Comfortable in my own skin

This week’s topic was mainly about diverseity in the workplace and how to go about handling the different cultural, sexual, religious, age, and gender diversity’s as a leader. After completing the My Tolerance for Cultural Difference skills building exercise, the scores came out between 40-50 showing that I have a high tolerance for diversity. To be honest I feel that I have a lot of things to work on as a leader and have already seen some issues that I need to work on in previous lessons but I believe that tolerance for diversity is not one of them. 

I’m comfortable in my own skin and over my years of traveling the world I’ve learned to adapt to different cultural, religious, and sexual ideologies. Don’t get me wrong, I have learned a great deal about how to deal with certain diversity in the workplace and why diversity is such a benefit in the workplace as described in Durbin’s Text. He wrote about Patricia Harris and how as the cheif diversity officer for McDonald’s she diversified their operations in minority conunities, which sold more hamburgers. I don’t agree with all ideologies either but my philosophy has always been, begin the relationship by showing the same amount of respect that I hope to receive in return. Of course this doesn’t always work, especially when some type of diversity is involved. This is why, this weeks lesson is very important because as a leader I have to try to understand why an individual aren’t returning the same respect and what can I do to reach common ground. 

Understandings diversity plays such a pivotal role in creating successful working environments. I learned even more this week was that diversity doesn’t just stop with cultures, sex, religion, gender, and ideologies it also largly deals with age. Generations competing against each other to either maintain at the top or take the throne. As a leader I have to learn how to handle all of these different diversity issues and make them successful tools. My travels have helped me with the ability to adapt and tolerate diversity but this weeks lesson has shown me ways to make beneficial opportunities out of diversity. 

Emotional Intelligence

This week’s lesson was mainly about emotional intelligence and how it can be an effective trait in a leader. After understanding the meaning of emotional intelligence through the readings and videos especially in Durbin’s text, I realize that I didn’t know much about it or how much it’s needed in the workplace. I especially paid close attention to Daniel Goleman’s video about his research on the brain and how you can basically train your brain to function a certain way. This reminds me of the research that I found done on brain defaults. A theory that suggest the brain can force you to respond to certain things based upon experiences that you’ve had in the past, which doesn’t allow you to recognize something new that is being present to you at that current time. I had no idea that there could be a possibility of my brain being pre-programmed in a manner which can result in me responding to a person’s issue a certain way. There is so much we don’t know about the brain and how it can affect our every day decisions in leadership roles. What I’ve learned from all of the readings as well as the videos is that as a leader you can train yourself to have emotional intelligence. There are plenty of methods, strategies and tactics that will allow the brain to break old habits while forming new ones that may prove beneficial to you, not only as a leader but a person in general.

I took my emotional intelligence quiz in greater good magazine. The quiz featured insight on facial emotions and if you can read a persons facial emotion correctly. There were 20 questions and I received a score of 15/20. What I found taking this test was that there is a lot that goes into emotional intelligence besides just hearing and comprehending what a person tells you. You have to be fully aware of every emotional characteristic that the person gives off. Just watching a person’s facial expressions may be able to tell you what they’re going through internally. Often times people hide their true emotions but it’s usually hard to hide your expressions to those emotions.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/quizzes/ei_quiz/results/

The method that resonated with me the most throughout all of the readings this week, was in the Durban’s text when he explained the 360-degree feedback. I love this method because I believe that so many people in leadership roles have a hard time with emotional intellect and not understanding how they’re being perceived by the people working for them. The 360-degree feedback is a method that allows the leader to hear and retain how their workers feel about their leadership in hopes that they will adjust accordingly. Sometimes the raw truth is the best strategy to get someone to relize how they’re behaving and try to shock them into changing because maybe they don’t know that they’re coming off the way they are.

Why did I join Organizational leadership?

I joined the graduate program organizational leadership in the hopes that it would speed up the process to a successful career in sales/marketing. I’ve always wanted to have a career in sales/marketing but with little experience and having spent four years overseas coming out of college, I feel I’m a little behind of where I would like to be. I believe that this program will rapidly increase my value in the field. Being a professional basketball player for the past four years and just playing the game for as many years as I’ve, it’s given me some great traits in leadership. But there is always more to learn, as I’m finding that out after my first week of studies in the graduate program. I hope to not only improve on the traits that I’ve acquired through my own personal experiences but develop new ones, that will continue to improve my leadership skills.