MGMT 371 Self-Reflection

Walla Walla University

School of Business

Self-Reflection Essay

Juan Ruiz

Walla Walla University

Assignment #9

MGMT 371

George Perez

December 12, 2019

 MGMT 371 Self-Reflection

Abstract

This paper presents my personal reflection and thoughts that I learned throughout this

quarter on this Management Class. This paper presents some of my important skills, strengths,

weaknesses, and opportunities that make me as a student, that help me grow as a leader, and as a

team worker. This paper also talks about how this class has impacted me in many ways

especially in solving problems and improving in certain areas that I need to work on.
 MGMT 371 Self-Reflection

Have you ever thought in being a successful leader and grow in your managerial skills in

a work place? I have thought about it and I feel that by taking this management class I have been

able to grow a lot as a leader and I learned many valuable things that I have not learned in other

business courses that I have taken.

This class is an important class, and my thoughts about this class are mostly positive

because I have grown a lot as a business major. At the beginning of the course I did not know

how the workload was going to be and I was a little afraid because there were a lot of group

projects. But group projects are very useful because you need a leader in a group and you need to

work as a team to get things done in harmony. According to Bateman and associates 2017, a

business or a project needs to have a vision and power to enforce in others. And I was afraid to

be a leader because when it comes to working in a big group I do not like to talk as much, but I

have to say that I was force to be a leader with this group projects and I liked it.

“Leadership works with the humans executing the process to work through their difficulties

and leverage their strengths” (Gartenstein, 2019). I discovered on this class that I can be a

leader by working with others, and that I can be organized in the things I do.

Some challenging moments were at the beginning of the class. It is hard to find the time

for everyone to meet at the same time so we had issues with some people not doing their part, but

after a few group projects we got it figured it out. Some of the most powerful learning moments

was the SWOT analysis. This is very important for your growing as a worker because you can

see your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and your threats. When I did my SWOT analysis I

was going to a hard time at my job, but when I saw my weaknesses and I started to work on

them, I was able to overcome some of them and to improve a lot. The most important thing that

I learned about this class was that I have biases. According to the Racial Implicit Association

test (IAT), it says that I had tendencies to relate white people with safety and black people with
 MGMT 371 Self-Reflection

danger. I did not know that unconsciously I had biases to certain group of people. I was sad and

frustrated because I do not want to be like that, I want to be equally fair with everyone I talk to

and not to make judgments to people that I do not know.

My learning from this class refers a lot to the real world experience because as I talked

about my biases, I think that it relates a lot to the real world because According to Bateman and

associates 2017, “Diversity is a term used to refer to all kinds of differences. These differences

include education, political belief, religion, and income in addition to gender, race, ethnicity, and

nationality.” So if I have biases and I want to have diversity on my work place is going to be

hard to select the people that I want to work with because I might have already some prototypes

of the people that I want, or I might end up excluding other people because I judge them

beforehand. My greatest strengths are to make connections. I am open to other people, I am

outgoing, I am a hard worker and I like to get things done.

My biggest improvement is being able to speak up and be involved with my ideas, so I

will say that being able to communicate better with my bosses has been my biggest

improvement. I was really proud of being able to do a great job on my final project. My group

and I had put so much work on it that I am really proud about it. Definitely the things that I

learned in this management class I will be using a lot in the future because if it is God´s will, I

want to be able to have my own company and be a great leader.

In conclusion, all the things that I learned made me better as a person, as a leader, as a

worker, and in many other things. I can apply my knowledge by enforcing my new skills in my

work place, and by showing them to others. It is very significance the knowledge that I gain

because in the real world I am going to be able to enforce all the things that I learned. I am very

thankful to be a part of this class and contribute to my learning and to others learning by helping

out as a member on every group I worked for.

 MGMT 371 Self-Reflection

Sources

Bateman, T., Snell, S., & Konopaske, R. (2018). Management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill

Education.

Dere, B. (2019). SWOT Analysis: – How to Develop a Strategy for Success. Retrieved from

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/new

Free online creativity test. (2019). Retrieved from http://www.testmycreativity.com/

Gartenstein, D. (2019, August 23). The Importance of Leadership in Managing Change.

Retrieved from https://bizfluent.com/about-6716485-importance-leadership-managing-

change.html.