The Importance of Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Essay

Critical thinking has an important role in learning and development because if properly executed it allows me to see the entire situation instead of the individual task. I plan to take the necessary actions to determine the task with open eyes and an unbiased approach. Remembering the facts about the situation can help in resolving the issue. Understanding by reiterating the problem can help me further comprehend. Applying then analyzing the tasks and or situations so I can prepare the steps to come to the evaluation. I can see if the resources are accurate and thorough. The last thing I should be able to do to assure my critical thinking skills are complete is a form of creating. I take all the information of this situation, and use it in my final resolution. These steps are crucial in the ability to think clearly and not be clouded by biased information.

Leadership development in the military is critical to its mission and objectives. Understanding and embracing leadership will foster an agile culture and facilitate attainment of strategic goals. People desire quality leadership to assist with achieving their goals, albeit personal or professional development. Having a clear vision and the motivation to perform at high-levels influences others to work synergistically together to achieve organizational goals. Insomuch, employees value being treated respectfully, fairly, and ethically. Leaders serve people best when they help them develop their own initiative and good judgment, enable them to grow, and help them become better contributors.

Leadership goals should always contain methods of a continuous process of learning through education, training, and individual experiences that help ensure that the message will be communicated in a confident and competent manner when leading troops. Soldiers tend to follow leaders that demonstrate and live the Army values, while displaying their confidence in every decision that affects change. Leaders are not born as organizational or tactical leaders; but grown by their genetic determinism, which is inside and the characteristics they work toward; that mold is which type leader they will become. Not just anyone can lead; you must have the desire to lead, be willing to make the commitment to being a leader, and prepare yourself properly, then you have the desire to become a leader. (Fulton, 1995).

As an officer in the United States Army, it has been imperative for me to understand every facet of leadership and why it remains important to be an effective leader. During this course, I have learned some valuable lessons about myself as a leader and how I can improve on my leadership ability in the future. The journal entries along with the understanding of available leadership theories have been an integral part of my learning during this course. For all of the journals and assessments that I completed, I feel it has given me a good understanding of my current leadership status and my future potential as a leader. All of the specific assessments looked at several areas in regards to leadership; these assessments covered several

Teaching higher order thinking skills is not a recent need. It is apparent that students, at all levels of education, are lagging in problem-solving and thinking skills. Fragmentation of thinking skills, however, may be the result of critical thinking courses and texts. Every course, especially in content subjects, students should be taught to think logically, analyze and compare, question and evaluate.

The Bay of Pigs fiasco, the Challenger Disaster, and the U.S. failure to anticipate the attack on Pearl Harbor – all notable examples of how groupthink tends to plague groups with high cohesiveness (What is Groupthink, n.d.). Oxford Dictionaries defines groupthink as “the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility” (Groupthink, n.d.). With this in mind, it is no surprise that groupthink is going to be a major problem in an organization, such as the military, that values uniformity and a strict chain of command. There is a lot of research on groupthink and evidence of groupthink is apparent in nearly every social group, no matter the size. So, how does a junior officer in the military go about minimizing groupthink among his subordinates and peers without affecting values such as uniformity and chain of command? In order to minimize groupthink, you must minimize the symptoms by encouraging honesty, accountability, and differing opinions. This paper will demonstrate how a junior officer can combat groupthink within the decision making process, standard operating procedures, and the culture of the command.

3. Group think is a concept that involves individuals abandoning their critical senses and agreeing to group process even when they know it will have disastrous consequences. (Challenger disaster, Enron, Iraq war, etc.). Your will encounter these pressures in your work life and need to be prepared. Have you ever done something in a group that you would not have done if you were alone? What happened? How did you feel? What have you learned from this chapter that might help you avoid this behavior in the future, and avoid group think?

Third week into clinical. So far, things are slowly improving, however I do need to work on critical thinking and being less task oriented. I had my very own patient. The clinical objective was to be able to perform a successful health assessment on a patient and to identify factors in the environment that would impact patient care. Hopefully from there, my critical thinking skills will develop through experience and to fill my concept map thoroughly. On Tuesday, my patient was an older gentleman who came in with destruction of the liver due to medication. When caring for my patient, I made sure that he received everything that he wanted. I felt that I did well in that aspect for seeking good for the patient. I was told to get his good and make his bed. I don’t know why making his bed didn’t occur in the beginning. But, I learned that in the beginning, it’s important to make sure that the environment is clean, their bed is made, and ask if they needed a show. The important thing that I received from this is asking yourself what would you want the nurse to do if you were the patient. One thing I do realize is that my ability to work with patients and communicate with them with some baseline knowledge is good. With these, I am able to be more confident in my work. But, I do need to work on looking at the full picture when gathering information from the patient. I tend to overlook things but I will improve by realizing my failures.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how my legacy leader’s use of the Army’s leadership attributes and competencies contributed to my development and leadership philosophy. When it comes to leadership in the Army there are some who are good leaders and others that need some work. Everyone at some point in their career will be in a leadership position and it is important to understand what it takes to be a good leader in the Army. Luckily for us the Army has a guide for us to use that tells us what attributes and competencies make up a good leader (Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA, 2012). While we are provided these attributes and competencies

This is in response to your request for our office to evaluate the merit of Ms. Mitchell’s proposal that we establish and fund a new leadership-development program for our high-potential fourth-year associates.

Throughout history, leadership has always been one of the cornerstones contributing to the success of the United States military. Whether in a Garrison or a combat environment, the applicability and level of effectiveness of leadership can be rooted to the resources made available to leaders. To form a clear comparison of garrison and combat leadership; mission and responsibilities must be taken in consideration. A common leadership responsibility, in both garrison and combat environments, is improving the efficiency and development of Soldiers. Utilizing the Army’s Leaders Development Model, the three domains of institutional, operational, and self-development can be used to gauge the comparison.

This paper is a summary of critical evaluation of the suitability of an article as an academic source. The title of the article is Critical Thinking: An Extended Definition. The author, Professor Ken Petress, analyzes various definitions of critical thinking and provides his definition of the concept as well. It is vitally important when performing research on a topic that we completely understand the topic and that we can apply certain tests or questions to the topic in order to determine its relevance and validity.

The concepts of critical thinking and creative thinking are both gaining increasing importance in the world today. Critical thinking allows people to understand difficult concepts in a manner that is clearer and more defined. They can more readily understand those concepts if they employ critical thinking. In all portions of everyday life, a person is expected to make independent judgments. Those judgments are based on experience and knowledge. Without the ability to think critically, every situation that a person comes across would have to be considered in isolation from all other situations. When a person encounters a problem that is a new one, he or she may be able to use critical thinking to solve those problems.

Critical thinking is a significant and essential topic in recent education. The strategy of critical thinking skills helps identify areas in one's courses as the suitable place to highlight, expand and use some problems in exams that test students' critical thinking skills.

Knowledge is generated through critical and creative thinking. Creative thinking is something new or original that is created with value. Critical thinking is a type of thinking that questions assumptions and validates or invalidates a current belief or something that is said to be previously true. Knowledge is created through the culmination of generally accepted assumptions and creativity. How do you separate general assumptions and creativity? These two types of thinking can be easily separated in regards to concrete or realistic ideas compared to abstract or original ideas however to generate new, acceptable knowledge critical and creative thinking must interact together. The questioning of established beliefs with the creation of