Self-Reflection Report: Demographics, Assessment Procedures And Themes

Demographic and background information

Self-reflection is the process through which an individual can reflect upon his or her own abilities, strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of self-reflection is to identify weaknesses and improve upon them as well as identify strengths and understand their effective usage. Through this course, I have taken several self-reflection modules and tools that have helped me in gaining a deeper insight about my own personality. This report highlights upon eight self-reflection tools and their results as well as their impact on my future.

I have spent a major part of my life in Asia. I was born in the late 1990s. Both my parents were working before I was born. However, at the time of my birth, my mother decided to be a stay at home mom in order to take care of me. Both my parents have always been fairly strict about my education. They sent me to a private school despite not being very financially sound. During my school days, I took keen interest in learning languages and other subjects like geography, history and science. I always hated math as a child and somehow I continue to do so even today.

Throughout my school like, I participated in several co-curricular activities. I was the captain of the football team and took active part in debates and declamation contests. After finishing school, I joined a management course for my graduation. Throughout the course, I continued to work part time in order to earn money. This also gave me industry exposure at a young age. I have been working in the field of personal selling for several clients.

In my personal time, I like to travel and read books. Both my parents are avid readers and this habit stems down from them. I also have a passion for writing and have active blogs. I often take freelancing writing projects. I enjoy spending time with my family, girlfriend and other friends.

I am open to learning and continue to work towards my growth

Since the time I was really young, I have always been open to learning. I tend to take up new activities and learn them. The results of the goal orientation test also helped me understand this ability of mine. I scored 4.6 on learning objective which reflects upon my desire to learn things. In my structured autobiography (SA) too, I always expressed a desire to learn new things and excel at them. I have learnt foreign languages. Even at my part time jobs, I have worked in HR as well as sales because I wanted to experience new things. My score of 9 in adventure in the works value inventory self-assessment tool also depicts my openness to new adventures.

I have a fairly low score in “Benevolent sexism score” in the ambivalent sexism scale. This suggests that I am not bound to any traditional gender roles. I truly believe that learning is limitless and can as well as must be gathered from every possible source.

I enjoy autonomy and a sense of independence

Assessment Procedures

As an individual, I have always valued my independence, autonomy and the ability to take my own decisions. In my structured autobiography, it is mentioned that every time someone asked me about my future plan, I called myself a leader. I cherished the idea of having a certain autonomy and decision making authority. In my interview with my significant others, I discussed closely with my boss at my part time job as well as my dad and best friend. All three of them depicted that I work best when I work independently. The high score of 4 out of 5 for autonomy in the work values inventory also signifies my need for autonomy as well as the importance that it holds in my life. I also got a high score of 4.2 for autonomy in the career anchors tool which clearly suggests that autonomy in the workplace acts as my anchor for improved performance and growth.

However, I agree that I am too young and my career has not entirely taken off yet. Therefore it would be difficult for me to work in absolute independence. However, my need and desire for autonomy will continue to motivate me to work harder and learn more so that I can eventually be able and competent enough to take autonomous decisions. In the career anchors self-evaluation tool as well, my scores clearly reflect upon this need for independence. I have got high score of 4.2 each on autonomy and entrepreneurial creativity.

I am an emotional person

Several results of my many self-evaluation tools reflect that I am an extremely emotional person. Since the very beginning, I have been very attached to my mother. My parents have always taught me to express my emotions. Unlike several Asian individuals who consider expressing emotions as a sign of weakness, my family has always supported us and enabled us to accept and confront our emotions in a better manner. In the Holland’s Vocational choice tool, I got a low score of 6 in being realistic. In the HEXACO test, I got a very high score of 3.2 on emotionality depicting that I am an emotional person (Ashton, Lee & De, 2014). In the work values inventory tool also, I have got a high score of 12 for friendship at work. This suggests that my relationships and friendship with people at work also plays a significant role in my life. I value relationships more than results and friendships more than outcome. This emotional ability and inclination of mine is one of my biggest strengths and helps me in being intuitive while taking decisions.

I am a very social person and work towards building long term relationship with others

I have had the opportunity to undertake several leadership roles throughout my school life. This was probably because I had a large circle of friends and maintained cordial relationships with almost all my classmates. The strength of my social circle positively reflects upon my people management skills. In the work values inventory, I got a high score of 4 in “relationships with others”. Most importantly, while taking the Holland’s vocational choice test (Holland, 2013), I got the perfect score of 10 in being “Social”.

Theme Elicitation

As an active sports member, I have learnt the importance of team work and establishing cordial relationships with people. This is also because my father used to always say that an individual’s network is the real net worth of the individual. Therefore I always put efforts in building and fostering long term relationships with people. In the work values inventory tool, I have got high score of 12 in “Friendships at work”, 11 in “Work environment” and 10 in “People contact”. All of these scores combined is a clear depiction of my ability to be social with people (Cogin, 2012).

One thing that I have noticed is that establishing long term relationships with a large number of people and being social has its own set of advantages. The room and scope for learning increases a lot more. Similarly, the chances of growth also elevate. However, associating with a large number of people also makes an individual prone to a lot of feedback and opinion. In my self-evaluation scale, I have scored 4 out of 5 on “fear of negative evaluation”. This suggests that not only do I wish to establish relationships with people, I also fear their negative evaluation (Brown, 2014). It is my innate tendency to work towards being like by people. Sometimes this need to make everyone happy backfires and then I miss out on important things.

