Infosys Pvt. Ltd Information Technology

Introduction

With a background in Information Technology, I have done an internship with Infosys Pvt. Ltd., a well-known Multinational Corporation. After that, I tried to understand the various business and management nature of a company by working with a pharmaceutical company as a Sales and Marketing Associate. But, in order to learn the management aspects of every organization in theory, I started my graduate school in Business Administration. In addition, I am currently working as a Student Assistant at the Testing Center as a part-time job. According to me, the purpose of this leadership and the developmental plan is to apply the various concepts of Behaviors Science to real-life situations. As the paper progresses, I will try to apply the concepts studied in class to my previous work experience and also, I would try to make notes of various skills which I would be able to use in my upcoming jobs. The main focus of the paper would be to learn the concepts of Behavior Science by applying those to various situations. Through this leadership development plan, I hope to reflect and refine my leadership, to understand the challenges associated with leading teams and organizations and most importantly to apply behavioral principles to situations that organizational leaders face.

Knowledge Gained and Discussion of Experiences

In this development plan, I would like to cover six major concepts studied in class. These concepts are from the 8 major topics covered in class. I would try to demonstrate these concepts by using various readings provided in the course structure along with my previous experience.

The concepts are:

1. Good Communication

2. Global Leadership

3. Building Collaborative Teams

4. Coping Stress

5. Visionary Leadership

6. Motivating others

I believe that these concepts have the most meaning and relevance to me in terms of cultivating my development as a leader.

I. Good Communication

While working for any organization, it is very important to have good communication skills. Good communication skills are required to communicate your ideas effectively and efficiently with other people. At my current workplace, I am working as a Front-Desk person. I am the first point of interaction with whoever comes to the Testing Center. It is very important for me to understand what others are saying in order to give them a proper answer. If I do not know about something, it is very important for me to communicate with my supervisors so that I am able to explain the situation to them correctly. In this course, I learned about the various active listening techniques that would be useful for me in my current job and in my upcoming jobs. Being a good listener is one of the best ways to be a good communicator. Active listening involves paying close attention to what the other person is saying, asking clarifying questions, and rephrasing what the person says to ensure understanding. I usually use these methods in my current workplace. Students and professors call Testing Center in order to get confirmation about their appointment or to make new appointments or even about some queries they have regarding the working and services of Testing Center. Whenever I receive these calls, I ask clarifying questions and I try to rephrase what the person is talking about to make sure that I am getting complete information as well as I am getting what they are trying to say or ask.

Good Communication also requires a friendly tone, confident interactions, and empathic responses. Whenever any student come to take a test, I try to be friendly with them as they are often tensed. Therefore, a simple phrase such as ‘I understand what you are feeling’, let them feel that I have been listening to them and respect their opinions. This is equally important in non-verbal communication. When I write emails to my supervisor or colleagues, I personalize the email by adding ‘I hope you had a great weekend’. This not only increases interaction but also adds a personal touch that I care about the recipient. Whenever professors come by, I try to be confident enough while communicating with them. Confidence while communicating shows that I am understanding what they are saying and will follow them.

Another major aspect of Good Communication is Open-Mindedness. I have recently faced a situation where it was very important to have a flexible and open-mind communication. While deciding upon the activity that we need to go along with the presentation in the class, all team members could not get along with one idea. Everyone was posing a new idea for the activity and it was very difficult to decide one of those. At that time, I tried to listen to every idea so that to choose one that suits best. One of the counter argument posed by one of my teammates was that we should try to engage the class in a fun activity rather than a discussion activity as the class is itself a discussion class, so it becomes boring for everyone to do that much of discussions. The idea stuck everyone and then it was so easy to choose one activity. At that point, it was important to listen and understand other person’s point of view, rather than simply focusing on my own. In this case, the communication turned to a more productive one, even if I was disagreeing with the person earlier.

II. Global Leadership

The world is getting globalized. Due to the advancements in technology and transportation, most of the countries are doing an extensive trade. This has increased the goals of companies to get their branches in different countries. These days there are many companies with the goals of expanding their business globally. These goals are hard to achieve. This is mostly because one country can be completely different from the other one on basis of language, culture and their way of doing business. This can be understood by looking at the same example that we discussed during the class. When Coca-Cola company tried to start a business in Saudi Arabia, they were not successful, first because they did not know their language, but used posters instead, and second, they did not know that people there read. Because the people read from left to right, the whole concept of what they wanted to show using pictures backfired on them. Therefore, their plans did not work. Now, this could have become easier if they would have found someone who can speak Arabic as well as English. This way, that person could have helped them to forward the ideas of