Travelling Essay Fosters Personal Growth And Leadership Skills.

Preparing for the trip to Australia

This assessment focuses on interpersonal communication skills that are required for undertaking conference planning projects. You are required to write a reflective summary reflecting and analysing your own interpersonal communication experiences during the undertaking of group projects in the university or workplace and indicating how awareness of interpersonal communication skills (or, on the contrary, the lack of it) impact on the outcome of the projects. You are required to use some of the theories and concepts that are covered in discussions in lectures and workshops to support your viewpoint.

What is reflective summary?
Reflection gives you the potential to learn from your experiences and gain a deeper understanding of what you experienced. It is something we all do everyday in the course of our lives, to varying degrees. Working effectively with people is vital within the services industries, being able to reflect upon your feelings, experiences and actions etc and being able to consider the same from others, is therefore, very important. 

What do you reflect upon? 
You are required to reflect upon your own interpersonal communication experiences during the undertaking of group projects either at University or in your workplace. Provide examples that demonstrate the communication process, the conscious/unconscious utilisation of interpersonal communication skills by yourself or your group members, the outcomes, and indicate how you develop your interpersonal communication skills through the process. A number of readings are provided, e.g., Are you listening? By Rebecca Ripley and Kittie Watson (2014); Negotiation: Theory and Practice, by Prof. Mary P. Rowe, MIT, Cambridge. Relevant theories such as ‘listening styles and how to engage in conversations’, ‘negotiation styles and strategies’, and ‘assertive behaviour’ will be further discussed in workshops so that you are instructed as to applying these theories into your self-reflection for your interpersonal communication skills in the group communication process. 

Your report shall reflect upon especially two skills – ‘active listening’ and ‘being assertive in communication and negotiation’, and indicate how successful/effective your group’s communication was in relation to: 

1.Shared Goals & Leadership: willing to work together and motivate others to achieve positive group outcomes
2.Active Listening, Empathy, Trust, Sensitivity to others: being aware and understanding of the differences in group dynamics, considers others ideas and reliance on others
3.Communication and Problem Solving: being assertive in communication, participating in constructive problem solving and completing assigned tasks
4.Appreciative Inquiry: being able to reflect and analyse your group (interpersonal) communication skills by applying concepts, such as active listening styles, negotiation strategies, and assertive behaviour 

You may reflect upon the above points using the following questions: 
Group goals, leadership, and outcomes
How effectively did your team communicate about shared goals and balance tasks? 
Was it a good or bad experience and what contributed to this outcome? 
Was there an association between shared goals and positive outcome?
What approach did you use to support the group to move towards its goal of completing the assignment? 
What did you learn about the importance of good interpersonal communication for effective leadership?

We were part of a company named Infinitus Malaysia that deals in a well-planned modernisation of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The company is trying to develop a completely revolutionary product while emphasizing the health and prevent the diseases (LKK Health Products Group, 2015). By putting continuous efforts, we, three women as a part of organisation have received a chance of trip to Australia as an incentive plan.

An incentive plan is a performance incentive plan that motivates an employee to adapt and develop such a behaviour that would exceed the expectation and lead to growth of overall business. While preparing for this trip to Australia as an incentive plan, each of us was planning of how to manage ourselves in such a different country all alone. However, we three women started focusing on the positive consequences of roaming in and around a new country that would undoubtedly give us new experiences. We started figuring out the benefits, which are much above fun. Trips are more educational, community-building, and self-developing event. Side by side, we started appreciating it because travelling experience would give us with better understanding of people and world (Sims, 2017). This futile dependence on others on a regular basis made us to say “no” to this trip. However, we tried and cemented this desire to travel alone this time. We three never had such a trip where we three need to manage everything in different country (Warnecke, Chiu, Engelberg, & Moss, 2015).

We started building group goals, which would lead us to have a successful trip. We distributed responsibility such as one holds the obligation to carry medicines and other decided to carry camera and ample batteries. We started surfing on internet for finding which places can be visited and explored in this limited time of incentive plan. Finally we all three managed to find all the relevant places which is not only the place to explore but also can give us some knowledge of some more herbs that grows only in Australia and has huge advantage to promote health. With the set group goals, we have formed our strong team with efficient team communication about shared goals by balancing each task.

The importance of effective communication within the team is due to the exchange of messages, thoughts, and information with the help of speech and behaviour. Good understanding among us only led to a successful trip. Before the trip stated we decided to adapt such a communication style that can meet our needs from each other and develop a level of understanding among us. We tried to use effective communication tools during the trip. Apart from developing a strong communication between three of us, the trip also imparted several leadership learnings. It also helps in developing interpersonal skills that could make conference projects successful in the future.

Importance of effective communication

We are able to learn certain leadership skills and qualities such as travelling and meeting new, interesting, and different people is able to make us people`s person. I got to learn only through words but also stated expressing through body language and gestures. Knowing new people from different culture made us curious to listen to their stories to know about their culture. Most important quality of a person as a leader is to be a good communicator and a good listener. Both traits, being a good communicator and listener are essential traits to become a good leader. As a traveller in a different country, we often faced several problems. As a leader, I adapt quickly and try to solve the problematic situations (Black, Rodin, & Zimmermann, 2017).

