A520.3.5.RB - Supportive Communication

Being a supportive communicator has to do with coaching, mentoring, listening, being genuine, personal accountability, and relationships. If a strong relationship is built, a negative conversation can be had without any party ever feeling like it was truly negative. This is where all of these attributes come into play. I plan to use coaching, behavioral observations, and validating statements to improve my supportive communication in my workplace.

Coaching - I regularly coach team members in various areas that may need improvement, but it may be hard for me to make the conversation come out as a positive one, even though it could be negative. Using open-ended questions and listening to that team member is one way of being supportive. I want to recognize those team members that exemplify the goals and attitudes that the organization strives for so that they continue them, and help mentor those team members that don't. This will include allowing the team member to own the behavior and find ways to improve. 

Observing of Behaviors - By observing behaviors I am able to give real-time feedback to team members while focusing on ways to prevent that same behavior from happening. so, observing behaviors could allow myself as leader to help the team member improve them. Removing obstacles is one role of a leader and the team member may need that help from to move forward. 

Validating Statements - The observations an coachings with team members will entail strong one-on-one communication. I will create a comfortable atmosphere for the team member where an exchange of ideas and thoughts is valued. I will listen effectively and make sure I remove any agenda I may have for the conversation. My relationship with the team member has to be strong in order for me to meet these objectives and have successful conversations.

Supportive communication is key for a happy and pleasant workplace. It's what makes employees return to work day after day to perform for the organization and its leaders. Simple things like listening and being genuine will go a long way and create an inviting environment that will spur conversation and make one seem more approachable.

A520.3.1.RB - Decision Making

If I had to use three words to describe my decision-making they would be creative, logical, and flexible. I often use as much creativity as possible when making decisions, especially if another party is involved, like my family or my team at work. This allows some unpredictability in my results from the decision and also creates an exciting work environment by trying out new methods for solving problems. Logic shows up quite often in my decision-making because my job is technical and several job tasks revolve around data from various technical sources. I use my knowledge of the department and the team members to make informed decisions. I can learn from my mistakes and use that experience to make a better decision next time. I also make decisions that are flexible, meaning I can change specific aspects about them without affecting the end result. I do this by creating more than one plan for each decision, like back-up plans.

The three words that describe the opposite of my decision-making are unoriginal, irrational, and rigid. I think it would be very hard for me to make decisions that revolve around these three words, only because my personality plays a major part in my decision-making, and these three words are the complete opposite of who I am as a person and how I act. My family, along with my team at work, is anything but unoriginal so I cannot imagine having to make the same decisions day in and day out. The technical details of my job also prohibit me from making irrational decisions that could have a costly impact on the organization.

Overall, I enjoy making decisions the way I feel the most comfortable with, which is using past experience, knowledge, logic, and creativity. My personality shows through in my decisions and I would not like to detract from that. I have too much at stake to make decisions that are not original, not logical, and do not show a creative spirit. 

A520.2.6.RB - Time Management

Time management has been a strength of mine since joining the military, and I have been able to carry those skills over to my personal life and civilian career. I was always able to arrive to work on time when I was younger because it was my highest priority at the time, and I prioritized tasks while working to ensure I was completing the most important tasks first. Today, I think that prioritization is the biggest factor in my everyday time management. I have determined what tasks and activities are the most important, ensure that each has sufficient amount allocated to them, and use the rest of the time to complete the activities and tasks that aren’t as pressing. However, I am never in the position where I was not able to complete a task because I ran out of time, so I give every task a certain level of importance.

After examining myself and my self-awareness in the first module, I learned that my locus of control was strong. This aligns well with the fact that I have good time management skills because these two coincide. Time management has helped me in other areas of my life, especially with my locus of control. Being able to manage my time and prioritize tasks in my personal and professional life has given me more ownership of my actions. Everyone has activities and tasks that come with deadlines, but being able to meet these deadlines is satisfying and rewarding.

There are a few areas in which I could improve my time management skills, resulting in reduced stress. The first area is spending increased amounts of time on non-priority events, or those with no deadline or consequence for not completing. The biggest culprit is TV, and when I watch too much I have less time to spend on tasks that have a priority. Another area is separating tasks that are related to my personal and professional life. There are times when I spend too much time on work tasks and not enough on personal tasks, and vice versa. I need to find a sustainable balance for both. The last area is doing a better job of prioritizing activities better in my personal life. There are a lot of tasks that have no priority, but should, so there is no consistency with when and how these are completed, even though there should be.

My action plan for improving in these areas includes giving a priority to more tasks in my personal life, creating a balance for activities related to my professional and personal life, and decreasing the amount of time spent on non-priority activities. By putting a priority on tasks at home, this will allow me to meet my other goal of spending less time of non-priority tasks, allowing me to accomplish more of what I need and want to during my time away from work. I will also allocate myself a certain number of hours to spend on work related tasks so that they do not impede my ability to accomplish activities in my personal life.

