Developing Business Skills

Business Skills

When I reflect on my experiences, I can see that one of the things I want to work on steadily throughout my career is my leadership. In particular, I think that problem-solving is a skill that I can build. Leaders are expected to develop and communicate visions, to set strategy and to ensure that problems are anticipated and solved. While it is impossible to anticipate all of the problems, understanding how different types of problems arise and then formulating tactics and strategies to ensure that those problems are dealt with is an essential leadership skill.

To this point, I think I have begun to understand the dynamics of leadership and of interpersonal communication. Problem solving can be focused either on strategic problem solving or on interpersonal problem solving, but there is often an interpersonal dimension even to strategic problem-solving. As such, I have chosen to focus on this aspect of my leadership the most. There are actually not that many theories that help one grow as a communicator, but I know that practice is something that is important. One of the ways to make one's experiences matter is to reflect on those experiences. Doing so will allow one to determine what the best course of action was, and then compare that to the actual course of action.

I know that during our teamwork, we had some problems that could have be resolved more effectively with better interpersonal communication. The group eventually did come to some resolutions but I think that on reflection the problems could have been resolved better. This episode was significant only because I was able to reflect on it after the fact, and learn from some of the issues that arose. The issues were about strategic direction, and the division of labor, so fairly basic issues that mirror the sorts of issues that arise in the real world.

I know that during the episode I felt more annoyed than anything else. The problems did not seem reasonable, and that really affected how I saw the issue. That also, on reflection, made it more difficult to resolve the issue. Too much stubbornness was brought needlessly into the situation. Now, when I look back, I realize that when everybody involved stepped back, I think we all realized that the team was not working as effectively as it could have, and the result of that was that the team started to work more effectively. We became more focused on the end task, and the flow of communication improved dramatically. I see such conflict within the group now in an entirely different light as a result. Ideally, such conflict should be avoided but as a leader it is not always easy to anticipate all problems and address them before they arise. The leader's role is to ensure that when problems arise, they are addressed as quickly and professionally as possible. There is such a thing as creative conflict, as long as the leaders of the organization handle the conflict effectively.

The shift in my view of the problem was internal, but I think that deep down it has also been driven by some of the different people that I have known, including older family members and mentors. I have had the good fortune to see some talented leaders in action, and when I realize for myself what the best approach is, my guess is that at some point I saw one of these other leaders take that same approach. I may not be able to remember in order give specific attribution, but I know that I have learned from others, and take those influences with me.

I think that my feelings influenced my actions early on, but also later on. One of the things about effectively leading a team is that emotions do not need to be removed, only negative ones. Whereas frustration was exacerbating the communications issue, I believe that my frustration with the frustration caused me to re-evaluate the situation. Something positive emerged when my emotions shifted just from frustration with people to frustration with the process. This set me on a course of focusing on the process, and immediately the group began to resolve its communications differences.

There are a few implications for my work-related learning. The first is simply that I realize that there is a lot of learning left to do. But I need to take all opportunities as learning opportunities. Leadership is something that can be practiced everyday, in particular the communications aspect of it. If I think about the different situations that I can encounter, I can make leadership learning a part of my everyday experience. This is something that I have learned recently that I think will help me a lot along my career path, that learning is something I will always do, especially with respect to leadership.