Before leaders can effectively help others, they must first have a strong understanding of themselves; what they stand for, what are their strengths and weaknesses, what are their goals, do they practice emotional intelligence, etc. I believe it sets the foundation for all of the work that may be done at an individual or group level. All of the previously mentioned understandings and practices are connected to make a leader who is competent and able to help others that may be having a difficult time. Below is a diagram of the areas relating to Emotional Intelligence:

Strengths: Relationship Management (Social Skills) and Self-Awareness

Relationship Management/ Social Skills

Working well with others has never been a problem of mine. I am able to enter a new environment with new people and be able to work with them effectively. Toward the end of certain group efforts, tensions can arise and there can be a lack of drive to get things done. I can usually fix this by being a catalyst of productivity in order to get ideas flowing again and improving overall teamwork. I try to help others in the group and I am always sure to learn from others.

Self-Awareness

I find that I am usually very conscious as to how I am conducting myself. I know what I am doing right and wrong and I know the steps that I need to take in order to continue or improve upon those aspects of myself. For example, I became a bit pessimistic during a group meeting because I did not really want to go forward with a certain plan that the rest of the group wanted to do. I quickly realized that this change is something that could help our group since all the other group members wanted to do it. By correctly changing my attitude, I saved the group an argument and I was later able to see that the idea was for the best after all. Sometimes all it takes is a little reflection on the situation.

Weaknesses: Self-Management and Social Awareness

Self-Management

A few areas in this subject where I am lacking are my optimism, initiative, and achievement-orientation. I enter some group meetings with a poor attitude sometimes simply because I’m tired or thinking of something else. I am a great collaborator but sometimes I fail to take initiative. And lastly, I can get very overwhelmed by thinking of all the work that has to be done rather than thinking in a short-term achievement manner. An example of this is how in the beginning of this class I thought about all the work that would have to be done in order to complete this research project.

I found that I was able to improve upon my initiative when one of my group members mentioned in my final peer evaluations that “Stephan took the initiative and took on multiple parts of the paper”. Our research paper can be found here. This shows that I changed my behavior from more of a spectator to a proponent of action, which in turn helped the overall productivity of the group.

Social Awareness

My main focus for social awareness was to improve my empathy, which is to be able to put myself in other people’s shoes. I sometimes get too caught up in thinking about what I’m doing and forget that there are others in the group.

Although my social awareness improvement was  not captured materially, I know that it was improved upon. During a group meeting, one of our group members just seemed visually exhausted and was not contributing as much as usual. I waited for the individual to leave the group and then I asked the individual one-on-one what was the matter. They explained that they simply felt overwhelmed and there were also some family issues. I listened a little more, we talked about it more in-depth, and we returned to the group. You could visually see the difference in the way the person acted. The individual was contributing more and was a lot happier. Sometimes just talking to about it can get rid of whatever is hindering the progress of the group.

Feedback

I am very open to feedback and I really enjoy receiving it from as many people as possible. Even though self-awareness is one of my strengths, there are still many things that I forget to think about. There are also things that are very difficult to see unless observed by an outside source. One thing that I did not really know is that I was being a bit quiet during group meetings. It was said in my midterm peer evaluations that “It would be helpful is Stephan let his voice be heard more during our group meetings. Everything he says is valid or helpful, but sometimes he seems unengaged”. This was great feedback because it was something I could immediately change. From that point on I made sure that I always had at least something minor to say about the topic at hand. I also found out that my initiative in the beginning of the term was low when a group member said, “Instead of playing more so the supportive role, step up and attempt the leadership role”. This improvement was previously mentioned in the second paragraph of the self-management section.