Self-Reflective Report Based on Emotional Intelligence

Question

Task: Your Task:
Using the first two of Daniel Goleman’s (2020) Emotional Intelligence (EI) domains of self-awareness and self-management, students are to write an EI self-reflective report. Students are to use a variety of EI development tools and strategies provided during classes to assist in their reflections.

Answer

Introduction
With the rapid growth in globalization and foundation of a borderless economy, there have been occurring various imperious demands and requirements for both organizations and individuals. Individuals, managers and other members working in these organizations are now concerned with their abilities of working not only at local businesses but also for multinational companies. Cross-cultural interaction has increased greatly with the increase in globalization and firms operating across multiple regions, thereby leading to cultural differences at the workplaces (Crowne, 2013). This has made both emotional and cultural intelligence essential for these individuals. Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify one’s own thoughts and feelings alongside others’ and use them for taking actions. Cultural intelligence refers to the abilities and skills required for working in a culturally diverse environment(Crowne, 2013). The report aims to undertake a self-reflection report on both these dimensions by undertaking a personality test.

Self-awareness
Self-awareness is one of the key essential skills required for enhancing my personal and professional development. It can be referred as the degree to which individuals become aware about their internal states, interactions and relationships with peers, families or friends (Sutton, 2016). In this regard, mindfulness can be used as an EI tool for enhancing self-awareness. I can use this for understanding myself through my feelings and emotions and recognizing what is important for me.From the personality test that I undertook, I scored less in self-awareness scale. This shows that I need to improve this skill for my own personality development.It further displays the lack of mindfulness in my personality. With the development of this competency, I will be able to build the base for all other emotional intelligence skills. There still exists some gap in understanding my own strengths and weaknesses and my behaviours and feelings in particular situations. With low self-awareness, I might face problems in not only comprehending my own feelings but also others’ emotions. This will further decrease my emotional intelligence that is essential for operating in a culturally diverse work environment. Self-awareness is the core element of emotional intelligence, consisting of three elements namely, emotional self-awareness, accurate self-awareness and self-confidence (Petrides, et al., 2016). From the test, I have recognized that I need to improve my emotional self-awareness for reading and understanding my emotions and their impact on my performance and relationships. However, I possess some amount of accurate self-awareness that enables me to identify my own strengths and weaknesses, skills and competencies and areas of improvement. Besides, I have significant self-confidence which is evident from the fact that I understand and accept my flaws and am ready to work on improving the same. This is because I possess the ability of being self-reflective for comprehending what I need to develop. Low self-awareness can refrain me from properly identifying my feelings and their manifestations in my daily actions (Caldwelland Hayes, 2016). I might also fail to see patterns in my thinking and behaviour, which could lead to negative emotions. This makes it utmost important for enhancing my self-awareness and improve emotional intelligence. Since, self-awareness is considered as the first step of emotional intelligence, I need to develop this skill for managing and controlling my emotions and analysing others’emotions to understand their actions. In this regard, I need to get out of comfort zone, identifying triggers, evaluating my feelings, revisiting values, checking on myself and filling blind spots with feedback.

Self-management
Self-management is another important element of emotional intelligence that is required for personality development. It is regarded as an ability of managing own impulses and resources for keeping disruptive emotions in check and maintaining honesty and integrity (Golemanand Boyatzis, 2017). In this skill also I need to practice mindfulness as it leads to mental stability and reducing negativity or stress, thereby helping to manage own emotions.From the personality test that I took, I scored less in this dimension as well. Self-management includes five competencies, namely, self-control, transparency, initiative, adaptability and achievement orientation (Giorgi, et al., 2016). In my opinion, I need to improve my self-control for keeping negative emotions in check. This is because I often feel frustrated and disappointed in case of any failure or comparing myself with my peers. Such peer pressure generates negative emotions of depression, anxiety and frustration in me. Furthermore, I also need to improve my adaptability skills as I tend to struggle with any changes from the routine environment. My lack of adaptability to changing situations prevents me in being flexible, which can be difficult in overcoming obstacles in stressful situations. Without the presence of these abilities, I will neither be able to control my emotions in stressful situations nor adapt to sudden changes for responding to the environment.Thus, these competencies of adaptability and self-control are essential for enhancing my emotional intelligence and work effectively in a diverse environment(Golemanand Boyatzis, 2017). However, the three other competencies of transparency, achievement orientation and initiative. For example, I try to abide my own principles, values and moralities for being honest and ensuring integrity. In this regard, I take accountability for my shortcomings, accept criticism from supervisors and focus on reducing my weaknesses. This enables me to manage myself and my responsibilities. Furthermore, the competency of achievement orientation is also present in my personality. I have recognized this from the fact because I set personal goals for developing new skills, overcoming weaknesses and enhancing my strengths. Such personal goals of achievement enable me to reach my own standard of excellence, thereby resulting in my self-satisfaction. Moreover, I display initiative based on reading the situations. While I might not be the rapid in acting, I focus on understanding the situation and seizing the opportunities by analysing their consequences. Thus, this competency can further be developed for responding quickly to critical situations.