The art of leadership is no more limited to handle clients on the workplace but also extends to solving problem and troubleshooting. We have to be extremely quick and responsive especially in a particular situation with a certain level of understanding. I had to keep in my mind that I could not be rude or offensive to the Australians even if we were finding it very difficult to understand their native language. As we travelled during the trip, we have to know and understand how one has to feel resourcefulness even in deficiency by developing the level of understanding. Somehow, we managed to develop assertiveness, which helps to improve social and communication skills. Moreover, assertiveness enabled us to reduce conflict, build confidence in each other, trust each other, and improve our relationship. Despite this, we learned to adjust and make decision to emphasize us positively (BetterHealth, 2012).

Being assertive is not limited to social communication among us, it aims to have open and honest communication and respect each other`s choice by sharing feelings, needs, and opinions. Obviously, we had first such trip of all three girls. Sometimes the decision of one person to whom even we both agreed to, but it does not worked in those particular situations. I decided not to blame the decision maker because I need to understand we all visited Australia for the first time. Moreover, friend just tried to estimate that a particular decision may be viable to a situation but it failed (Mindtools, 2018).

To remain patient even in the adverse situation was not an easy task for me. We all three are cool by nature and love taking a little risk. We started the trip with some nervousness and over- cautious. However, as we moved ahead and the more challenges we faced in context to language problems and culture. Nevertheless, we admire every risk that we faced. These risks helped us make our trip more adventures and helped us to make our minds for taking more risks. Directly or indirectly these traits of risk-taking, patience, assertive and active listening helps us to develop leadership skills (JULIFF, 2018).

Leadership skills learned through travel

A visit to a new country named Australia helped us to learn the behaviour of new people without judging them by their appearances. Moreover, we have opened our minds to accept the unknown people and embrace their culture. This will help us to practice this open-mindedness at our workplace. We started appreciating discussion and debates without criticising their opinions (DeLellis, & Sauer, 2015). We started finding positivity that how this debate can get over with a unique idea. These discussions often lead to creative environment, which can give comfort to new employees. The trait of assertiveness also emphases on acceptance and detachment. Despite this, we were able to develop a sense of mutual understanding among us (especially we three).

Active listening can lead to good mutual understanding between us. Listeners pay full attention to a person, one who speaks. The listening activity arises when one of us had a unique idea or a new place to visit. We tried to experiment the idea of meeting specific people, visiting new place, or going through new culture deeply. How far is it necessary to attend a particular because we had a limited time in the trip? When my friend tries to elaborate any unique idea for any adventure, we are engaged in informational listening (Geertshuis, Morrison, & Thomas, 2015). Although, active listening requires concentration and a regular effort to understand the feeling of a friend. This understanding of emotions and feelings attempt to empathic or therapeutic listening because I tried to understand the adventure to put myself into the shoes of her thinking and understand her thrill. Empathy is only a way to connect deeply with another person and lead to realisation of another`s opinion. To evaluate the unique idea of adventure under how much time is available to us and evaluating the environment of the place regarding climate has become necessary (SkillsYouNeed, 2018).

Talking more about my personal experience highlights and shows that travelling all alone just with three females can lead to many positive outcomes in improving personality. Travelling is so important that it gives an opportunity to expand our level of horizons. The importance of exploring other places and countries can be underestimated. According to my experience, knowingly or unknowingly, I came across to know and explore my abilities and disabilities. Travelling exposed me to new and raw experiences of a new country. Initially I was not very positively prepared for the trip to Australia. However, this trip enabled and encouraged me to explore more new places just with few people. I have never been to Australia before this trip. We three girls went to unknown and new place, which challenged us and allowed us to learn how to be still remain alive during the adverse conditions. By going to new place, we were away from our comfortable zones of our homes and this lead to check our patience.

References

BetterHealth, (2012). 10 tips for being assertive. Retrieved from: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/ten-tips/10-tips-for-being-assertive

Black, S., Rodin, G., & Zimmermann, C. (2017). Comfort, Connection and Music: Experiences of Music Therapy and Inter-Active Listening on a Palliative Care Unit. Joanne V. Loewy, DA, LCAT, MT-BC & Ralph Spintge, MD, 227.

DeLellis, A. J., & Sauer, R. L. (2015). Respect as ethical foundation for communication in employee relations. Laboratory Medicine, 35(5), 262-266. 

Geertshuis, S. A., Morrison, R. L., & Thomas, H. D. C. (2015). It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it: The mediating effect of upward influencing communications on the relationship between leader-member exchange and performance ratings. International Journal of Business Communication, 52(2), 228-245.

JULIFF, L. (2018). The Pros and Cons of Solo Travel. Retrieved from: https://www.tripsavvy.com/pros-and-cons-of-solo-travel-3150761

LKK Health Products Group, (2015). Infinitus Product Category. Retrieved from: https://www.infinitus.my/healthproduct.html

Mindtools, (2018). Active Listening: Hear What People Are Really Saying. Retrieved from: https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/ActiveListening.htm

Sims, C. M. (2017). Do the big-five personality traits predict empathic listening and assertive communication? International Journal of Listening, 31(3), 163-188.

 SkillsYouNeed, (2018). Types of Listening. Retrieved from: https://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/listening-types.html

Warnecke, M., Chiu, C., Engelberg, J., & Moss, C. F. (2015). Active listening in a bat cocktail party: adaptive echolocation and flight behaviors of big brown bats, Eptesicus fuscus, foraging in a cluttered acoustic environment. Brain, behavior and evolution, 86(1), 6-16.