Introduction
Market demands for multinational corporations have increased because of globalisation, which raises the issue of how to establish effective global leadership to manage global company and labour management. Given that leadership is an essential element of every business, developing interpersonal skills is necessary for managing conflicts and fostering the growth of both people and groups at work (Amaro et al., 2019). The relevance of the need for ongoing self-development and self-awareness is critically examined in the current assignment. The research investigates a variety of pertinent literature in order to clarify how self-awareness and ongoing self-improvement will fulfil the function of a successful manager in the future. Second, the report would outline two critical incidents based on the conclusions and recommendations from a two-self Belbin analysis, as well as management competencies based on an incident from the residential weekend. These two incidents would specifically address working in teams and groups with different cultural backgrounds. Finally, a summary of the toolkit has been provided, along with a quick explanation of how I will apply what I've learned in the future. Additionally, the report would assess the main strengths and weaknesses and make comments on the behaviour patterns that had arisen through the self-analysis. I'll pick out three areas for my own growth as a potential manager from the report that I can concentrate on in the upcoming year.
Literature Review
Growing research shows that, regardless of their occupation or other demographic considerations, 60 to 70 percent of workers in any company say that their immediate supervisor is the worst part of their job, which has resulted in billions of dollars in lost productivity (Yari et al., 2020). Productivity includes not just financial elements but also indirectly the loyalty, happiness, health, and productivity of their staff members. Despite the fact that there are many qualities of leadership, the next section will focus on two crucial traits: self-awareness and ongoing self-development (da Rosa Righi et al., 2019).
Self-awareness
Managers in any business need to have a substantial level of self-awareness (i.e., clarity of understanding of one's own thought) about their performance, expertise, and talents in order to manage others, control their behaviour, and achieve firm success (Dzwigol et al., 2020). Particularly as a manager, they must be conscious that how well they are achieving their own and the organization's goals, what they should be doing, and preventing derailment frequently depend on the calibre of the manager's daily self-evaluation (Dirani et al., 2020). As a result, data from across the world highlighted the significance of self-awareness for effective leadership. Research has also revealed a number of ways that "knowing-thyself" might help you manage people well at work and when working with teams in a dynamic environment. Understanding oneself and how others perceive it falls under the category of self-awareness, and there are two distinct components to this concept (Dirani et al., 2020). Accordingly, the theory accounts for both inner and outer (social) components, characterises individual traits, and also helps one understand one's personal resource, which is a necessary part of self-regulation (See Figure 1). Despite the similarities between the two points of view, emotional intelligence and mindfulness should be distinguished (Caligiuri et al., 2019).
Figure 1: Components of Self-Awareness
Source: Adopted from Taylor (2010)
According to earlier research, managers with high levels of burnout and self-awareness are better equipped to manage their teams, keep an eye on their own behaviour, and align it with organisational goals than those with low self-awareness. High self-awareness among managers increases employees' psychological safety, which in turn affects their ability to solve problems creatively. It also improves employees' attitudes, performance, and overall happiness (Pham et al., 2019). Abuse, such as threats, dishonesty, and intimidation, on the other side, would result in poorer employee engagement, poor job satisfaction, and subordinate burnout. There is a need to receive training in the formation and continuing advancement of self-awareness since it is essential to establishing and maintaining spirituality and is a skill that is required of leaders or those in leadership positions (Pham et al., 2019). Researchers disputed the higher congruence between their own ratings and those of others, but they also emphasised that this increased congruence might be trained with the right intervention, such as emphasising the importance of feedback (Taylor et al., 2021).
Continuous Self-development
A continuous learning system is a crucial part of leadership; hence, organisations must encourage employee participation in such systems in order to keep their competitive edge. In the contemporary atmosphere of competition, leaders must go beyond the immediate problem at hand by constantly improving themselves and using a variety of senses to find new approaches to conventional problems (Claus, 2019). Self-development is the process through which a person improves their capacity and willingness to take charge of and be accountable for their own actions. It involves a variety of abilities that a person should develop, including enhancing performance in a current position, progressing their career, realising their full potential, and honing particular traits and abilities including time management, planning, delegation, and self-awareness (Taylor et al., 2021). Studies conducted all over the world adopted best practises to create efficient self-development programmes because the process needed a number of particular pre-programs to optimise the benefits for the leaders. The particular instruments that are connected to learning gains assessment use self-motivators and self-development objectives. Deci's self-determination theory, which sees people as proactive with a natural purpose that might be aided by the social situation, was one of the theoretical foundations for self-development. By providing a justification for action that is meaningful, acknowledged other feelings, and a choice, both internalisation of control and followed self-determination could be improved. The latter improves intrinsic motivation and self-determination while pressurised required would result in poor motivation.
