INDIVIDUAL LEARNING PROJECT 1
Individual Assessments Learning Project
BUSI 240-Organizational Behavior I
Mary Ann Chandler
Liberty University
March 2nd, 2020
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Abstract
In this paper, there will be a self-assessment about myself within my current place of
employment in the business world. The assessment will touch on things like how I cope in
certain situations and my personality, such as if I am an introvert or extrovert, stressful situations,
strong growth needs, decision-making style, team roles preferred, active listener or not, handling
co-workers, and few more things. I will be answering these on my current job as a Customer
Service Representative. This paper will allow for me to see what my weaknesses are, strengths,
and how to fix them. My current job requires me to communicate with customers and other co-
workers, put orders in, ship out shipments in a timely manner, work with our plants to make sure
that we can get what we need, do excel sheets and charts, and make sure everything is going as
planned.
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Identifying with Introversion or Extroversion
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to identify if I am an introvert or extrovert.
2. My score was 16, which means moderate introversion.
3. According to the test I was determined to be moderate introversion. This means that I am
quiet, shy, and cautious. I prefer to be more independent than work with others. In some
situations, I may stand out but I prefer not to.
4. Before I took this test, I knew I was more of an introvert than an extrovert. I have never
liked standing up in front of people or talking in front of a group. As a Customer Service
Representative, I have had to break out of my shell a little. I never really liked speaking
to people that I didn’t know on the phone, but now I have to do it on a daily basis with
customers and other employees within the company. I have always been the type of
person that loves to hide behind the computer and speak through emails. However, I am a
cut up. I do love to make my co-workers laugh and everything so I believe that is why I
did completely score being a high introversion. The book stated that “Some people
experience positive emotions as a natural trait. People with more positive emotions
typically have higher neuroticism (lower emotional stability) and are introverted.”
(McShane & Von Glinow, 2018, Pg. 97) I want to agree with this because I want to think
that I am a positive person. I do see the glass as half full but I also see the realness that I
only have a half a glass left. I am the type of person that has positive plans for my future
but I also know that I need to just follow God’s plans for me and my life.
Coping with Stressful Situations
1. The of this self-assessment is to find out how I cope with stressful situations.
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2. My overall score is 37. Problem Solving: 13, Social Support: 7, Avoidance: 9, and
Blaming Others: 8.
3. This assessment says that I scored High to Average in each category. It says that people
with high scores tend to deal with stress by actively attempting to remove the stressor by
changing the situation. When scoring a score that is average, it means that you can cope
with stressful things but not as good as someone scoring high. I do seek some social
support as in I do try to befriend people so that maybe I have more people on my side and
not so much against me and causing stress. I am guilty of some avoidance of stress and I
do at times blame others. In social support, avoidance, and blaming others I scored
average, that means that I cope with stress but could do it better.
4. When looking at this assessment, it looks like I handle stressful situations ok but could
improve. This may come from me being diagnosed with Bipolar. I sometimes let stressful
situations get to me but by seeing the assessment results, it looks like that I do handle it
better than some people. I do have room for improvement. Improving my coping with
stress skills would help me in everyday life, at work or at home. We all have stressors but
how we handle them are what makes us good or bad. To help us cope we can always
follow what the Bible says in Psalm 55:22, “Cast your cares in the Lord and he will
sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” (NIV)
Growth-Need Strength
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to figure out my need for growth.
2. I scored a 38 on this part of the assessment which means moderate growth needs.
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3. On this assessment I am moderate or we can say average. This means that I need to work
on somethings. I fall on the high side of the scale but I am not in the high range but I am
not far from it. To improve my score to be lower I need to work on some of the needs
which include self-esteem, personal achievement, self-actualization.
4. In the position that I am in at my job now, I can always improve so that I can grow more
within the company. I know that I scored moderate on the assessment but I have grown a
lot through-out my 5 years that I have been here. I have worked myself up from being
part-time being a filer, to now being a customer service representative. Everyone always
has room for growth and I know that I am one of them. “Growth needs are associated
with self-actualization and intrinsic motivation. People vary in their growth need
strength, which is evident from the type of work they prefer.” (McShane & Von Glinow,
2018, Pg. 126)
Preferred Decision-Making Style
1. The purpose for this self-assessment is to figure out what my preferred decision-making
style.
2. My overall score is a 30. Rational decision style: 15 and Intuitive decision style: 15.
3. According to this self-assessment I have a strong preference for rational and intuitive
decision styles. It says that “You might score very high on both rational and intuitive
decision making. This is not contradictory. Some people engage in more intense rational
and intuitive thinking.” Rational decision making is using logic and facts. Intuitive
decision making is using your gut and what you feel is the right thing to do.
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4. I believe that this self-assessment was true. I do seem to make decisions both ways. My
decision making style is based on what situation I am in. In my job I have to use both
decision making styles. Some days I will come across a problem like if I should ship
something out when we only have half of the product ready and the customer needs it or
should I wait until we have all of it done and make the customer wait and risk them
running out. So in that type of decision making, I have to go with my gut. Then there are
times where I have to go with the logic and facts when a customer is coming at us about
wanting a credit because they said they were charged the wrong amount. This causes me
to use facts to make my decision in giving them a credit or not.
Preferred Team Roles
1. The purpose of this self-assessment was to determine which team roles that I prefer.
2. My overall total score was 48. Encourager: 12, Gatekeeper: 10, Harmonizer: 9, Initiator:
9, and Summarizer: 8.
3. According to the assessment, I am more of an encourager than any other the others. I
scored strong on being an encourager and scored moderate preference on all of the rest. I
would say that my score makes me pretty well rounded in every one of the categories.
