detailed self-assessment,
tools like Johari Window, MBTI and DISC are used. In this assessment, I have attempted to define my
own skill set in communication and conflict management in organizational setup and the areas and skills
that I need to improve on.
Initially, for conducting my self-assessment, I focused on my cultural background to understand my
personality traits. Being from Nepal, my entire life I practiced Buddhism. Coming to Australia gave me a
new outlook towards life. Then I focused on my professional and personal development from beginning
till now and attempted to identify the areas and attributes that I need to improve and develop in myself
with reference to organizational setup. The things that I identified about myself are mostly positive after
these assessments and I feel more confident in dealing with communication and conflict management at
workplace. After group affiliation, I understood that I can easily put my points forward and convince
others too. This helped me to mix well with everyone and accept culture with ease. In addition, there is
difference in food I had in Nepal and food people had here. By accepting culture here, I could develop
my ability of culture acceptance, being less judgmental, thoughtful and thinking from others point of
view. All this is possible because of the group affiliation I had at my college and work place.
I did self-assessment on basis of Johari window, DISC and MBTI. Johari window was made by Joseph Luft
and Harry Ingham in 1955 as a method of psychological assessment of an individual that covered various
aspects like communication improvement, developing a team, relationships inside a group, and
awareness about the self and personal development (Davies, 2014). This means Johari window is mainly
focused on soft skills of an individual. In this assessment, I understood that my open area was limited to
what I showed everyone. Some of my personality traits that I wasn’t aware were present in blind spot

(Ashcroft, 2017). This included smart, knowledgeable, trustworthy, mature, independent, proud and
idealistic. This helped me to understand my own personality and now I feel more confident and open
talking to people. DISC analysis is about identification of one’s behavior pattern by understand their
preferences and tendencies (Flindt, 2017). The DISC analysis is based on four major behavior patterns
namely the level of dominance of a person, the level of influence, steadiness and conscientiousness of
an individual (Sugerman, et al., 2011). The results showed that I am a good coach, a thinker, enthusiast,
less sociable and talkative, private and friend figure rather than dominant figure. I currently work as a
team leader of F&b attendant at Castle hill RsL club for one year now and knowing this assessment I
understand where I can change myself to be a good leader and influencer for my team. I can improve
myself by being more open in communication with my team members so that they feel free to come
and talk to me. This can help me grow better as a person too.
The MBTI assessment is done through a questionnaire made in order to understand ones psychological
preferences. This includes the perception of an individual towards the world and decisions taken on
basis of that perception (Myers, 2017). As per MBTI assessment, I come under the category of ISTP
personality which means introversion, sensing, thinking and perceiving. In fact, I was surprised at my
own personality as I thought myself to be introvert and emotional in nature.
I thought I couldn’t communicate better but this test gave me surprising results. In addition, leading a
team has helped me to understand to go to the core of any conflict and then resolve it. I do talk to my
team members in case of conflict, but I never knew that I have capability to sense and think from their
point of view too (Gilley, et al., 2015). Thinking from other’s point of view helps one to resolve matter
amicably and enhances communication too. Understanding my personality, I will be more confident in
these matters as I know that even others think that I can be their coach, I am mature and trustworthy
(Cox, 2016). My personality traits that weren’t known to me are known to others. The blind spot traits

definitely added to my confidence and I can use them in my organizational setup in more impactful
manner as am aware of them now. In addition, I always thought that others knew only about my public
self of being happy, sensible, witty, cheerful, studious, nice to everyone, friendly warm and helpful. This
is what I always showed them. But after Johari window test, I realized they knew more about me then I
knew. The traits that they knew were hidden from me. This made me understood that others analyze a
person on basis of his or her behavior, communication and work methods in organizational setup.
From Johari window analysis, I realized people assumed me to be proud person, a personality trait I was
not aware of. This means that they find me to be proud in my mannerism and communication. The
major strengths in my personality in communication is coach figure, friend figure and a thinker
(Masaviru, 2016). Other personality traits that are my strengths include being able to understand other’s
point of view and communicating in a manner that is respectful and acceptable to all. I am team focused
and understand that everyone works for the team and thus being a team leader communicate as a
coach or mentor rather than leader which makes all team members feel dedicated towards team
(Saxena, 2015).
The results showed that I am more of a coach, a thinker, enthusiast, less sociable and talkative, private
and friend figure rather than dominant figure. This means communicating with everyone is easy and
decision making process will be smooth through communication in organizational setup. People trust
me and so they will find it easy to communicate and discuss their problems with me. As per MBTI
assessment, my ISTP personality includes being spontaneous, unpredictable and enthusiastic but I can
hide it from everyone (Bower, 2015). This means externally, communicating with this personality is easy
but considering my inner self, I can be impromptu and unpredictable and can have a wrong impression
in communication to subordinates as well as superiors. I will have to be very careful while framing words

and think beforehand while making a decision. Even during conflict resolution, I will have to keep
patience and analyze the matter thoroughly before taking a decision.
Diversity is very common in organizational setting as people of different age, culture, upbringing and
others work under same roof (Sackett & Walmsley, 2014). It is important to accept and appreciate
diversity at work. For managing diversity, first thing I need to inculcate is to be a constant learner and
develop high level of emotional intelligence which I will develop be enhancement of my listening and
communicating skills. I can be more thorough with my communication, can bring more clarity to it,
should respect, develop tolerance and be more compassionate towards my team. Where there is human
interactions, there is bound to be conflicts (Liddle, 2017). Good listening skills solves half of the
problems faced in conflict. Being a good listener; enhancing my negotiation skills and be rational and do
not jump to conclusion suddenly will make me positive towards conflict in organizational setting. When I
joined,
Considering that I need to develop above mentioned qualities, there are incidences when I failed to
manage conflict at work. As am working as team leader of F&b attendant at Castle hill RsL club for one
year now, two incidences happened during this time that helped to enhance my skills in managing
conflict. I believed that customer service should be based on quality rather than time. When I joined,
there were times when conflict between me and my manager aroused due to conflicting goals. My focus
was quality in customer service and his was turnaround time. Every day we discussed the same thing,
and my work was getting disturbed. I couldn’t manage this conflict, resulting into frustration among my
team members. There was lots of tension and then our company HR had to interfere to solve this. This
incident didn’t create a good impression of mine in the company. Another incident is the conflict of
leadership styles. There are two different leaders for two different teams at my company. I am one of
the team leaders. Half of my team members were shifted from other team. The leader there always

dictated things and others followed. Here, I tried to give them a free hand which they couldn’t accept.
There were not ready to accept me as their team leader due to conflict in leadership style and so I had
to take help of manager to handle it. If the same situation comes now, I will be considerate, keep
communication open from both sides, and be calm and less judgmental. As described in personality
analysis, I should be less aggressive and think calmly, analyze the situation thoroughly and then taking
decisions. In addition, I should keep communication free flowing but also develop strong leadership
traits.
References
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Gilley, A. et al., 2015. Manager Behavior, Generation, and Influence on Work-Life Balance: An Empirical
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