Trust

Trust

                Trust, as it pertains to relationships, is such an interesting topic to me that I had to discuss it in my quiz.  Along with trust, I will show you how trust can be related to my life through my MBTI type.   Some of the following may be redundant with the conflict management portion, but hang with me as I do mean well.  I will also identify some important power and influence traits and how they are very important in this relationship.  For you to completely understand how these two are related I must first classify what exactly they are. 

                Trust, as seen in relationships, can be so simple yet to understand, but so difficult to grasp.  I know that the afore mentioned sentence might not make much sense, but as I try to properly articulate my thoughts, I struggle identifying the makeup of trust.  Trust is loyalty, sincerity, an emotion built upon reliance.  Once broken, it may never be mended.  We place our trust in some of the most ridiculous pipe dreams, or sports, and of course in our relationships.  Before I go on, I must admit guilt, because I too place trust in some of the following futile things.   Trust is believing that someone/something will come through; you predict reliance upon this someone/something.  Trust, simply put, can’t be defined with justice.

                Now that I have identified the role of trust in my life, how does my MBTI type affect it?  Well being an ESFJ, I think there are some rather important parts it could affect.  I am extroverted, I am constantly sharing my relationships with others, and expressing how I feel to those around me.  I think that one of the more important factors in building trust is directly related to the trust pyramid.  In order to trust someone, you must first open up.  Once two people can get past sharing basic data and cliché conversation, they can effectively build a relationship upon trust.  The ability to share about beliefs and individual feelings will increase the trust between two individuals.  The quickest way to getting to that level of communication is being able to express your own opinions and those around you will hopefully reciprocate that.   

                I think my feeling type makes me more sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of others, which is a crucial part of building trust.  If I cannot understand other people, or their problems, I will most likely not share with them my problems.  Identifying with another person and being able to relate is a very important part of building that trust.  Being a feeler, I tend to concern myself with the thoughts of others, making their life easier, and helping them out where possible.  I think that this trait helps me build trust by not criticizing their thoughts, but understanding them and furthermore, helping them with those feelings. 

                Lastly, here I want to conclude with some ways power and influences are related to the previous paragraphs.  I would say that there are no powers to influence, but types of influences used when assessing this topic.  Inspirational appeal is important because it deals with appealing to another’s beliefs, this would work in well if the level of trust is past basic data conversation and become more complex.  I would say that being an extrovert, I may use consultation, where my participation and input may directly affect whether or not another person would share their input.   Personal appeal would be important; an influence dealing with loyalty.  If you had known someone for a long time, and they broke your trust, you might be willing to forgive since they have been loyal to you for so long.  

Conflict Management

Conflict Management

                I chose conflict management because I believe it is a key component in our everyday lives; more importantly, we study conflict management to become more aware of it in the workplace.  Here I wanted to match up conflict management with my MBTI type.  Before I identify how I am connected to these two, I want to specifically discuss what they are.

  Firstly, conflict management can be identified as many things, but to be specific, I believe that conflict can be both good and bad.  In this situation I am going to identify why conflict can be bad, particularly in a workplace.   Conflict occurs when there are two or more differing values, opinions or even perspectives, and thus results in disagreeing parts.  Firstly, conflict can decrease productivity, and thus reducing the overall profitability of your workplace.  Other places conflict can cause problems are it can reduce workplace morale, also give rise to more conflicts and ultimately result in inappropriate workplace attitude. 

My MBTI type is ESFJ, I am a extroverted sensing feeling judging type.  There are a few areas of my type that I wanted to primarily focus on, mostly because I believe that some parts play a bigger role in conflict management for me.  Firstly, there is the fact that I am a feeler, meaning that in general, I value sentiment over logic.  I am very sensitive to other people’s needs and their feelings.  I am more likely to encourage someone rather than criticize them.  This part of me could be good and bad, because in a situation where I might be a supervisor, I might tend to be more concerned with others liking me opposed to doing it right.  In a situation where there is a conflict of values, I might side with someone I understand more rather than seeing it as an outsider.   Overall, I think that being a feeler might cause me to avoid more conflicts but might cause me to manage them poorly.

It is important to note that I am of the judging type, helping counter balance my feeling type.  I have the ability to override my feeling senses, especially when it gets in the way of work.   My judging type gives me a down to earth attitude which can be directly related to how I may resolve conflict, due to my ability to focus on the crucial components of that at hand.  It is important that I do not simply set my focus and make decisions rashly because that can create a situation where I commit to a solution too early.

Realizing that my MBTI personality is separate parts but work together is very important.  I cannot become too interested in how people might think of me when faced with conflict, nor should I attach myself to things I feel are important and thus discredit other components when in conflict.  These two work in unison, and it is important to use them both to my advantage.

In conclusion, I want to recognize power and influence, and how they might directly affect conflict management pertaining to my MBTI type.  Referent power would be a big one for my feeling personality, where I might be looking to gain someone’s approval.  Two influence types that could be correlated to the feeling type would be inspirational appeal as well as personal appeal.   Personal appeal deals with loyalty and friendship while inspirational appeal pertains to follower’s goals and values.   I think that all of these types of power and influence are potential tools in conflict management.  

Perception

Perception, in my own words is how we see things. Through emotions, feelings, visually and even through touch are we able to perceive things differently.  Many components make up our own perceptions, and have varying influences on the way we see things.  For instance, my background in religion might cause me to become intrigued when someone speaks on Catholicism or Mormonism, whereas someone who cares nothing about religion might perceive the person as boring.  Also, we saw from a video shown in class that our physical state affects our perception.  If we are overweight we might be self conscious due to the amount of media pressure.  Also, a blind person would be keener to things a person says as opposed to their non verbals.  But before I venture too far away I wanted to talk more about how our culture, especially here in the US, affects our way of life.  Each and every day our perceptions are changed due to our ever evolving society.  As a person living in this fast paced world, I feel like people are being consumed by the ever looming thought, “what might they think of me?”  It controls lives, as mentioned obviously in junior high, but still we are completely trapped by ideals that society has placed before us.  Why are we getting a higher education?  Because we are taught that in order to become an active part of society, we must be successful.  Parents still push their children to become the people they wish they could’ve been, and it makes me sad knowing that people pursue such shallow dreams.  A dream in which, your satisfaction is predicated upon whether or not you make a person happy, most times that person being yourself.  Our perception of happiness will continue to change, only if we hold onto what society deems important.  Sorry that was my little rant that got off topic; I hope it all makes enough sense. 

Trust Journal Entry

The Role of Trust in Our Lives

            Although not thought of as often as practiced, trust is a very important part of our lives.  Every day we take chances, but a majority of them are done without even the slightest consideration.  Simple examples like sitting in a chair or getting into a car are both ways we as individuals take risks and assume that they will cost us nothing.  For the most part, we have learned to trust our surroundings and our environment.   However, trusting your surroundings may be as easy but trusting an actual person may be more of a task.  Trust is something that is built over time, with things like commitment and loyalty.  In Thursday’s class last week we learned how difficult it is to actually place trust in someone that are not familiar with.  We were playing a game that had no repercussions, or adverse affects, but still group leaders were found hanging in the balance whether or not they should trust that person across the room.  Trust is not blind; there are many things/behaviors that influence our trust.  Things like past history with a person, or even one’s own ability to be honest with another person.  This chapter helped me identify how important trust actually is in our daily lives.  We count on people every day, we are accountable for the things we say and do, but all of that can be lost very quickly.  Trust is something hard to regain, but easy to lose.