Reflective Practice Essay on Communication Competence
Question
Task: The objective of this reflective essay is to summarize what you learned from the unit and how you believe your learnings could be applied by you in your future career goals.
Sections:Section one: For weeks one to ten you should identify one important or significant concept that you have learned about. You should define the concept and then explain why it is important to you in your current line of work. It is not enough to simply say that the concept is important, you will need to explain why. Section two: Based on your discussion of the ten significant concepts you should provide a literature review of one of the concepts. So for example, if you found that listening was an important communication concept then you should provide a literature review on the current academic understanding of the importance of listening within the work environment. Section three: Lastly, you will need to discuss how two of the ten concepts could be important to your future career aspirations. Here you will need to identify where you wish to be in 5 years’ time, and then discuss how you think these concepts/skills will help you meet your career goal. It is important that you are specific as possible.
Answer
Introduction: The significance of business communication skills for employability could not be undermined since the different industries in the present market are operating in knowledge based economies. Therefore, the following Reflective Practice Essay would be directed towards evaluation of the different concepts associated with effective business communication. The awareness of different traits that amount to effective business communication could help an individual considerably in terms of professional development. Subsequently, the significance of this Reflective Practice Essay could be clearly anticipated in the form of selecting a personal opinion on the skills that could be improved in order to accomplish prolific outcomes in business communication (Carroll, 2015). The purpose of this Reflective Practice Essay is to identify two specific communication competences that could help in the pursuit of future career aspirations.
The essay would have three distinct sections in which the first one would be associated with the illustration of one concept each from the different weekly work activities including definition of the concept and its significance in the present line of work (Ferrell & Fraedrich, 2015). The second section of this Reflective Practice Essay would provide a literature review of a particular concept selected from the first section. The final section would throw light on ways in which two of the concepts from first section could be implemented for future career pursuits. The following section would identify and explain the importance of one concept from every week.
Weekly concepts: These are the various concepts which I have selected from each week of work activities in this Reflective Practice Essay.
For Week one, the most important concept that I was able to identify is ethical communication and its basic characteristics. The importance of ethical communication in the present line of work is not observed in the necessity for complying with legal precedents and moral obligations of right and wrong only but also for fulfilling the social responsibility as an agent of the organization (Ferrell, 2016).
In the Week two, I was realized that listening is an important concept among others taught in this week. The definition of listening is the primary reason for which I reflected on its details because it is a crucial aspect for interpretation and understanding of the message conveyed by others. The understanding of different barriers to listening and the individual dimensions related to active listening could be helpful in improving the flexibility and accuracy of business communication.
The concepts in Week three were particularly reflective of the differences between written and verbal communication which I found to be important in my current line of work. However, the most significant inference in this week was communication genres which could help me in addressing all requirements of written communication at my workplace. Some of the promising areas for improvement in written communication include letters, CVs, resumes and memos (Johnson, 2018).
The significant concept which I was able to learn in Week four’s work activities was the approach for academic writing. The necessity of academic writing is perceived in the requirement for demonstrating knowledge related to a specific topic. The importance of academic writing for my current line of work would be profoundly observed with the requirements for writing reports, term papers and dissertations (Lindlof & Taylor, 2017). The understanding of the best practices for writing introductory, body and concluding paragraphs alongside the necessity to refrain from plagiarism as well as credible approaches for referencing of the work would also be significantly productive in my work.
In Week five, I was able to learn about writing a literature review which is defined as the illustration of knowledge about existing information related to a particular topic. The importance of literature review in my current line of work could be identified in the abilities for synthesizing information from different sources in order to complete tasks related to various topics in my academic disciplines (Pearson, 2017). The capabilities for writing a literature review would also improve my critical reflection skills that can be additional support for my future career ventures.
Among the different concepts in Week six, I identified understanding and overcoming communication apprehension as an important concept. Communication apprehension is responsible for inhibiting the possibilities for communication with other individuals or groups. Understanding the different factors leading to communication apprehension could help me in resolving any concerns of communication anxiety (Shockley-Zalabak, 2014).
In week seven, I identified the concept of difference between high and low context cultures to be important since it could help me in apprehending the specific intercultural communication style preferred in particular scenarios.
In week eight, I was able to understand the different aspects related to organizational communication such as differences between internal and external communication, factors for deciding the suitable communication media and the types and forms of formal and informal communication networks (Schnackenberg, & Tomlinson, 2016). The understanding of organizational communication is significant since it is significant for control, coordination and maintenance of organizational relationships and activities in internal as well as external contexts.
In Week nine, I was able to learn the concept related to conduct of meetings and it is significantly important in the case of my current line of work as I would have to work in many work groups and teams on a regular basis. Therefore meetings would be mandatory in most of the cases and a clear understanding of the best practices to hold a meeting and the barriers for the same could be substantially helpful from all perspectives.