4. Learning from the first assessment that I am more of an introvert this actually surprises
me that I am as supportive as this test says I am. I guess I do see how I fall into each one
of these categories. I am the type of person that wants to make everyone feel special,
heard, and understood. I want to treat others the way that I want to be treated. While at
work, we do have to attend meetings where everyone has the chance to be heard and be
able to put their problems out there to hope that they can be fixed. I got out of my shell a
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little at our last meeting and spoke up about somethings that needed to be changed within
a program that we use and those changes were made. I was so happy that I was also
heard.
Active Listener or No?
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to find out if I am an active listener or not.
2. I scored an overall score of 23. Avoiding Interruption: 3, Maintaining Interest: 5,
Postponing Evaluation: 5, Organizing Information: 4, and Showing Interest: 6.
3. According to this assessment, I am average in every one of the categories except avoiding
interruption where I scored low. Scoring low in avoiding interruption means that I do not
let people finish what they are saying before I try to interrupt and tell them what I think
about what they are saying. “Active listening is a process of mindfully sensing the
sender’s signals, evaluating them accurately, and responding appropriately.” (McShane &
Von Glinow, 2018, Pg. 267)
4. I do somewhat agree with the score that I go in this one. I always want to think that I am
a good listener, but I can look back at conversations that I have and see myself
interrupting. I interrupt people because if they are saying something that I have some
feedback on then I am the type of person to go ahead and say it before I forget it. Most of
the time I believe that I do let people finish their thoughts. I try to let others talk and
myself not really say anything because I am always afraid of saying something wrong.
When at work, I do let my customers say everything that they have to say before I speak
up about anything. I want to make sure that I fully understand what they are needing
before I speak on the subject.
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Approach to Influencing Co-Workers
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to determine what my approach is to influence co-
workers.
2. My overall total score is 63. Persuasion: 12, Silent Authority: 9, Exchange: 7,
Assertiveness: 4, Information Control: 6, Coalition information: 9, Upward Appeal: 7,
and Ingratiation: 9.
3. According to this assessment, I am overall able to influence other people. Highest score
that I got was persuasion. I feel like this is kind of saying that I am a little in your face
about things and when trying to convince people to be on my side.
4. I want to agree with this rating. I do want to believe that I can persuade people to be on
my side. I don’t want to have too much influence over people though. I feel like that
having too much influence could cause some problems for me like making and having
friends. “Influence tactics are woven throughout the social fabric of all organizations.
This is because influence is an essential process through which people coordinate their
effort and act in concert to achieve organizational objectives.” (McShane & Von Glinow,
2018, Pg. 290) I do believe being able to get people to be on your side would be
beneficial in business and especially in sales that I am in.
Preferred Conflict Handling Style
1. The purpose of this self-assessment was to find out what is my preferred conflict
handling style.
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2. My total overall score was 73. Yielding: 16, Compromising: 14, Forcing: 13, Problem
Solving: 18, and Avoiding: 12.
3. According to this self-assessment, I have a mix of moderate and strong preference for
each of these. Seems like that I am pretty even with using each of these to handle
conflict.
4. After reading through everything, it seems like I am a person who is able to use a variety
of things to help with conflict. I do not care for conflict so I think that I believe that my
score that I got is true because I will do anything to solve any kind of conflict. I guess I
am the type of person who uses different ways to solve conflict according to what
situation or what conflicts are happening at the time. Just like when a customer is having
a problem with something, I have to figure out which way to go about solving their
conflict that they are having.
Leaders make a difference
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to figure out if I think leaders make a difference.
2. The score I got was 42.
3. Looking at my score it means that I think that having more leaders within a company is
important. Having the proper leaders that are there for the lower level employees and are
willing to help them is a wonderful thing to help a company go far.
4. Having strong leadership is important to have. I agree with the score that the assessment
gave me. I look up to the leaders that are over me. I know that I can go to them with any
questions and concerns that I have, and they are always there and willing to help me.
Good leaders look out for the people they are over. Good leaders are there to help the
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company prosper and succeed. A company is only as good as it’s leaders. I know that it
also takes good employees to make good leaders. Leaders can not control everything that
happens. Leaders also have upper management at times that tell them what they can and
can’t do. Leadership is not always just a straight line. There are different obstacles that
leaders have to jump through sometimes to get their employees what they need. For
example, where I work now, it is so hard to get things that we need. The company gripes
if we ask for too much soap, so you can just imagine how it is if we ask for something
bigger like a computer chair. My leaders have fought to finally get us a usable kitchen
where we don’t have to continue to wash our dishes in the bathroom sink.
Preferred Organizational Structures
1. The purpose of this self-assessment is to find out what organization structures that I
prefer.
2. The total overall score I got was 26. Tall Hierarchy: 11, Formalization: 9, and
Centralization: 6.
3. According to this assessment, I have a strong preference for tall hierarchy, average
preference for Formalization, and a low preference for centralization. Having a strong
preference for tall hierarchy means that I prefer a job to have a few employees per
supervisor. Having an average preference in formalization means I prefer where jobs are
clearly defined with limited discretion. I have a low preference in centralization meaning
I don’t care for the decision making to be with top management.
4. I agree with the scores that I received on the assessment. I do prefer to have fewer
employees to each supervisor. That would mean more help and guidance for the workers
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that need it. I do prefer to have a well-defined job. I hate not knowing what a job is
asking of me. I do also agree that not all decisions should be made by management. At
some place’s management is not always in the middle of things to know exactly what
lower level employees actually need. Most of the time they only know what they think
they know by hearsay.
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References
McShane, S., & Von Glinow, M.A. (2018). Organizational Behavior (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