According to earlier research (Wisittigars & Siengthai, 2019; Moldoveanu & Narayandas, 2019), self-development programmes for leaders help them become conscious of their own leadership, personal power base, growth opportunities, and obstacles as they look toward the future and continuously adapt to the environment, both inside and outside the business. The role, personality, and feedback-seeking of the supervisor are significantly impacted by self-development programmes (Jiang et al., 2021). Employees would, for example, generate the most imaginative work, assist the growth of their skills, and empower employment as a whole under a helpful supervisor. Inflated self-evaluation poses many difficulties for managers, but they are also capable of analysing and separating positive from bad input. Few studies, however, have examined the differences in the effects of the self-development training programme by considering cultural factors (Moldoveanu & Narayandas, 2019). For example, while Chinese leaders focused on developing their technical leadership skills, Vietnamese leaders were more concerned with developing their moral standards. These studies have only served to emphasise the significance of contextual factors. According to studies, self-development is crucial in today's financially strapped, fast changing, and quality-focused organisations for both individuals and organisations (Arhipova & Kokina, 2022).
Two Critical Incidents
Template One
Incident from Residential weekend
My Chosen Toolkit is: Cultural IntelligenceCritical Incident Summary
Since people come from different countries with different traditions, values, and ethnicities, working with multicultural teams can be quite difficult. The main obstacle I encountered during my residential weekend was a lack of trust among team members from various countries and cultures. I was put in charge of a multicultural team that included people from China, India, Africa, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Despite the open flow of information, I found it extremely challenging to persuade the Chinese. Even though they were actively participating in the conversation, they were hesitant to accept all that was being said by other nationals (Chen et al., 2019). I could tell from the Chinese nationals' behaviour that they lacked confidence and questioned the information being offered by the team's other members. This behaviour on the part of the Chinese players was especially harmful to a fruitful collaboration. I realised that they weren't actively adopting the arguments put forth by the other team members because they didn't trust them. I underlined the importance of trust for a successful collaboration to address the trust issue. I connected Chinese participants with other participants, gave them project-specific responsibilities, and assisted them in getting to know other team members better to foster trust. I also made it obvious that they could contact me for clarification if they had any concerns. Despite their initial reluctance, they eventually saw the value of working together and with their separate partners to forge a successful alliance. The Chinese participants found this activity to be especially helpful in building their teamwork skills. They became more empathetic as a result, and they readily accepted the convincing arguments made by other team members.
How do the conclusions of your selected self-analysis toolkit represent your thinking and actions during this crucial incident?
Different cultures and values are deeply ingrained in people since different nations adhere to them. They are good as long as they are employing individuals of their own race. Only when they are exposed to people from other cultures do they experience problems. Due to a variety of challenges, they frequently struggle to collaborate with persons from different cultures in these situations. They find that trust is a major problem and they seem unable to trust others. This is mostly because of the cultures and values people grew up with, which have a lasting impact on them. Building trust between people of different cultures is a formidable challenge. It can simply be explained by the fact that individuals from other cultures are more likely to bring unfamiliar views and values, peculiar attitudes, and even mismatched conceptions to the workplace, which can fundamentally impede effective communication and collaboration. Therefore, it is not unexpected that cultural interactions are frequently tainted by shame, misunderstandings, a feeling of low self-efficacy, as well as psychological anguish. According to a study by Madrid Akpovo (2019), people are more likely to trust those who are similar to them than those who are different from them. Countries that have a shared culture tend to become more trusting of one another and are better able to cooperate and function as a team.
Determine How You Will Apply This Knowledge in the Future:
Organizations all around the world have been searching outside of their country borders to fill their personnel needs because of the current period in which regional barriers no longer exist. To encourage collaborative working and accomplish organisational goals in such a situation, cultural gaps must be promptly resolved. Trust being a fundamental component so makes perfect sense in any circumstance. For instance, if someone wants to invest in the stock market, it is crucial that they have complete faith in their stock broker in this situation (Liebowitz & Beckman, 2020). Employees must have complete faith in their management or leader; this is true for any establishment. The most important lesson I learned from my residential weekend was how crucial trust is when working with or leading people from different cultures. In the future, as a manager of a large organisation, I will undoubtedly find use for this experience. My main goal would be to work toward fostering trust among members of such teams because I am aware of the complexities associated with trust among multicultural people (Mahdi et al., 2019). Because of my background, I'll make sure to spend some time talking one-on-one with team members from different cultural backgrounds to help them develop their trust in me. Building trust involves effective communication as well. I would make sure to provide an open line of communication so that team members from all cultural backgrounds could express their thoughts and offer feedback on the work that needs to be done (Schniederjans et al., 2020).
