Final Week Evaluation

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The final week of my six week Goleman goal has ended. Let me just say, this has really been more than just a class assignment. In the course I was assigned to do make this goal, I have learned so much about the person I am and who I can be. I am a very young woman, at the age of 20 (3 days shy from 21) and yet I feel like I've gone through so much more that I feel older. Experience and having my own crucibles makes you grow up faster, liked I read in this past article from Harvard Business Review, a good leadership skill is to find an opportunity from a negative event. So, I focused on a skill I needed a lot of developing on, Self-Management. Despite the negative end of a relationship I previously mentioned, it allowed me to really develop this skill and better myself. Now a day away from the six week milestone, I truly can say I feel accomplished. In my last post I talked about a phone call I received from that person and that I showed a sign of weakness and took it. We talked, and it was actually quite refreshing. I liked it, I really did. We were talking like civil adults and even caught ourselves laughing a little and making jokes. It's not like all is forgiven and forgotten, but all is peaceful and that is what is important to me. To have a sense of peace within myself and not live with any grudges with relationships that had a negative end or no closure. I have that now, I will receive closure when we meet up in person again and talk. This is a different approach I've never done and a lot of it has to do with the articles I read that I related back to my personal life. However this is merely the end, this is something I will practice for the rest of my life and most importantly, I'm happy again.

Fourth Week Evaluation

Four weeks later and significant improvement in my being and self-management skill continues. As of the third week I had come to the point where I realized just how well I had began doing with my self-improvement. In my fourth week something happened that put me to the test again. As I had previously mentioned in my last post, there was someone I once had a strong and long relationship with that had ended quite negatively with words unsaid. I decided to take a different approach then my usual and ignore the whole situation instead of attempting to contact the person and lash out. But this last week, that person contacted me instead. I was in a state of shock because I definitely did not see it coming. Most importantly, I remembered my self-managing goal and did not react right away saying the first thing that came to my head (although I really wanted to), I just read the text, ignored it and left it at that for a while. I went on that week to reading an article by Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones named Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? (a part of the Harvard Business Review's 10 Must Reads on Leadership) and there is an idea talked about that says to dare to be different and express your uniqueness, as well as another one that says show you are human by selectively revealing your weaknesses. I thought about these ideas long and hard as well as that text message. It then came to me that now that I was improving myself and in a better state of mind and life in general, that I did not want to live with a grudge against this person. Most people would say to leave it alone, that it is not worth my time and/or that that person does not deserve my attention. However, reading the article it made me think otherwise and that I should make a different approach. So, I replied to the text with caution. Basically, we decided on meeting up and having a conversation in person that was way overdue. Like I said, many words were left unsaid and that was very unsettling for me. Replying to the text did show a slight sign of weakness from my part, but it is for the best. I am human and have feelings and I will act upon them without forgetting to be cautious about it and retain my self-managing goal. Most importantly, it's just to continue to have this sense of peacefulness in my life, as it turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me to go through such a negative event. Below is a video featuring Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones themselves on the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npCokAAOmHs

Third Week Evaluation

http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/the-first-secret-of-developing-a-leader/

In the third week of working on my self-management skill from my Goleman goal, I really have noticed a significant change in my being. Recently, I had gone through a rather negative experience with someone I once had a strong relationship with. To make matters short, we abruptly ended communication with each other and there were a lot of things unsaid. On my behalf, I wanted to say them all but kept myself from doing so because that's just what I thought was best. Part of my logic on that is this new self-management improvement thing I'm doing. I kept saying to myself that if the other person isn't trying to communicate, you shouldn't either. Normally, I would of called the person (like I always would when we had fights) and let it all out whether it ended good or bad, but as long as I laid it all out on the table. I'm a brutally honest person and sometimes it has been to my advantage, and sometimes not. So as I'm improving on "self-managing" myself, I did the opposite of what I's normally do and remained quiet and peaceful weeks upon weeks. Needless to say, it was quite refreshing and therapeutic. As I was reading an article by Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas named Crucibles of Leadership (part of Harvard Business Review's 10 Must Reads on Leadership), it came to me what I was already doing without realizing it. In the article they talk about this idea of finding meaning in and learning from the most negative events, "like phoenixes rising from the ashes, they emerge from adversity stronger, more confident in themselves and their purpose, and more committed to their work" as they said. That statement hit me and little did I know that's how I was already living for a couple of weeks. What I went through with that person and the end of that relationship really took a toll on my happiness and self-esteem. I saw myself as "not good enough" and irrelevant, it was also affecting my mood of course and in result I was not doing so well in school and in my other everyday life things. This was until the moment I decided to improve myself and to do it only for myself. As soon as my heart got over it, this negative event because the best moment yet. I let myself know that I am more than a good enough person, that I have morals and goals and that I will be happy and succeed without that person in my life because they don't define me. I got back up, took out anything that reminded me of that person from my life and I started to focus more on my education and outside life. Before I knew it, I was no longer even thinking of this person every day, I was advancing in my career by landing my perfect internship, and I was just overall happy because I kept myself together and did not make the attempt to communicate with this person and fall back in. Like Bennis and Thomas said, crucibles are a severe test or trial and are intense and always unplanned. This was a big test for me and my self-management skill, it was intense and unplanned but I got through it and am in a better place with so much confidence and peacefulness in my being.

