Personal development planing 2 - Essay Example

Hearing her talk about her future sometimes makes me wonder how we could even be considered on the same path. Another friend of mine wants to work in management for a football club. He is obsessed with the sport, a sport that he is horrible at playing but loves watching. He feels that management in a club would be like working a dream job because he could be so close to the sport that he loves. I enjoy a good match every few days, but working in this environment seems to be very limited in scope, yet we are essentially on the same pathway.

I see my future in my family business back home in Saudi Arabia. We have a diverse group of businesses that manages governmental contracting, infrastructure development, agricultural development and financial services such as insurance and investment. I am fortunate in that I have many opportunities available to me that most of my classmates do not have available to them. I do not believe that I have it any easier than my classmates, however. Not everyone has a father that would willingly give them a high position in a construction firm or a financial services industry no matter how qualified.

I know that my father would provide a position for me even if I did poorly at school and needed to drop out. That is not the person I wish to be, however. I want to do well within the family business and I have a desire to be an able manager in whatever position comes available. My first choice is to work in the infrastructure development branch of the company. Planning and implementing massive projects such as bridges, airports, desalinization plants and highways sounds exciting to me. This is my destination, but I need to follow the same pathway my classmates with different dreams have to follow.

I can see that so far, one of the most important employability skills to development is a sense of integrity and an ethical sensitivity towards business decision making. I know that once I am working as a manager for my family company, I will be working with officials from the government because this is the single largest client for my family’s firm. Being dishonest in my dealings with these officials could do a lot of damage to my family’s company. One of the factors that come into play when bidding for government sponsored work in Saudi Arabia is the reputation for honesty the company has built up over generations.

Acting without integrity could harm that reputation for many years to come. Integrity is important in a manager because I have learned that people in positions of leadership are often held to a higher standard than others. This may not be fair, because no one is perfect, but I have learned as I have travelled along this pathway that management is leadership and leadership requires faultless integrity if the support of subordinates is to be gained. A large part of my future career and something that I have enjoyed studying in this pathway is the ability to think critically and to apply problem-solving solutions to real life situations.

As a manager in the family business, I will be confronted with a steady stream of problems to solve. What to do when suppliers do not come through with essential parts, how to resolve a conflict between supervisors and employees and operating within a budget while managing fluctuating supply and commodity prices are just a few of the problems I will need to solve. I have enjoyed the problems presented in some of my modules. I especially have been entertained and enlightened