Developing the Reflexive Practitioner
Part A: Introduction and Research Design
Research Aim
Increasing self-awareness
Research Context
The research in this article will be based on the human resource management perspective regarding how HR administrators and institutions implement self-awareness as an aspect of emotional intelligence to enhance staff and institutional performance. In research conducted by CITATION, self-awareness is among the essential ability associated with place of work emotional intelligence. The study advances that the preliminary step to becoming emotionally intelligent is becoming self-aware. Through self-awareness, both HR managers and employees can promote their performance and demonstrate their capabilities without any interference at their place of work. People who know and their emotions have the aptitude for managing them, thus, enhancing performance at their home of work. When staffs acquire the skill of self-awareness, they minimize emotional disagreements and feel appreciated as opposed to occasions when they feel used and manipulated. In this circumstance, the context is an employment environment where lack of self-awareness and emotional intelligence results in minimized performance in human resource management activities.
Literature Review
Self-Awareness as part of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is recognized as the ability of individuals to understand and manage their emotions and those around them. According to studies, this quality offers individuals a diversity of skills, such as the aptitude of individuals to maintain relationships, steer social networks, influence, and motivate other people. Every person possesses diverse levels of emotional intelligence, but for one to become an effective leader, they are obligated to have an increased level of passionate intellect. In the current workplaces, it has become a highly essential element for success, influencing efficiency and team alliance. Leaders who acquire emotional intelligence are self-aware. They can recognize and control emotions as they occur. Emotional intelligence is regarded as a fundamental skill for both leaders and staff since it assists them in obtaining a comprehensible conscious of their strengths and weaknesses. Through passionate knowledge, leaders can address an issue and handle any future complications.
Leaders who possess emotional intelligence and self-awareness can recognize their feelings and learn how to manage them. Such leaders can adjust to any situation and remain in charge. Leaders who have enhanced emotional intelligence are improbable to dash headfirst into quick decisions or allow resentment to have the best of the behavior. Administrators must maintain their emotions in check given that they have to inspire other employees to enhance the organization’s performance. Moreover, leaders who acquire emotional intelligence are well-tuned to the feelings of others and can pick up on the ongoing activities. These leaders can sympathize with others and inspire their team to enhance employees’ performances.
Self-awareness entails emotional abilities, which allow people to be more productive and develop outstanding relationships in the workplace. Self-awareness is the capability to recognize one’s emotions and their impacts. In many studies, individuals that are aware of their feelings are better performers and successful in their jobs. They know and understand their moods, emotions as well as needs. Further, such individuals perceive and expect how their conduct and actions impact others. Again, individuals with increased certainty about their feelings can manage their lives better and direct their positive attitudes towards the accomplishment of tasks. Self-awareness competences like confidence, accurate self-awareness, and emotions are required for effective performance. For instance, precise self-assessment entails the ability to understand one’s strengths and weaknesses, learn from experiences, and open to candid feedback. They also embrace new perspectives and suggestions, continuous learning, and self-development as well as being reflexive in their activities and life. The implication is that self-awareness allows employees to take time to gain new perspectives, reflect on their performances, and develop productive and healthy interactions with colleagues. On its part, self-confidence entails having a strong sense of an individual’s worth and capabilities. Self-confident individuals have self-assurance, are decisive, can express their views, and have the ability to make sound decisions and take practical actions even when under pressure. Emotional self-awareness reflects the need to understand one’s feelings and their effects on performance.
Administrators are obliged to have the ability to assist their workers in developing self-awareness and various competencies including self-confidence so that they believe more in themselves, become movers and initiators as well as improve the ability to stack up in all situations. The aptitude of administrators to create a relationship between their emotional intelligence and performance is necessary since a positive correlation leads to enhanced performance. Human resource managers expected to nurture their emotional intelligence to develop practical performance skills to enhance employee interactions in the workplace.
In their research, CITATION demonstrates that administrators in institutions should comprehend the effects of emotional intelligence on workforce productivity. The authors assert that possession of emotional intelligence is not enough and does not offer any assistance in improving performance until people know how to use their emotions effectively to achieve their objectives and vision. Leaders’ self-awareness is critical in the appraisal of employees’ performance and ensuring that they are motivated. Awareness of employees’ ability is essential in helping HR managers to manage their human resources effectively and build a social capital pool to attain organizational goals in both short and long-term periods. The implication is that HR managers can impact employees’ motivation and behavior in an organization to influence their knowledge, interactions, and sharing behavior. Through the sharing of employees’ awareness, companies can enhance their knowledge capabilities and perform better compared to their competition. Managers can increase collaboration and trust in organizations through employee’s knowledge sharing conduct and increase organizational capacity. Self-aware employees are more likely to share their expertise and collaborate with others to improve the organization as well as individual performance.
