Encoding - Reading Emotions and Active Listening

I really like the exercise and I truly believe that the way we say things, our tone of voice, expression posture are as powerful, if not more as what we say with words. You can say pretty much say the same thing using different tones and each of them come across with a different meaning.

The exercise showed that I have a strong ability to express my feelings – all classmates were able to guess right; however it also showed that I am not as good reading people’s feelings, which I thought I was. After class I reflected a lot on it and realized that sometimes I am too focused on myself and my feelings and forget to take attention on people’s feelings around me.

I have some magic with the way I say things. Usually I can say the same thing in a more persuasive way that can convince the hardest people to deal with; however the game helped me to understand that sometimes I should learn how to read people more. This is very interesting. I do care a lot about people and understand a lot circumstance etc but also I should be more attentive clues that often I am not. Probably I do get very caught in my own emotions, situations and projects that I forget to realize or value people’s thoughts and feelings – when I don’t see them. It also raises another issue raised in class: Active listening. Truly take attention in what others have to say.

Active listening as discussed in class is not only listening and reading the signs but actually decoding those signs,is not decoding and truly understanding and absorving what the other person has to say, including what they don't say. I do believe that active listening and attention for how people act and react is a key to be a good leader. See even what is not said and it comes with practice.

More than the activity, the discussion afterwards was very valued to me. We are discussing in class that sometimes it is important to be firm, to be tough. My management style is very persuasive but also soft and few classmates brought into consideration the importance of having the restrictive and rigid position sometimes. That’s another issue I am working on.