Explain the term Unconscious Bias and how it might affect a leader in their working role. Discuss the impact Unconscious Bias might have on an organisation. Describe steps which could be taken to eliminate the effects of unconscious bias.

Assessment:

Summative

Ref:

TL3A002

Explain what you understand by the term Emotional intelligence and describe how you might use this in your working environment.

Explain the term Unconscious Bias and how it might affect a leader in their working role.   Discuss the impact Unconscious Bias might have on an organisation.  Describe steps which could be taken to eliminate the effects of unconscious bias.

Explain the importance of feedback in Personal and Professional Development.

Discuss the benefits you have identified from an increased level of self-awareness having undertaken a number of self-assessment tasks.

Describe the areas have you identified as being in need of development to improve your capability and explain how you might develop these areas.

Maps to:

ST0384

Links to:

K8.1

Know how to be self-aware and understand unconscious bias and inclusivity.

K8.2

Understand learning styles, feedback mechanisms and how to use emotional intelligence

S9.1

Able to create an effective personal development plan and use time management techniques to manage workload and pressure.

Grading Criteria

Pass:

K8.1

Explains what the implications of unconscious bias are, and the approaches they take to promote inclusivity within their workplace.

Distinction:

N/A

Insert your response below:

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the capability to understand and effectively manage your own emotions, but also the ones from the people around you. EQ is different from IQ, and is what differentiates leaders in staying collected, taking decisions under pressures, and dealing with difficult situations with calmness, but also empathy.

More than a decade ago, Daniel Goleman highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership, telling Harvard Business Review, “The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It’s not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but...they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions.”

Following the 4 core components of EQ, as a leader I would have the following approach:

-become self-aware of my strengths and development area by having a 360-feedback questionnaire sent to my peers, team, and stakeholders; The outcome of it would support with building the foundation for my Personal Development Plan that would review with my manager on a quarterly basis and ask for regular feedback to check on my progress;

-self manage my emotions, especially when I need to deal with stressful reactions where my first impulse would be to react instead of pausing and taking a moment to assess the situation.

-practice social awareness, such as empathy by understanding people’s emotions, active listening to them and offer them support when needed. This would also help with creating connections with the teams and raising engagement levels

-deal effectively with conflict by having tough conversations when needed or delivering unpopular decisions and standing your ground and explaining the decision behind.

Unconscious bias means classifying people or making assumptions based on certain characteristics without realising that we are doing it. This might include believing someone that is younger will be less competent at their job than an older one or that a man is more likely to be good at technical aspects of a job than a woman. Unconscious bias can impact on our interactions with others in the workplace, from interviews where we may look to recruit ‘people like us’ to how we listen to what others are saying. To support with bringing a diverse workforce, a technique of introducing anonymous CVs which remove personal information about sex, age or ethnicity could help remove conscious bias in hiring managers. Everyone has an unconscious bias and we can’t erase it. As leaders and in a workplace, unconscious bias can be the biggest stumbling block to diversity. We are hard-wired to make immediate judgements based on our perceptions, experiences or prejudices, before we know anything about a person or a situation. These automatic preferences and prejudices contribute to narrowing our experiences and creating unfounded bias or even discrimination. To help manage unconscious bias as a leader you can:

- take some time for self-reflection before acting

- try to keep perspective and look at the bigger picture

-be honest and aware of your unfounded biases to help you to recognise them

-visualise positive interactions

-be respectful

-accept that you will have unconscious bias and deal with it appropriately.

In both Personal and Professional Development, feedback is a tool to increase self-awareness by understanding through different sources (e.g. verbal or written feedback, 360 feedback, etc) where an individual is currently at and what they need to develop through a personal development plan (PDP) that would take them to where they want to be professionally.

Feedback can be either positive, negative or constructive and supports the receiver to grasp what they should continue doing, what should be stopped and the impact of their actions. Whenever someone receives feedback, it is important to actively listen and try to contain from being defensive, because feedback is a gift.

A constructive feedback can help an individual understand how their behaviours impact people around them, or a manager to understand if he or she are either empowering or demotivating people from their team with their actions. Feedback is used to improve performance, motivate and a tool for continuous learning while the key is to improve.

Having a robust PDP that is reviewed on a recurrent basis provides the following benefits:

-increased engagement by understating how their role connects to the higher strategy of the company and provide positivity in the workplace.

-increased motivation by having more confidence in doing not only the role, but also aiming to achieve that extra mile from the PDP

-increasing confidence by being aware on the strengths and development areas and the support received to achieve new outcomes.

-focusing on the strengths and not just working on the development needs.

-create a strong career path and prospects and way to accomplish this.

Self-awareness is linked closely to emotional intelligence and for leaders is the capability of being in tune with your emotions, but also being vulnerable and aware of your strengths, weaknesses, and hidden biases.

To reach a solid level of self-awareness an individual would seek feedback, such as 360 or individual feedbacks, undertake self-assessments that would be able to showcase their capabilities, but also development areas that would facilitate a culture of continuous growth. If you are a leader it is important to ask for regular feedback from your team members in order to gain that perspective over any blind spots you might have and need to focus on.

Having taken several self-assessments myself, I have discovered a lot of new things about my personality traits, unconscious bias, leadership style, emotional intelligence and character strengths that I have not been aware of.

One of the main development areas that resonated best with me due to the specific outcome was on the back of the M Briggs personality test and I have put together below a plan of development improvement for the next 6-9 months that showcases my aim to address these areas:

Declaration:

I confirm that this is all my own work and I have not received any assistance to complete it:

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