Workplace Learning and Learning Theory - Essay Example

Career Development Student’s Name Subject Professor University/Institution Location Date An Autobiography My infant years I spent with my mother who was by then a housewife. I spent much time with my brother, who was two years old than me doing childhood games with other relatives’ children. I also developed key interests in reading story books, about animals, fun and ogres. From childhood I grew a passion for swimming, performing in plays and acting. From 5-10, I did home activities everyday of feeding the rabbits and chicken and household chores. My parents have been supportive, and keeping with my progress. My uncles a teacher and a businessman followed my progress and mentored me. I always had an opportunity to participate and press for more opportunity for the youths. At the same time I participated in skits and Sunday school competitions. From 10-15 I assumed more responsibilities, through public speeches and coordinating activities in secondary school. After secondary school, I have freely interacted with workmates at a sales group, church, relatives and local leaders. They inculcated in me how to be responsible, promote teamwork and participative decision making. I have been involved in weekdays at work and through different teams we have conducted regional motivational talk, special events and public education and awareness. School, Work, Life In Secondary school History, Chemistry commerce and languages were my favorite. However Physics and Geography were the least. I also performed well in my favorite but relative on least favorite. Much of out-class time I was involved in plays and acting both in secondary and University. The best job I had was a project management in my local township, each group composing of four people was assigned a task in a local suburb which dealt with efficient modes of waste disposal, domestic heating and lighting cheap methods and recycling products. The job was interesting as we learnt and went on to teach other, and I felt progress, our supervisor was supportive and the task was interactive. However it was repetitive that often I never felt progress. I facilitated a youth event from mobilizing, planning and coordination and it was effective from the reactions the supervisor received from the youths. I failed to meet the last two objectives for recycling management, due to lack of good time plan. An ideal job to me would mean balance, progressive, good remuneration and continuously assessed inputs and outputs. My preference is to work with diverse groups in terms of education, lifestyle and cultural orientations. Self-Exploration-Theme Identification From my class responses, career development is important for academic as well as social personal development. Professional efforts in addressing the issue are important. Sufficient information in connected manner is good for a person career development (Conley, 2010). As observed by Kuijpers, (2006) there are also school wide programs for career development, integrated in school curriculum, and collaboratively implemented. I have also learnt that employability demands must be considered in career development. Emphasis is put in individual and self management (McMahon, Patton & Watson, 2003). I have learnt to reflect on capacities, motives, networking, and career control and work exploration. I have considered modifying my orientations about extracurricular activities as most of them are meant to inculcate teamwork, dealing with challenges continuous evaluation and considering alternatives which are important in career progress. I am fit in many scenario depending on the choice to work in project management areas, but another most important I have learnt is to take people as core for networking. I have also to reduce reliance on supervisor since many employers want employees who can self-manage themselves. Most members of class have identified the most variables for career competencies as mobility perspective, private life and career support at work. Individual Differences Individual differences arise from the way we perceive different things and issues (Franken & Muris, 2005). I in response to the learning experiences I am more of having an internal locus of control. Internals are capable to work in challenging environments and long term activities. They are also good in career development due to much engagement of mental work and all this may promote them to achieve a lot from their career. On the other hand externals are best to work in established and secure organizations, with motivational and participative leadership. However they might be dominated as they are often dependant on other people decisions. My cognitive style is more for Sensation/thinking (ST). I agree with the assessment since in most cases I have responded practically to the preferred alternatives as I have indicated which are related to my career development. From the interpersonal values questionnaire reflection my score on theory Y are relatively higher than that of theory X. However the evaluations have made my interpretation relate to the less intensity I have about a fixed nature of human behaviour. There is a balanced thought of where I regard some people as hard-working and trust-worthy, but see others as irresponsible and needing direction (Burke, 2009). Occupational Exploration My career aspirations are to work