Allied health Instructions: 1. Discuss some of your personal cultural biases and how they impact your group communications. 2. What have been your experiences in providing feedback within your class or group? What rules of feedback did you use and were they successful? What did you do that was not successful and why? 3. Discuss the leadership styles that you have observed in your classroom groups and how they impacted the outcome of the group activity. Discuss your leadership style and its impact.

Leadership Styles

The person who I think usually plays the role of leader in our group has emotional intelligence, influences us all to work hard and be respectful of one another, and caring. I would say his leadership style is participative because he seems to always take the assignment that nobody else really wants. In fact, when we are dividing up work, he waits till the end and takes whatever is left. I think he is really sweet to do that because he probably does not want the assignment either, but he is trying to lead by example. He also shows that by taking the worst job of them all, he has not let the power go to his head. This has also caused me and other group members to offer to help him on the worst assignments .

My leadership style is not as good as the person who leads our group most of the time. I would probably get annoyed at people who did not want to do their fair share of the work. He never does. He just lets them do what they want to do and takes on their work or divides it up among the rest of us. I am caring and kind though. I do not like to think I hurt another person’s feelings, so I try not to. I also try to be a good example for other people, but that sounds like I am bragging, and I do not want to do that. I just try to be kind like my mother always told me to be. She said more people would like me if I am kind than if I am not kind, and I believe her. Being kind has made me lots of friends, and some of them look up to me as a leader, but not all of them. I would say those that do not see me as a leader are more like leaders to me.

How my Perspective has Changed

I think I have always known that good communication was important. I did not have proof of that though. When I met the two older women in the group in another class, I learned that there are ways to communicate even if one has differences with another. This current class let me put the ideas taught in it to that past experience and understand it better. I like what I have learned about myself and about that past experience. I have also enjoyed the group experience I have had in this class. I like that because we have discussed all the ways leadership, communication, bias and feedback work that I can think about my group experience and understand what is being taught about communication. I guess I mean I am glad that my group experiences are providing me examples to which I can apply my learning about communication.

I also like that I am able to understand what the group leader does that makes him so likeable. I also understand what other group members do that could negatively influence the group. I am glad that I can look at these things and know what I am seeing and maybe even figure out a way to solve the problems. Mainly, my perspective has changed because I feel like I understand more about how to communicate well with others and to understand what they communicate to me.

Doubts, Ideas, Questions

The no negative without the positive feedback rule that I learned from a professor I had before this class is a good one. I remember once that a student in that class said that he had no feedback. When the professor asked him why, he said it was because there was nothing positive to say about the other student’s paper, so he could not say anything The professor said that it is too easy to find negative things to say and much more difficult to find positive things to say, and made that student try again. I think it is a good rule to go by because a person can say all positive things, which probably would not be realistic, but if they say all negative, then they are not really doing the hard work of giving good feedback.

I have some doubts about the two group members I discussed above. The one who is always asking questions is going to have a hard time succeeding if she cannot figure out simple things on her own. The one who gets angry at her needs to not let things bother him so much. I am not sure how to deal with a person like that. I would like to know what to do in that situation.