Second Week Evaluation.

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I have now reached two weeks since I've begun my six week process of improving my Self Management skill that I learned from reading Daniel Goleman. I have to say, I have noticed myself improving slowly but surely in the area. For example, I have been doing well on not being so impulsive on responding immediately with my first thought in a situation. I tend to speak my mind instantly and sometimes that has been to my advantage and sometimes not, especially in my personal life. Well, this week something happened where I initially wanted to just yell out to the person because of a not-so-pretty past we have, but I collected myself and kept my calm, I looked at the overall picture. Which leads me to my next point, relating my Goleman goal to something I learned from reading Heifetz and Laurie's The Work of Leadership article that can be found in Harvard Business Review here. Going back to what I read from Heifetz and Laurie is the "get on the balcony" concept. Like I was saying about seeing the overall picture, this idea goes hand in hand with it. As they state, "leaders must be able to identify struggles over values and power, recognize patterns of work avoidance, and watch for the many other functional and dysfunctional reactions to change." Relating this to my goal, I have been stopping and looking over the entire context and looking for patterns and places to improve on. Instead of finding problems and acting on impulses, I am making an opportunity out of the problem to do better. I am taking the bigger picture into consideration, not just myself as part of the picture. 

First Week Evaluation.

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Today marks the end of the first week of my journey towards improving my self-management skill. Reflecting on this week, a time I remember getting to put this to the test was this entire week of midterms. I lately have a lot going on, with school work, outside work, and my personal life that I find myself schmoozing a lot at home on my days off or just being flat out unproductive. However, with the stress of being a senior in college now and with the reminder of wanting to better myself, I did self-manage myself better this first week. Instead of falling into the temptation of going out with friends, I instead put my phone to silent during my homework hours and completely ignored it. I tried to look over at it the least possible and solely focus on my work to get done. I was able to manage doing this for an hour or so and that was a lot of for me, considering I'm always doing some sort of thing on my phone and "multi-tasking". From what I learned about Peter F. Drucker's What Makes An Effective Executive article this week in relation to my Goleman intention (self-management skill), is asking myself what I needed to get done and making action plans for myself. In the article Drucker discusses an enterprise jotting down their top tasks, developing action plans and asking themselves what's right for the enterprise. I applied that to myself and jotted down my top tasks for midterms, developed my action plan schedule with deadlines and  got them done. I had some minor bumps along the way but for the most part I was able to stick to my action plan. For the first week done, I think I did a good job of retaining the idea that I'm on this six week journey towards self improvement through self management. Click here to access Drucker's What  Makes An Effective Executive or use this link: 
http://harconllc.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/HCLLC_Harvard_Business_Review_Effective_Executive.pdf

The Beginning.

Over the course of the next six weeks I am going to be working on something not beauty or fashion related, but me related. Recently I read an article by Daniel Goleman about what makes a good leader, and the five competencies we can develop to become a great leader. Here you can find a portion of his article on the topic in Harvard Business Review. One of the five competencies that hit me right away is Self-Management. It encompasses having self-control and conscientiousness. These two aspects of this competency are where I lack the most in my being. I know that I am a person with very little patience and that in result acts on impulses a lot to only wish later that I should of done it differently. Therefore, that is what I will be working on developing over the next six weeks. Being able to not act or open my mouth right away, to think things through for best results, to overall be a person that can manage what I say and do efficiently. There is a lot to learn about what Goleman has to say in the topic of leadership; investing some time and effort into the person you can potentially be can only lead to good things. Below I have linked a video where you can see Mr. Goleman himself speaking on the topic of emotional intelligence.

source: YouTube.com