with a growing private financial institution, with core roles in planning and implementing business strategies (Dik, Sargent & Steger, 2008). Such a career means being informed of local as well as international technology and features of sound financial institution. Dynamism, hard work and continuous knowledge and skills application are needed which ultimately lead to career progress, remuneration progress and prestige (Farr, 2006). It also relate to my short-term career goals of improving skills, meeting deadlines, balancing work and social life, attending training sessions and improving educational qualifications and skills. My long-term dimensions of career goals are to attain a highest position in such an institution, realize great outputs, retire early and become a consultant for financial institutions in a bigger region. On operational goals in the business I will have to meet the long-term customers, shareholders and employees expectations. This will be through developing quality services and promoting sound management (Ludden & Shatkin, 2001). For important aspects for this output I must learn to work by diverse strategies in managing and promote collaborative tasks by information provision, technology and flexibility to employees. I will also need to manage team processes by decisions driven by data, diffuse meeting, scheduling face-to-face meetings and develop alternatives to enrich debates. Career Strategy Development I have identified some strategies that I will develop to attain my stated long-term and short-term career goals. I have to define my career success in my own terms and not on rank and salary in working place. This will be influenced by strategic planning, market analysis, feasibility analysis and competitive intelligence approach (Evans, & Kersh, 2003). Participating in workshops and consultancy to be equipped for career support programs and design career strategy. In the workplaces I need to identify and make use of activities that develop career support implementation programs, evaluation of those programs and provision of tools, coaching and resource (O’Connor, 2004). Some of the short term activity is meant to develop my intrapersonal experiences. This will then be implicated in interpersonal relations at work in the first years. The developed activities for the first three years are meant to help me deal with efficient organizational communication; restore compromised working relationships, trust, accountability, individual contribution, and productivity. Long-term activities for career development will include learning from external organizations, with competitive strategies and evaluating their skills and competencies that increase their advantages. Conflict management will also be an internal and external learning process, to manage and exploit conflict in a way to promote coherence (Bertoli & Pistore., 2004.). Career Planning My key career priorities and desires are to get involved in multiple tasks to experience the wide range of challenges and solutions in organizational real life situations. After evaluations I would consider a task of significance to me depending on most probable capabilities. Currently, the key requirements in my career are training and development of knowledge and skills in practical aspects. Long-term and short-term goals are greater motivators. I am strongly driven by accountability, equal opportunity and community development values. My interests to continuously learn and be independent can help me promote a learning culture and accountability among organizational members. I can strongly maneuver through unfamiliar paths and build business from scratch, and motivate people within a short while to adopt a thought and make meaningful outputs. Other talents desired are building relationship and working with unfamiliar people efficiently without taking much time to develop trust (Duffy, & Sedlacek, 2007). Planning to achieve some of these key talents will come from working with dynamic teams, activities and scenarios (Bertoli & Pistore, 2004). I purpose to participate in international meetings, exchange learning programs and representing organizational matters to policy makers, delegates and new customers. This will promote confidence at first time face to face interactions with different people. Talents and Career anchors According to Jiang, Klein & Balloun, (2001) critical thinking in complex situations is also a desirable talent. To promote critical thinking I will participate in investigative and thoughtful scenarios in social and occupational matters. This is for developing logical questioning, critical answering and influencing dialogue that are flexible to get information which would otherwise been withheld. However there are potential obstacles and constrains that are envisioned such as equal opportunity that might cause rotations taking longer than expected to develop such skills. Most organizations leaders delegate tasks and opportunities to employees who easily master them to avoid lowering the expected value. Identifying the right mentors in line with my career is also critical, since most mentors happen to shape new thoughts instead of identifying personal potentials and develop them. The three main goals in my career are an aim to acquire enough expertise in management field, choosing and developing passionate profession and finally get promoted (Munby, et al., 