I am innovative and creative

My interest in extracurricular activities throughout my school life clearly reflects upon my creative side. I always try to think out of the box and come up with unique ideas. I try to keep my room and environment creatively curated. In my interview with significant others, the first thing that my best friend and my dad mentioned is that I am very creative. My score of 9 in my HVC in “Enterprising” suggests that I am creative. The same analysis was confirmed by a score of 4.2 in “Entrepreneurial creativity” in the career anchors tools.

My openness to learning also perfectly complements by creative side. Several results from various self-assessment tools reflect upon my ability to be enterprising. I would like to build something from scratch and be autonomously responsible for that. Such tasks are only possible with a large amount of innovation and creativity. I am certain that this skill of mine has stayed with me since I was a little child. My creative side does not need to get turned on but rather it is my most primary nature. In my workplace also, I try to take initiative for several creative roles and this is why my manager also agrees that I am a highly innovative person.

I am fairly young and new to the professional world. My manager has always praised me for my enthusiasm and energy but he also suggests that I lack clarity of goals. I have yet not been able to identify my true passion and this would make it difficult for me to seek long term satisfaction in a job. In my current role, I do a lot of personal selling and thereby interact with a large number of people. I believe I possess good customer relationship management skills.

However, several times, I feel that I tend to get frustrated very soon and lack the patience that it takes to close big deals. There is a severe conflict between my need to be autonomous as well as my motivation to carry a task from scratch single handedly. In all of the tools, I have got a high score in areas that reflect upon my entrepreneurial skills. I would surely like to start my own business but I definitely lack the experience of industry exposure for the same.

At present, I feel unclear of my goals and have not been able to identify what I really wish to do in my life. I am happy with my current role of sales but sometimes I feel there is a lot of pressure especially during month ends. This demotivates me and I completely give up for the month. I also receive little to no feedback for my work. Since I work on a part time basis and I work into personal selling, my manager only gets to see the numbers at the end of the month. Therefore there has been no contribution in my selling skills through transparent feedback.

The findings of these tests have helped me decide that I will continue to work in sales, but instead of personal selling I would start working in a bigger organization that does B2B (Business to business) sales. I would also like to work in the industry of Ecommerce because I see a lot of growth and scope for learning in the industry. After a few years of experience, I would like to start my own business which would also be on an Ecommerce platform. I do not have the entire path chalked out to me. Even within my own business, I would continue to take part in sales and relationship building with customers. I certainly hope that my creativity and ability to be enterprising will assist me in establishing my own venture.

On the basis of the five themes that I have discovered, I have also developed an action plan that would help me in entering the next phase of my career. By taking a reflective thinking approach (Klien, 2008), I believe that I have been able to plan my career better.

I have discovered that I lack clarity of goals in my life. Upon seeking help from my friends, I was able to get feedback that I would start by short term goals. I would start making a daily to-do list and weekly goals so that I get used to sticking to a plan. Having clear goals in important for chalking out a path towards a brighter future (Jung, 2012). I would also like to spend more time in reading about different industries and following the career span of successful people from different industries in order to gain some insight regarding the jobs that are offered in these industries.

I would also work towards having a mentor and guide who can consistently help me out and someone I can reach out to in case of a conflict. Having a mentor in the Ecommerce industry would be beneficial for me. Leaders and mentors are bestowed upon with the responsibility of being there for their followers and helping them out by enhancing their abilities (Eller, 2014). I would also like to seek consistent feedback in order to identify my weaknesses better.

In my current work profile also, I would like to take more initiative and hence enhance upon my leadership skills. A leader must be able to break the barriers of communication and guide the team towards accomplishment of goals (Erdogan & Bauer, 2015). Since I work part time, I tend to focus on other things than my work. I would work towards overcoming this tendency by taking initiatives and more responsibilities in my current role.

Organizational culture plays a significant role in the success of a business (Alvesson, 2015). Organizational culture stems from organizations leaders but employees also have a significant role to play. As a part time employee, I would work to the best of my ability to improve the organizational culture of my workplace. This is so that I would be able to take these learnings in my next organization and eventually in my own venture.

I would also like to be more assertive in nature since I often tend to get swayed away by my emotions. I would work towards having a stronger grasp on my emotions and be more assertive. Assertiveness is a significant attribute of a good leader. I could practice assertiveness in my daily life. The same can also be learnt by reading books on the subject or attending workshops. The entire process of self-reflection has helped me in gaining a deeper insight about my own personality. I hope my learnings from the process will assist me in my future endeavors.

References

Alvesson, M., 2012. Understanding organizational culture. Sage. United States.

Ashton, M.C., Lee, K. and De Vries, R.E., 2014. The HEXACO Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Emotionality factors: A review of research and theory. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 18(2), pp.139-152.

Brown, J.D., 2014. Self-esteem and self-evaluation: Feeling is believing. In Psychological Perspectives on the Self, Volume 4(pp. 39-70). Psychology Press.

Cogin, J., 2012. Are generational differences in work values fact or fiction? Multi-country evidence and implications. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23(11), pp.2268-2294.

Eller K., 2014. Key components of an effective mentoring relationship: A qualitative study. Nurse education today, 34(5), pp.815-820.

Erdogan, B. and Bauer, T.N., 2015. Leader–Member Exchange Theory. In The Oxford Handbook of Leader-Member Exchange.

Holland, J.L., 2013. Self-directed search. Advances in Vocational Psychology: Volume 1: the Assessment of interests, p.55.

Jung, C.S., 2012. Why are goals important in the public sector? Exploring the benefits of goal clarity for reducing turnover intention. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 24(1), pp.209-234.

Klein, G., 2008. Naturalistic decision making. Human factors, 50(3), pp.456-460.

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