  

A520.2.3.RB - Conflict Management

In a recent conflict that I was engaged in involving myself and a manager from another department, we used the collaborating method to reach a solution. At our update meeting that takes place half-way through the shift every day, he did not agree with a decision that I wanted to make. The decision I wanted to make would have been good for our department and the morale of my team, but may not have been the best for the building. The other manager had been in the building for 5 years so he was much more tenured then I was, but I felt like the decision I wanted to make was the right one and that his decision was going to have a negative impact on my team without actually helping the building.

We discussed it briefly during the update in front of the other managers, but decided to discuss it between the two of us in another room. We talked with one another for about 15 minutes, discussing the positives and negatives of each one of our points of view and how it might impact individual teams and the building as a whole. We eventually made the decision to rotate one of my team members to another department rather than let my team go home early. This prevented one of my teams from going home an hour early, which lowered morale of both the team and the individual who had to work in the other department.

In the end, the move did not do the building any good because of several other variables that night. I had to repair the morale of the team the following week and explain to them why I made the decision I did. I thought it was worth a try to help the building without favoring one team over the other, but the team did not see it that way. I am an operations manager before I am a manager for specific teams, so I felt like I had to support the opinion of the other manager who I had the conflict with. Our relationship allowed us to effectively manage the conflict, even though it did not have the intended results. 

A520.1.6.RB - Self-Awareness

There are many variables that affect the self-awareness of an individual, but in my personal experience, the MSLD program has allowed me to reflect on my personality, values, and thinking style and has made me more aware of myself as a leader, both in a personal and professional capacity.

My awareness of my strengths and weaknesses through self-evaluation has been one of the most improved areas since beginning the program. There have been several courses with self-evaluations, self-surveys, and activities that allowed me to evaluate how I could contribute positively to an organization as a leader, and what areas I could work on to become a better leader.

I have also been more confident in showing and integrating my personal values into my decision making at work. I always assumed that it would be hard to gain acceptance by others if my values were different, but I was wrong. I have been able to act genuinely in every facet of my professional life because of the community I work within, and I gained the confidence through the program, classmates, and instructors I have worked with thus far.

My cognitive style, or ability to think critically and act upon these thoughts, has improved since starting the program. In my very first course, thinking critically was the main learning lesson, and it gave me the tools and education I needed to develop deep, creative thought around every subject in order to become a more effective, efficient, innovative leader.

In addition, my attitude toward change is also different. Learning about transformational leadership and how change affects the organization and employees is remarkable to me, so I have become more open to this idea. I use change in a part of my daily routine, figuring different ways to keep employees happy and also various methods for developing them. Change in the workplace is good if it’s in the hands of a positive leader.

Overall, the program has had a positive effect on me and my self-awareness. It has helped me improve in several areas of leadership, given me the confidence to embrace my personality and values, and it has opened my eyes to who I am as a leader.

A520.1.2.RB - Self Awareness

I think that this self assessment was a good indicator of how I react, feel, and how I would respond in different situations in my personal and professional life. In the results, some of my strongest points were my locus of control, my openness to feedback, my awareness of my own values, emotional intelligence and core self-evaluation, and my cognitive style indicator. I think the majority of this has to do with the fact that I have a very diverse background with experience in various job fields and environments. Each organization I have worked for has had different values and goals, so I have had to learn to adapt and recognize my strengths and weaknesses and use them for my development and the benefit of the organization. 

In my opinion, the results were accurate and were a good indicator of my strengths and weaknesses. This tool was especially useful in helping me narrow down my weaknesses so that I can target them and create a plan to improve on them. For example, I scored in the median percentile on the tolerance of ambiguity scale, meaning I have mixed feelings about situations. I look at promising and threatening situations equally, when I should be more promising in thought, being that I am usually upbeat, fun, and optimistic in the workplace. This was surprising to me, but I viewed it as an opportunity to improve. My  naturally competitive personality has quite a bit to do with this, but I need to start looking at the positive in every situation and challenge myself to view obstacles as being good for development and growth, rather than a threat. It's challenges and difficult situations that make leaders like myself better and more developed. On the opposite end of the spectrum, my  openness to feedback self awareness scores were very high. I think that because I am open to feedback and aware of my weaknesses and strengths, it is easy for me to identify and improve in areas. My willingness to learn and adapt is my strength that allows me to do this.

Overall, the information and feedback from this assessment will prove to be beneficial to me in this course and in my journey as a leader. The results can be used and built upon for an indefinite period of time and will be used as a development and learning tool for myself. For a short term goal, I plan on incorporating my weaknesses into this course to help with my development, and my strengths for the development and learning of others.