Self-awareness improves self-reflection and insight, and by helping employees develop this aspect of emotional intelligence, managers strengthen their abilities to attain a better human resource pool and meet organizational goals. CITATION posits that while self-awareness is a belief that many share and know, there is a lack of it in many organizational situations and among leaders. Imperatively, managers need to understand how they can build and improve self-awareness in their organizations. Believing in self-awareness is essential, but employees and managers must demonstrate it has a huge responsibility to ensure that they are self-aware before making efforts to develop it among their employees. HR professionals that seek employee growth and development must promote self-awareness because it is a core part of emotional intelligence and, therefore, better performance and results.
Research Design, Methodology and Method
Research Design
The research design for this report is reflexive dialogic action research. Administrators encounter increasingly complex situations that oblige them to utilize reflexive models to recognize issues and develop successful solutions. As such, they need to establish collaborative engagements and dialogues in workplace situations or events on increasing self-awareness among employees to enhance performance. As noted, increasing self-awareness in organizations by HR managers is vital for improved overall performance and addressing inherent challenges.
Methodology
Action research is a social science methodology that seeks to transform an individual’s perspective through taking effective action in situations. Through activities, employees and HR managers learn vital lessons and new ways of doing things in their firms. Human conduct, especially self-awareness, can be enhanced through action. CITATION observes that action research is a methodology that can help professionals raise their self-awareness and develop effective ways to improve their performance. However, the process of conducting action research may also entail learning new ways to make effective decisions in workplace situations. In this study, action research is based on previous actions and conduct concerning improving or understanding the concept of self-awareness. It is through adequate reflection on behavior that one identifies aspects that they should change.
Method
Research models are essential in getting solutions to challenges or improving understanding of situations under review. Therefore, the study will use the Gibbs model to assess the need for managers to develop self-awareness and enhance interactions with employees to improve performance. The Gibbs model is essential in understanding reflective situations in developing self-awareness and its importance among managers. According to the model, developing a sense of understanding an event and its impact is essential for managers in different situations. The model asserts that managers should define the need for self-awareness, and secondly, understand their feelings to appreciate the results of any circumstance. More importantly, individuals should attempt to identify how they view self-awareness as a component of emotional intelligence in the workplace. The model emphasizes the need for managers to use reflection when events happen to help employees develop emotional intelligence through self-awareness.
Through the Gibbs model, managers can understand the need to nurture and develop self-awareness through a reflective process. It is through experiences like low performance or better performance that managers and individual employees derive meaning and need for increasing self-awareness. For instance, a situation can be triggered by an emotional response to employee feedback on performance. Therefore, it is incumbent of the manager to understand and develop the aspect of self-awareness like self-confidence and emotional awareness to understand the effect of the reactions to overall performance. The Gibbs model is one of the most effective instruments for managers and employees in the reflective process when tackling challenges in the workplace concerning the benefits of self-awareness
The Gibbs model is descriptive and allows players to register their feelings and reduce stressors for HR practitioners. Through the reflective process, HR practitioners in such situations realize the need to involve employees, design jobs in the most effective manner, and focus on developing a more excellent life and work balance for the employees to enhance performance. The implication is that the Gibbs model is a guide for learning and teaching new skills and knowledge for employees. More fundamentally, the approach encourages the use of critical reflection and provides an excellent beginning point for individuals utilizing reflective practice for their first time to convert new knowledge and learning into change and action. Imperatively, one needs to know what lies beneath the experiences and events to have a deeper understanding of learning as well as appreciation.
Also, the Gibbs model is considered to be excellent concerning reflecting steps in the reflexive practices that include remembering, experiencing, focusing, and learning as well as evaluation and trailing the changes. The use of Gibbs can be focused on attaining transition from experience to developing an action plan. I believe that the Gibbs model is an effective reflexive procedure as it focuses on nurturing trusting relationships aimed at exploring feelings and experiences as well as thoughts combined with active participation, self-containment, and honesty. It is important to note that some approaches can be utilized to increase self-awareness among employees by HR practitioners for better and productive output. Despite its effectiveness in nurturing meaningful and mutual relationships and interactions concerning developing efficient and value-based decisions from a reflective process, the Gibbs tool has challenges.
Critiquing the Research Design
The Gibbs model is one of the most effective approaches to critical reflection and personal evaluation, especially in the human resource profession. However, there are weaknesses in using the model. According to CITATION. the model may require researchers to incorporate a more critical approach to analyzing events and situations. For instance, self-awareness does not rely on a single individual evaluating the impact of their performance to develop trust and improve interactions and relationships while enhancing the organization’s productivity. The repercussion is that managers should also be self-aware concerning their emotional intelligence to have a better perception of their human resources and designing training that addresses their needs. The questions posed by the model are too fundamental and may not offer researchers in-depth results in some situations. The design has been criticized for being too universal and requires some level of modification. Further, it may fail to develop an efficient connection between the learning procedure and the prospect of the learners. Researchers have affirmed over time that the model is out-of-date and may necessitate a more comprehensive approach.
Further, as a researcher, I lost the aptitude to make decisions as one needs to depend on the set measures and schedules mandatory in its use or application. The model does not consent to one being innovative and observe at the situations from a different standpoint, particularly in terms of creating the need for self-awareness knowledge. The Gibbs model necessitates additional tools like the Johari Window, which is vital in attaining emotional feedback since it centers on how individuals are aware of their conduct and how others perceive them in the workplace.
