Managing Oneself - Term Paper Example

Managing Oneself by Part One Assessing personal strengths and weaknesses is a key aspect of becoming a professional in any sphere. It is crucialto recognize probable gaps in education, weak points, and lack of experience to be able to act adequately in any critical situation. It is also important to evaluate personal strengths without overestimating them because arrogance and ignorance can disable a person, a manager when serious actions must be taken (Drucker, 1999). The main attribute of every successful professional is constant development which is possible only after facing personal strong and weak points, analyzing them, and creating a plan of their modification and improvement. I can surely say that I am good at management because I was in charge of my own salon and spent 32 years running it. My management skills thus were developing gradually year after year as I was gaining more and more experience. I can surely get on well with colleagues and subordinates with the help of courtesy and efficient communicative skills. I was always aware of the internal atmosphere in my salon because I often communicated to the people who worked there. I always considered effective delegation of responsibilities to be an important aspect of good management. It is crucial to know how approve, encourage ad criticize employees without hurting anyone. People need to know that their efforts will contribute to the general success that is why I aimed to underline my workers` achievements when appropriate. The most difficult part for me was to learn how to distribute tasks and responsibilities among employees equally and how to maintain constant balance. Moreover, it was crucial for me to arrange effective communication within a team at my absence. I consider leadership skills to be the core of good management and I can say that my leadership technique and abilities required a lot of efforts and time to get improved. Leadership presupposes abilities to organize and to motivate team and control its performance (Leatherman, 2010). It was a challenge for me to create a team out of people who did not know each other and could not rely on each other but after some preparation and time I managed to build trust and create clarity among my colleagues. Nevertheless, there is still strong necessity to enhance my existing strengths to make my performance even more efficient. First, I would pay more attention to the effective criticism which is a part of my communication skills. Being a leader requires an ability to criticize subordinates from time to time and distinguish their mistakes and weak points for the general benefit of the team (O`Neill, 2011). This is very sensitive aspect because most people take criticism too personally and lose motivation after minor negative remarks. It is necessary to stick to general requirements regarding criticism, underline only negative performance and help the person keep the face at any price. However, it turns out to be far more complicated in real life than in theory. So I would like to improve my communication skills in this aspect in order to criticize employees right and effectively. Second, I would like to enhance motivational techniques because management styles change with technologies development and it is important to set adequate goals and motivate the team with up-to-date methods and goals. It is also necessary to understand the best type of learning. There are people who learn by writing and talking but most of us are visual and audio learners. I perceive and memorize information better when I see it and can utilize my visual memory remembering some facts. I can enhance my knowledge by making accent on schemes and graphs. It is also important for me to stress information with color and types. I will also take visual style of learning into account when while demonstrating any information to my superiors. I will try to keep face-to-face contact with all my peers and subordinates instead of using other communication media such as mail or telephone. This will help me to proceed all information provided by them more effectively and memorize it better. Every type of work sooner or later makes the person face an important choice. I realized quite early in my life that there are some principles which I cannot accept without losing my dignity. And these principles and values have become the fundament on which I managed to build myself as a professional. So it is extremely important for me to remain humane and respect every employee as a personality. In any situation in which I have to choose between remaining humane or acting strictly and hurting someone`s self-esteem I will always choose first variant. Moreover, financial aspects are always secondary to me compared to the quality of products and services. It is important to understand what you can sacrifice to gain profit and I personally realized that reputation is the main capital that a man can gain throughout life. Thus, in the situation when I will be able to get some profit at the expense of my professional reputation I will definitely make a bet on my image as a specialist and on the name of my company. In a long-term perspective this stake is always worth contributions, and I am the person that orient on long-dated perspectives more than on short-term gains. I have already realized that setting and maintaining good relationships in a team is a compulsory element of efficient work. I understand how important it is to get more information on the strengths and weaknesses of my colleagues and all the possible information about their style of work, principles and values. Team is functional only in case when all members can rely on each other and can discuss any problem that appears. Thus, regular and effective communication between all the team members is a must (Adair, 1997).So healthy climate of respect and trust is essential for an effective work. I try to perceive every coworker or subordinate or a boss as a personality first of all, and build amicable but still professional relationships. It is also important to understand that in most critical issues or problems it is human factor that plays the main role. It is almost always possible to find a way to resolve any problematic issue by addressing the right person with the right approach. That is why it is crucial to remain open, available, and professional at work to become a part of a team. I am going to think of positive and healthy relationships establishment as the main priority at my work. Part Two Career in compliance and the possibility to receive second education offers a number of personal, social, and financial opportunities for me. I consider that every person has to try himself in different roles during life without sticking to one profession. I spent enough time by running my personal business to understand that I want to do something new. My experience of management gave me a solid ground for considering career in the sphere of compliance. This job will provide me with long-term security and necessary impact for development. It is important for all people to find something that gives them inspiration and force to make changes in life, and this second career is the thing that works for me. I will able to apply the qualities that I developed during my first career and be useful to