Reflective entry week 6 (AS)

In contrary to my teammates, i choose to implement my skills in influencing and power on a private basis rather than work one. Indeed, I choose to experience my power within my group of friends because it’s much more difficult for me than in a work group. When I am with people I know, I can imagine their behavior toward what I will suggest or say, and this point is a factor of stress for me because I know that I will be judged in a certain way, and I can help myself in thinking that it will be a negative evaluation. It’s weird because I am supposed to trust them as they are my friends and not feel ashamed! Whereas when I am with people with whom I work, I know them but on a “work level”, so I can imagine how they will react during an oral presentation or a meeting, but I don’t feel that barrier in exposing my ideas to them because we all are working, and we all are new to the subject. Of course some of us are having more experience in one domain than others but this knowledge is shared and I don’t feel the feeling of judgment.

Thanks’ to this assignment I realized that my lack of influence is a lack of confidence in myself on personal basis. Maybe somehow I am afraid of the person I am; and the image I give to people with whom I am spending most of my time outside classes and school. Nevertheless, after the meeting and good advices given from my teammates as well as shared experience, I am in the possession of good tips on how my power and influence can be strengthen in my personal life.

While I was an observer and the coachee, I was able to figure out that the problems we are facing in influencing people thanks’ to our own power are the same whether we place ourselves in a private or personal domain. Moreover, the questions that have been asked made us think and come to the conclusion that we don’t need to be ashamed of who we are. Everyone is different, and it’s an advantage in a group because we can learn things from the others and become even better thanks to them. Also, the point of lack of experience in showing our power was raised. Indeed, we are pretty young and sometimes we just don’t have clues about how to manage situations in order to stay on top of the power curve without really loosing who we truly are. This is why; we need to keep improving ourselves by putting us outside our “comfort zone” whether we are with our friends or colleagues. This will enable us to gain experience, and we cannot always be perfect in what we are doing, so by making mistakes we will be able not to repeat some behaviors that had a negative impact once. The other conclusion that came after the meeting is that communication is the key to a good relation within a group, when we are explaining to others what is going on and how we would like it be it’s very important to have a positive balance in the words we are using, because words can be as much hurtful as physical pain and can sometimes cause more damages.

In conclusion, having influence and power other the others is not an easy task, but we can keep exercising ourselves in order to achieve a level of influence with which we will feel comfortable and it’s a daily exercise.