Implications for future career
Both emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence are essential for ensuring my success in the future career when I start working as a professional. Emotional intelligence will enable me to form strong interpersonal relationships with my managers, peers, subordinates and customers both professionally and personally. Furthermore, I will be able to better understand any nonverbal cues from colleagues, adjust my own behaviour, undertake good decisions and eventually become an effective leader. In this, I need to work on improving both self-awareness and self-management competencies where I scored low in the personality test. With improving these competencies, I will be able to comprehend non-verbal communication, become more self-aware about personal and others’ emotions, improve my efficiencies and help peers and consequently, contribute towards my career growth and development.Besides, it will also help me to remain self-motivated towards my work, develop positive attitude, increase my empathy towards others and embrace change. In this regard, I can enhance my emotional intelligence by further identifying my weaknesses, reviewing my history, receiving feedback and practicing it on a regular basis. Thus, with the help of improving this skill, I will consequently improve other skills including interpersonal and communication skills, teamwork and relationship building, influencing and negotiation, leadership and customer service. Moreover, I need to improve my self-awareness and self-management skills for both personal and professional development required for future career. With significant self-awareness I will be able to identify and analyse my own emotions and help others with the same. This will enable me to overcome obstacles and respond effectively to challenging situations. It will further help me to gain work-life balance while managing both my personal and professional life. Self-awareness will allow me to eventually become a successful leader in the organization my focusing on both fulfilment of tasks and improvement in relationships. On the other hand, I also need to improve self-management competency for controlling my own and others’ emotions that can disrupt any effective decisions. I need to be able to make effective decisions, analyse situations and act responsibly in my professional career. This cannot be achieved until I am able to manage myself in the personal life. With self-management in my personal life, I will gain the confidence of managing myself in the professional life as well, which will help me to advance my career. Thus, both these elements will help in enhancing my overall emotional intelligence for future.

Conclusion
The increasing globalization and global trade has led companies to venture into new markets across their national boundaries and recruit professionals from various parts of the world. This shows that I will be required to work in a diverse workplace culture if I get employed in a multinational company. The purpose of the report was to analyse the importance of having emotional and cultural intelligence for working in today’s professional environment through self-reflection. In this regard, I took a personality test for evaluating my emotional intelligence based on the four components of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. I scored low in the first two dimensions of this test that are essential for possessing emotional intelligence. Based on this result, I analysed my own strengths and weaknesses arising from the lack of these skills. The report also portrayed the implications that such skills have on future career by understanding their importance in emotional intelligence.

Reference List
Caldwell, C. and Hayes, L.A., 2016. Self-efficacy and self-awareness: moral insights to increased leader effectiveness. Journal of Management Development, 35(9), pp.1163-1173.
Crowne, K.A., 2013. Cultural exposure, emotional intelligence, and cultural intelligence: An exploratory study. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 13(1), pp.5-22.
Giorgi, G., Perminien?, M., Montani, F., Fiz-Perez, J., Mucci, N. and Arcangeli, G., 2016. Detrimental effects of workplace bullying: impediment of self-management competence via psychological distress. Frontiers in psychology, 7, p.60.
Goleman, D. and Boyatzis, R., 2017. Emotional intelligence has 12 elements. Which do you need to work on.Harvard Business Review, 84(2), pp.1-5.
Petrides, K.V., Mikolajczak, M., Mavroveli, S., Sanchez-Ruiz, M.J., Furnham, A. and Pérez-González, J.C., 2016. Developments in trait emotional intelligence research. Emotion review, 8(4), pp.335-341. Sutton, A., 2016. Measuring the effects of self-awareness: Construction of the self-awareness outcomes questionnaire. Europe's journal of psychology, 12(4), p.645.

Appendix
Psychometric EI test result