Part B: Digital Storyboard
In regards to the digital storyboard, this article utilizes an inventive writing approach. Creative writing is a form of writing that goes beyond the bounds of ordinary journalistic, professional, and technical forms of literature. Creative writing underlines the need to employ narrative craft and fictional tropes to provide an account of what one talks in regards to their reflective practice. An original essay is more descriptive and can survey various areas of a situation. The other reason for selecting creative writing is to offer a personal perspective supported by research on the importance of self-awareness.
Self-awareness is an essential aspect of emotional intelligence, even at a personal level, for one to excel in their professional as well as their own life. Through self-awareness, one develops a clear understanding and appreciation of their personality and how they react to events in their workplace, which may improve or hinder performance. As demonstrated by research, self-awareness is an essential component of employee performance in an organization. One needs to be self-aware and understand their motivations, values, beliefs, and strengths as well as weak points and doubts when tackling certain activities. Self-awareness is a critical competence for HR professionals since it allows them to understand the motivation of their employees and design jobs to increase performance. HR professionals must promote self-awareness of employees to increase productivity, reduce stress at work, and enable employees to have a better understanding of their personalities.
HR professionals should promote the vital role that self-awareness plays if they want their employees not only to grow but also to develop user experiences as well as professional knowledge. By helping individuals to enhance self-awareness, I believe that HR practitioners take a massive step in demonstrating servant, charismatic, and transformation leadership models. As a leader, I think that an HR professional or practitioner must nurture effective workplace interactions and mutual trust. Employees’ performance depends on how self-aware they are because through self-awareness, they develop emotional awareness, self-confidence, and self-initiatives. Knowing employees’ competences as well as weaknesses implores on HR managers to be conscious of their strategic decisions and how they nurture a productive workplace.
Human beings tend towards complexity and diversity because of the need to understand themselves before others can be perceived as useful. As leaders, HR managers should cultivate an understanding of their personality, personal values, as well as beliefs and habits. Besides, they must understand their emotions and psychological needs because these are the factors that drive one’s behavior and interactions with others. The practice of a leader affects the subordinates based on the decisions that they take. Through understanding self, leaders can cultivate better interpersonal understanding and become more effective in the workplace. Self-awareness is one of the most valuable leadership competencies in human resource management. When leaders understand their strengths and areas that require improvement, they become active role models and design training as well as employee development programs that lead to better self-awareness levels, increased confidence, and better collaborative engagements.
I believe that developing self-awareness is critical, not just for HR managers, but for all people to improve their organizational performance. Firstly, I can utilize personality tests to understand my traits. However, these tests are not all perfect as the only help in propagating specific known individual characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors of becoming more self-aware. A professional perspective implores on an individual to develop active ideation and perspective that encourages an analytical appreciation of a situation. Feedback from peers and managers is an excellent and effective way of knowing the areas that one requires to improve and have an in-depth appreciation of their self-awareness. Honest and reliable feedback helps one to understand how they can improve their abilities in emotional intelligence, especially aspects that deal with self-awareness like self-confidence. The feedback must be based on habits, personality, and values as well as needs in enhancing emotional intelligence and performance in organizational settings. Excellent coaching from managers and mentors is an essential way of understanding self-awareness and increasing one’s emotional intelligence in all situations, especially at work where interactions and mutual trust are critical. HR professionals need to note their expected outcomes from training and development programs focused on developing emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is a useful tool in making a decision. Individuals with a high level of self-awareness make effective and bold decisions in tricky situations. HR professionals that want to succeed in a highly competitive labor market need to understand that self-awareness is an important attribute that will help them to perform better and develop requisite programs to promote employees’ understanding and talent development.
I also realized that adequate self-awareness is based on three critical concepts, personal values, personality tests, and personal branding. Personal values are virtues that an individual possesses and holds dear in life. Therefore, when one has their benefits, it means that they are aware of themselves. HR professionals must find a particular value that offers them a unique identity and personality. Through an effective personal value system, HR professionals can understand others and enhance creativity as well as productivity. Personal branding is associated with particular values in the HR profession. The implication is that one’s professional journey succeeds when they have their brand that is associated with positive values. Individuals who have positive personal values in the workplace are likely to influence others to behave in a manner that is more intelligent and mindful of others’ feelings. Further, personal branding in the HR profession means that manager enhances their influence on subordinates through trustful and honest relationships. More fundamentally, developing self-awareness implies that a person believes in an objective analysis of a situation and provides answers that are not emotive.
Conclusion
Emotional intelligence is an essential aspect of improving performance for an employee and organizations. The implication is that employees need to nurture the different aspects of their emotional intelligence, including self-awareness, to perform better and effectively in their workplace. Improved self-awareness of employees in the workplace leads to enhanced employee performance. The implication is that being self-aware is an essential part of emotional intelligence as it allows employees to not only understand but also manage their abilities and control their weak points in a better and mature way. Through this realization, they maintain their professional as well as personal interactions and social networks to attain more excellent performance in their jobs.
.
References