In the final week ten, I was able to identify assertive behaviour as an important concept for business communication. The definition of assertive behaviour suggests standing up for oneself and identifying the various skills for assertive communication could help in maintaining strong compliance with personal values and beliefs in communication.
Literature review:The selected concept for literature review in this Reflective Practice Essay is ethical communication which was included in the work activities in the first week. The consideration of an organization as a social entity requires it to coordinate with explicitly identified boundaries and the unity among the people and the groups within the organization with interact with each other. As per Trevino & Nelson (2016), The limitations faced by every individual in everyday life as a result of normative values could be applicable to various situations and the boundaries that are placed on interaction with others in the society as well as the environment could be termed as ethical values (Trevino & Nelson, 2016).
The importance of ethical communication is identified in its contribution to improvement in outcomes of responsible thinking, development of relationships among internal and external stakeholders as well as establishing communities throughout various contexts, channels, media and cultures. The role of ethical communication in the improvement of human dignity and worth is identified in the promotion of fairness, personal integrity, respect for self and others, truthfulness and responsibility. The use of ethical communication is perceived explicitly on the grounds of inclusion of potentially relevant information, accuracy and sincerity, fair depiction of graphic data, truthfulness and limitations on obscuring negative information (Terec-Vlad, Trifu & Terec-Vlad, 2015).
The literature pertaining to ethical communication has also provided crucial insights into the factors which could influence ethical communication. First of all it is essential to observe the inherent ethical aspect to every communication decision. Another factor to be noticed is the consideration of the dimensions of Who, What, When and Where while referring to the ethical nature of communication (Schnackenberg, & Tomlinson, 2016).
It is also essential to focus on the influence of organizational values on the communication ethics followed by an individual. The values are considered as significant by organizations and refer to them in situations where they have to make the right choice. The focus on shared values could help employees in an organization to ease the processes of establishing goals with respect to the conflicting ideas, needs and objectives.
The compliance of employees to organizational values in all business operations especially in communication would be liable for improving the brand reputation on the grounds of social responsibility. Another prominent dimension that is identified in literature pertaining to ethical communication reflects on ethical dilemmas for communication. Some of the examples of communication dilemma include secrecy, rumours, whistle-blowing and ambiguity (Shockley-Zalabak, 2014). Secrecy is perceived as the most crucial trait that can help an organization to safeguard majority of its significant information. On the other hand, excessive secrecy has been found to inhibit the prospects for innovation. Therefore, an individual has to follow specific guidelines for dealing with ethical dilemmas in professional communication such as legal and moral considerations as well as best practices such as maintaining accuracy of messages, timeliness of communication and retorting against unethical behaviour.
Application of two concepts: The first concept that I would implement for my future career scenarios is listening. I could be able to implement listening in different work group and team meetings for interpreting the communicated messages effectively. Listening skills would also help me in improving prospects for interpersonal communication by effectively reflecting on the message conveyed by others (Lindlof & Taylor, 2017). The second concept that I would like to implement in my future career aspirations is overcoming communication apprehension since it would help me to engage promisingly in new scenarios for communication. I could be able to blend myself into the context I am put in for communication by tackling my concerns of communication apprehension. This would provide me with a viable competitive advantage over other peers in my various career pursuits in the future.
Conclusion
This Reflective Practice Essay clearly reflected on the important topics related to business communication that were included in the weekly work activities. The reflection involved definition of the concepts as well as illustration of their significance. The next section of the essay focused on a literature review of ethical communication and was followed by the final section which addressed the possible scenarios of applying the concepts of listening and overcoming communication apprehension in future career aspirations.
This Reflective Practice Essay provided a clear impression of the different communication competences that could help in improving prospects for employment in different industries. To conclude this Reflective Practice Essay, business communication is different because of context and purpose and this implies the need for understanding various concepts related to the same in order to accomplish expertise. Reflective practice essay assignments are being prepared by our online management assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable essay help online service.
References
Carroll, C. E. (Ed.). (2015). The handbook of communication and corporate reputation (Vol. 49). John Wiley & Sons.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases. Nelson Education.
Ferrell, O. C. (2016). A framework for understanding organizational ethics. In Business ethics: New challenges for business schools and corporate leaders (pp. 15-29). Routledge.
Johnson, C. E. (2018). Organizational ethics: A practical approach. Sage Publications.
Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2017). Qualitative communication research methods. Sage publications.
Pearson, R. (2017). Business ethics as communication ethics: Public relations practice and the idea of dialogue. In Public relations theory (pp. 111-131). Routledge.
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2014). Fundamentals of organizational communication. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Shockley-Zalabak, P. (2014). Fundamentals of organizational communication. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Trevino, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2016). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. John Wiley & Sons.
Terec-Vlad, L., Trifu, A., & Terec-Vlad, D. (2015). The decisional moment and ethics. Ecoforum Journal, 4(1), 11.
