Written Reflective Essay Assignment Sample

Introduction

The purpose of this self-reflective essay is to review the skills learned during the trimester. The essay shall reflect on the use of micro-skills such as active listening, open and closed questions, reflection on content, and so on as well as on non-verbal communication skills. The reflection shall be done using the Gibbs reflective model.

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Gibbs reflection Model

Figure 1: Showing the Gibbs reflective cycle

Source: (https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-cycle)

Description- It shall be describing that our course gave us access to some role play activities which took place in groups. The students were given different roles such as roles of leaders and other actors. The exercise helped to enhance my communication skills as I had to communicate with my group members as well as with other teams. For example, the class members were divided into small teams and some teams behaved as a different department of an organization, another team behaved as a client, my team was a board of directors and I was given the role of the leader in an MNC. However, I performed well. I communicated with every team, asked questions regarding their queries, and communicated with the clients, but I received feedback that I was not listening to other members and that I have poor listening skills. Thus, as I understood my loopholes; I gave the effort to overcome my weaknesses and it helped me in my growth and development.

Feelings- To describe my feelings during the role-play it shall be mentioned that I felt a bit nervous and uncomfortable initially as I was being witnessed by my tutor and my peers. However, gradually I gathered courage and confidence thinking that my other peers have also taken part in the exercise and shall also perform. Then I performed well and later I felt glad that I have completed my role play and I felt nourished by receiving valuable and constructive feedback.

Evaluation- To evaluate my experience I shall share the good and bad things about the learning experience. To reflect on the good things it shall be mentioned that I already had good communication skills and they increased due to the role play. Moreover, I was nervous and uncomfortable with public speaking which I could overcome with the help of this role play. Such gained attributes helped me to develop my communication skills and it shall help me to enhance my chances of employability in the future. Another prominent thing that happened is that I learned various non-verbal cues. I understood the facial expressions of my team members and that the human face is expressive and it can convey emotions without actually saying anything. For example, from the facial expression and body language of a member of the client team, I understood that the deal which I proposed (within the role-play exercise as a leader of the MNC) was not satisfactory for the client likewise; I grasped the non-verbal communication skills. I also learned that during communication, certain non-verbal cues such as body movements, eye contact, voice tone, and others are important to convey any message and the non-verbal cues help to communicate the emotions behind the message. For example, one of the members of the marketing team was proposing a product to the client and he was very confident and was making eye contact with the client during the presentation such communicating gesture was liked by the client, and the product was selected by the client team. Our tutor also praised the member for such strong body language.

However, the bad thing that happened is I noticed that I have poor listening skills and attending skills. I recognized that I failed to listen calmly to other teams. The role play also included open and close-ended questions with the client team and the senior employees were asking queries regarding the organizational product from the client team. However, I recognized that I was questioning one after another without listening to the client's queries. It disrupted the role play. However, my tutor guided me to listen to other members' perspectives and to attend to them. Thus, I learned that not only communication is important rather I shall listen to other members to understand their perspectives as both listening and communication and understanding non-verbal cues helps to enhance communication as a whole (Coffelt et al., 2019). After experiencing these skills I felt nourished and understood the importance of all these skills. Thus, I understood that all these learned skills shall help me in my future carrier.

Analysis- Analysis helps to reflect that what else could have been made out of the situation. The role play helped me to identify my strengths and weaknesses. For example, I understood that I have good communication skills and I am able to understand non-verbal cues (Hall et al., 2019). However, I have poor listening and attending skills. However, in case such a situation arises in an organizational setting such as in my future organization, I shall use my strong skills and overcome my weakened skills as they are crucial within an organizational context. Within an organization, communication helps leaders to make the employees understand their task responsibilities, delegate tasks, it helps employees to communicate with their colleagues, and it helps to ask queries from managers and others (Lewis, 2021). Moreover, listening skills help the leaders and employees to listen to other members' perspectives and to act accordingly and it helps to eliminate internal conflicts (Titko et al., 2019). I also learned that members shall understand non-verbal cues for example, during training, trainers shall understand non-verbal cues from a facial expression that whether or not the trainee has understood the teachings, the employees shall understand body language, voice tone, and so on of the trainer to understand about their task (Vrij, 2019). Without these skills within an organizational setting, operations or projects cannot be completed successfully within the expected schedule.

Conclusion- to conclude it shall be mentioned what else I could have made from this situation. I understand that there are certain stereotypes, biases, and assumptions regarding clients such as organizational employees just have to communicate about the service or product to the client but from the learning experience related to role play, I understated that listening is extremely important and client’s perspective needs to listen in order to succeed. Including accurate open and close-ended questions with the clients and listening to their perspectives could have made the communication more accurate.

Action Plan- I also understood that I have effective communication skills and that other members can easily understand my perspective from my verbal communication but I understood that I need to improve my listening and attending skills so that my employability skills enhance and I could become a successful employee in the future.

Self-Reflection table

Table 1: Self-reflection table

Source: (Developed by the learner)

Conclusion

Thus, to conclude the self-reflective essay it shall be mentioned that the role-play exercise has helped me to understand my strengths and weaknesses. I recognized that I have effective communication skills but poor listening skills. However, improving my weaknesses shall help me to overcome the weaknesses and increase my chance of employability. 

Reference

• Coffelt, T. A., Grauman, D., & Smith, F. L. (2019). Employers’ perspectives on workplace communication skills: The meaning of communication skills. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, 82(4), 418-439. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2329490619851119?journalCode=bcqe
• Hall, J. A., Horgan, T. G., & Murphy, N. A. (2019). Nonverbal communication. Annual review of psychology, 70, 271-294. https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-103145
• Lewis, W. (2021). Employee Perceptions of Collaborative Communication Skills Learned in the Informal Workplace (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University). https://www.proquest.com/openview/5f6b0145af35010ea87212a39f93f52d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
• Titko, J., Svirina, A., Skvarciany, V., & Shina, I. (2020). Values of young employees: Z-generation perception. Business: Theory and Practice, 21(1), 10-17.https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=951019
• Vrij, A. (2019). Deception and truth detection when analyzing nonverbal and verbal cues. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 33(2), 160-167.