Concrete Experience and Reflective Observation
My 13-year-old working experience at Bridgestone required the identification and development of multiple skills and knowledge in the field of leadership, cooperation, and management. To be persuasive means to be ready to present credible information and clear facts and explain how to use the material. Therefore, a part of this course was focused on the utilization of multiple scholarly research methods found online and in libraries. Firstly, I planned to visit a local library and read several articles and books about communication between a leader and the staff. However, it turned out to be difficult to combine my leadership duties and research activities. Therefore, I decided to continue my investigation online and involve as many employees as possible, not at the expense of their time and the quality of tasks.
I divided my scholarly research experience into several sections. In the beginning, I set the goal to understand the worth of this activity for my leadership practice and its possible effects on communication. It was not always easy for me to persuade many people to choose the same job at the same time. Therefore, I had to strengthen my persuasion by means of new methods and the already approved basics. For example, a source is one of the major elements of persuasion in communication and the message, public, medium, and effect. I tried to find several databases, compare the findings and results of different researchers, and underline the major points interesting to my people. My personal interest in texts was not the only criteria for a final choice. I also paid attention to such factors as illustrations, references, and the use of the same material in other projects.
Communication was an effective way for me to influence someone’s mind. I tried to gather many facts, compare the results in different findings, and choose what information can be helpful in different situations. It was the process that I called a successful combination of a critical analysis of information and the identification of new scholarly methods. I surfed the web, read the experiences of different leaders, and paid attention to the theories and frameworks that, as I believed, could help in persuading, communicating, and discussing organizational goals and outcomes. My persuasion was also based on recent findings and numbers. Therefore, I developed charts and graphs as a part of quantitative research methods and tables with conceptual maps as a part of qualitative research methods.
Theories and Principles/Abstract Conceptualization
Any organization is responsible for providing the best services, offering appropriate products, and establishing effective cultures and standards. There are many ways to achieve improvements in different fields, and the leader has to make final decisions. In this course, my learning and practice were developed around three theories with different goals and contributors – attribution theory, coordinated management of meaning (CMM) theory, and social learning theory.
Theory 1
In persuasive communication, attribution statements determine the quality of work and the possibilities for people to cope with their tasks. In the middle of the 20th century, Heider offered the idea that human behaviors could be determined by internal or external factors and proposed to understand better interpersonal relationships (Shrestha, 2017). The essence of this theory is to examine the information and combine it in the way a casual judgment is formed.
Theory 2
Another significant contribution to scholarly research is introduced in the CMM theory. In 1980, Pearce and Cronen developed the theory according to which meaning is created and social reality is managed (“Coordinated management of meaning,” n.d.). The authors said the necessity to develop several prepositions on a specific situation can result in a reaction, action, or another significant outcome. According to this theory, social realities provoke new constructive or regulative rules in communication.
Theory 3
The third theory, social learning theory, was developed by a well-known researcher and psychologist, Albert Bandura. It included several new ways to improve a learning process and social behaviors, including observations and imitations (McLeod, 2016). It is a well-known fact from childhood that people find it effective and necessary to look at each other and decide if to follow the observed examples or not.
Summary
In all three cases, new research methods can be taken from the theories and applied in different fields of leadership, management, or corporate culture. Leaders must support their employees, and the more new methods and already-approved tactics are used, the better and less predicted outcomes could be achieved. In the course where persuasion in communication has to be indicated and practiced, the idea to use different theories from learning, communication, and management fields seems to a good and rational decision.
Testing and Application/Active Experimentation
My practical application of the learning experience that was developed to achieve the goal of utilization scholarly research methods showed how different theories might be helpful in different activities. For example, the first theory was a great chance for me to demonstrate my respect to the team and underline the worth of new methods and information. I got to know what my people think about my ideas and training importance and then combined different sources of information in order to persuade the rest of the team and plan new training techniques. The second theory of coordinated management and meaning was also connected to my leadership experience because I used different situations and chose methods according to which I could achieve the most profitable results. Finally, Bandura’s theory contributed to my understanding of leadership and communication in the form of how children memorize new information and develop their skills. Employees are in need of illustrative examples, and I am the creator of these examples to be observed and imitated with time.
References
Coordinated management of meaning. (n.d.). Web.
McLeod, S. (2016). Bandura – Social learning theory. Web.
Shrestha, P. (2017). Attribution theory. Web.