Template Two
My Chosen Toolkit is: Belbin (Emotional Intelligence)
Critical Incident Summary
I showed a preference for resource investigator and implementer roles, according to my Belbin profile. My profile, however, indicates that my stronger skills are as an implementer. Following that, specific tasks were assigned to each member of my team in accordance with their unique Belbin preferred roles to enable effective work allocation. However, as an implementer, my primary attention would be on planning and carrying out activities. As a resource investigator, my duty was restricted to building positive relationships with other team members as well as with external stakeholders. My team leader originally agreed when I expressed my desire to work as an implementer as opposed to a resource investigator (Ji et al., 2022). To my astonishment and disappointment, I was later given the responsibility of being a coordinator. Even though I made an effort to concentrate on carrying out the task that was given to me, I saw that my thoughts kept wandering to how the project was organised and carried out. I was very upset that I wasn't given my preferred Belbin role. Instead of being a resource investigator, I thought I would be better suited to the role of an implementer. Although I carried out my task effectively, I felt that as a resource investigator or implementer, I might have done a far better job.
What conclusions of your selected self-analysis toolbox do your actions and way of thinking in this crucial occasion reflect?
Even though my desired job as a Belbin was not given to me, I was able to carry out the one that was given to me in a way that pleased both my team leader and me. I was given the responsibility of coordinating, but I was not going to allow my emotions to be affected by my team leader's oversight or error. In fact, my emotional intelligence was exceptional (Cowan, 2019). Even though I was initially disappointed by the fact that the duty was not distributed properly, I was able to regain emotional control and concentrate on carrying out the task as effectively as I could. Additionally, I had no resentment or hatred toward my team leader for the incorrect task assignment. Although it should be noted that I would have been able to fulfil my Belbin desired function with greater adequacy than if I had been given the role of a coordinator.
Determine How You'll Apply What You Learn in the Future
Traditionally, it was largely improper to show an emotional quality in business, and emotional abilities were dismissed as irrelevant in a corporate context. But as time has gone on, emotional intelligence has come to be recognised as a crucial component of leadership that enables individuals to control their behaviour and influence the relationships, they have with others around them. The ability to recognise and manage one's emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them is referred to as emotional intelligence (Thapa, 2019). It would also have to do with how well people can motivate themselves to carry out activities, be innovative, and perform to the best of their abilities while also being able to recognise other people's emotions and manage relationships. I will make sure that team members' roles and tasks are assigned based on their talents and expertise in a future situation based on my experience. If there is any doubt regarding the assignment of tasks, I will also take into consideration the emotional intelligence levels of team members (Nanwani, 2021). It is crucial to take this factor into account because it has become increasingly clear that emotional intelligence has a substantial impact on a team's performance. There is a good chance that during the course of my work in the future, I may run into a variety of people with varying degrees of emotional intelligence. When working with them, I would use the same guidelines and take care to avoid emotional lapses (Stanton & Hancock, 2021). I would also take the initiative to help my team colleagues become more emotionally intelligent.
Summary of Belbin Profile
Figure 2: Summary of Team Role Descriptions
Source: Adopted from Pink (2012)Significant Strengths and Weakness
I encountered the problem of mistrust among the team members who were from China while working on the residential weekend. Because of their cultural orientation, they were hesitant to put their faith in persons of other ethnicities. The team's ability to function cohesively was being seriously hampered by this. I took action to increase their level of trust since I recognised the issue they were dealing with (Chen et al., 2019). I initially placed them with individuals of different ethnicities so that they could interact and give them a chance to develop trust. In addition, I created a clear structure that made it clear that they could come to me with any problems they were having. My ability to be people-oriented while also considering the demands and wants of the team members was my strength in this situation. My drawback, though, was that I was more task-oriented and that reaching the project's goals and objectives occupied a significant portion of my attention.
I think that in the second situation, where I wasn't given my chosen Belbin role, I shown enough emotional intelligence by being very patient and resisting the need to become angry or aggressive with my team leader. Rather of serving as a coordinator, my Belbin profile suggested that I would be better suited as a resource investigator and implementer. I did, however, do a pretty decent job of carrying out my duties when the profile of a coordinator was assigned to me. I also acted logically and rationally, with no resentment toward my team leader. My emotional intelligence was entirely within my complete control. This demonstrated my strength in a significant way. My failure in this case was that I did not disagree with my team leader's choice. I now believe that I could have been able to persuade my team leader to assign my chosen role if I had objected to the inappropriate assignment of responsibilities or even tried to underline how unsuited I was for the coordinator's position. It was also shown by my self-evaluation that I might be hesitant to accept a task if it was more particularly goal oriented. It can be related to the fact that I'm eager to innovate and improve and that I'm more likely to do so in a large social situation than with a limited perspective. I'd like to improve my abilities in the following areas: strategic management, effective communication, and a stronger focus on people.
Conclusion
The aforementioned incidents lead to the conclusion that, in the incredibly competitive corporate climate of today, both cultural and emotional intelligence are crucial for establishing global management competencies. A successful manager must possess these skills in order to succeed in the market given the current global nature of firms. A manager needs to be emotionally capable in order to deal with difficult situations at work, in addition to being culturally sensitive.
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