people. Compliance specialists are to assess, administer, support and implement the regulations and the policy of the company. They usually follow the adherence and the compliance of these policies, requirements, and plans by the employees of the company (Compliance Professional, 2012). My analytical mind, attention to details, leadership skills will be useful for becoming a specialist in compliance. I also realized that as an extrovert I need to contact with people to charge emotionally. And career in compliance is just the most perfect chance to be socially active and to develop my interpersonal skills. I am exceptionally good in resolving conflicts as during my career in business I managed to learn how to tackle problems effectively so my skills in this question will be helpful for the team. Again second career is a challenge for me and I love challenges as they make life real and exciting. Most people consider that studying in older age is not as important as getting education in young age and regard it mostly as a whim. However, I regard it from the opposite perspective: after gaining experience in life people know themselves better, know their strengths and weaknesses, preferences and realize how they can contribute to the society in the best way. And that is why it is the perfect time to learn something new and start a new career because awareness that comes with age gives sense of self-confidence and understanding of righteousness of the choice. Moreover, starting a new career is always a chance to guarantee all necessary financial resources needed for family, new plans, travelling. Living a life to the fullest is possible only when there is financial and psychological stability, and new exciting job is the most adequate way to achieve this stability. Part Three I was always aware that making decisions is the most difficult part of manager`s job because each decision leads to a number of irreversible consequences. As a manager, a boss bears responsibility for his subordinates he has to be able to make right and often rapid decisions. However, sometimes managers do not have much time to consider thoroughly and weigh down all for and against carefully and have to make choices really fast under the influence of the other. I understood that the ability to analyze fast all the arguments equally and to predict possible outcome of the decision are crucial for a manager. In the decision making process I always tried to orient on long-term goals and perspectives and always aimed to take into account the opinions of all the members of the team. Sometimes, however, I made decisions too fast trusting my intuition and that is when I had further problems. It is important to take a long pause and discuss all the points with team members before making a final decision. Sometimes the future of the company depends on some decision which was made carelessly. However, in most cases it is rather difficult to determine which opinion I had to trust and that is when I tried to rely on my personal experience and professionalism. Nevertheless, during common discussions I listened carefully to every member of the team and encouraged each participant to speak out freely but it was complicated to determine that “right” point. It was a revelation to me that some experts differentiate between two levels of the conflict: cognitive and affective. I used to have cases when people were unable to come to the agreement because they involved personal frictions and relationships into the working conflict. As colleagues are doomed to communicate in some way during common work, their personal preferences and internal tension prevents normal work, and it is the task of the leader of the group to direct the discussion, the conflict into constructive stream. The article written by Garvin and Roberto helped me to understand how advocacy style usage during discussion can bring fruitful results. I could not clearly differentiate between advocacy and inquiry styles but after reading this information I was able to comprehend better my conflicts at previous work. Inquiry style is the style that I am going to utilize during discussion because it allows all the members contributing equally to the general decision and feeling an important part of the team. It is important to hear, to understand, and to value every opinion. It was a discovery for me that during a consideration phase of the conflict it is necessary to pose unexpected theoretical questions in a rather tough manner. Such questions stimulate analytical skills of the participants and make faults of some arguments evident to the whole group. I also neglected the power of non-verbal language during conflict. As leaders have to recognize the signs of discontent and disagreement in the employees it is crucial to pay attention to the changes I facial expressions, gestures, such as crossed arm or raised eyebrows. It is also important to create an impression that the decision that was made was negotiated and thoroughly weighed by all the participants of the discussion. That is why recognizing someone`s resistance may help to avoid further discontent and tension within the company. In most cases subordinates are unable to set the results of some decision at once and some time has to pass before it will become evident that someone`s opinion was neglected due to the common benefit. I also realized how important it is to encourage right questions ad interaction between teammates because it is the character of the questions and the ability to listen that defines if the discussion id healthy, productive, and constructive (Garvin & Roberto, 2001). Thus, I came to conclusion that the career in compliance is the best choice for me because it offers great personal, social, and financial perspectives. I regard this career as a challenge which will give necessary impact in life and will provide me with the things that I need: communication with people and financial stability. My management skills which I gained during the years while I was running my own business will be absolutely helpful in my second career. However, there are many aspects that I have to enhance in order to achieve the highest results as compliance professional. First, I have to dedicate more time to upgrading my leadership skills and enhancing communication skills as well. Second, it is important to make emphasis on motivating a team and criticizing employees effectively because these are the weakness that I recognize in my management tactics. Moreover, I am going to change the way people participate in discussions making any working conflicts constructive and fruitful. The skills of effective decision making will also be important for my future career. References Adair, J. (1997). Effective communication: the most important management skill. London: Pan Books Compliance Professional (2012). Association of Certified Fraud Experts. Retrieved from: http://www.acfe.com/career-path-compliance-professional.aspx Drucker, P. (1999). Managing oneself. Harvard business review. Garvin, D. & Roberto, M. (2001).What you did not know about making decisions. Harvard Review. Leatherman, R. (2010). Quality leadership skills: standards for leadership behavior. New York: HRD Press O`Neill, A. (2011).Manager to leader: Skills and insights for successful transition. 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