2003). This will be systematically achieved in ten years in a growing financial institution. The five career anchors priorities include: Managerial competence as a career anchor (1) Entrepreneurial creativity as a career anchor (2) Autonomy and independence as career anchors (3) Technical/functional career anchor (4) Service/ dedication to a cause as a career anchor (5) Personality Type (Keirsey Temperament Sorter) As Wheeler, Jessup & Martinez, (2002) observes reflecting on the questions about personality type, I understand myself by evaluating how my personality determines what to go for in a particular situation. This will reflect in my reactions in the job and relationship with other people. I like open options, more introspective and a practical sort of a person. Together, I am inclined to value judgments, particulars and finished products. I am also devoted, act swiftly and more to scheduled work and harmonious relationships. This has in the past allowed me to deliver timely solutions and cope with extreme people. As a manager I am proficient to lead people by motivating them in challenging and strenuous tasks. I have an appeal to concise answers and to the point and this is very important for time management. Introspective personality also helps me to analyze and evaluate different alternatives, to make final decisions (Kelly, & Jugovic, 2001). I like pointing mistakes to approach them strategically and finish activities in a logical connectable process. After I get along with issues I like to actively participate by providing as many alternatives as I can to exhaust my ideas and possibly work with the best. I also share my whole thoughts to people who are working with me. Interpersonal Communication Skills My scenarios of communication in dialogue and consultations have influenced my evaluations according to this test. I can tolerate ambiguity since I follow other people communicate until I get the gist. Apart from attentive listening, I also help people structure and come out well with their ideas (Ivanov & Werner, 2010). As I communicate I try to give the concise and contextual information and I am sensitive about my audience. I am also swift to rectify any unfamiliar and negative words that might cause negative sentiments (Sommers, 2008). I have ability to navigate with people’s feelings during communication and possibly control their emotions in order to enhance profitable communication. However being too concise has not been effective in all scenarios as other people would need more information to clearly understand, and thus I have in some scenarios being misunderstood. I am keen to identify key information individuals have, this has allowed me to follow such individuals and develop their ideas to meaningful outcomes. Through communication I tend to express my expectations and personality in an open way to make it efficient for different people to work along with me (Wright, 2007). I can help people develop and feel appreciated to improve on their communication styles as well as different context (Smart, 2006). Locus of Control & Attribution Style I rarely leave things to chance. Much of my outcomes I relate to my actions and failure to act. I evaluate my achievements and failures against my inputs in terms of time, resources, skills and knowledge. I am pleased when I manage and monitor processes to success and I get delighted for such achievements. I have progressed after the outcomes of different events irrespective of whether negative, moderate or positive. This has improved my inner motivations, self-esteem, expectations and a risk-taking behavior. I rarely agree with people who leave thing to chance and relate outcomes to external phenomena. Internally I develop thoughts, plans and processes in a way to manage the process and outcomes (Ziemkiewicz, Crouser & Su, 2011). In a practical aspect with people I can enforce moral aspects and make peoples as well as my choices and decisions rational, calculative and accountable. I also believe in managing unforeseeable constrains to reduce and manage the extent of divergence in goals achievement. I can therefore manipulate processes and systems to enhance flexibility in achieving life issues as well as occupation one. Attributing any outcome on my inputs has influenced me to be more critical, rational and allow objective thoughts in team work in order to avoid frustrations and conflict. Intelligence quotient (IQ) Through my evaluation in line with IQ test I have realized that most of time I do not have the right word for a specific context and therefore I tend to use another word relative to it. I also forget phrases such as idioms and proverbs and therefore I do not arrange them well in communication to make it concise (Kaufman, 2009). I have therefore sourced on general forms of words and phrases that original and most preferable for a particular context. I am swift to connect, issues even when spoken in figurative. This I do by relating the context with specific comment and develop what was not said from what is said. I also figure out things by relating them to virtual pictures to come up with meaning. My capabilities have and can be efficient applied in dialogue and feedback where important information is being accessed and probably it would have been reserved. Efficient and proficient extra lingual cues has also developed the way I develop thought of what individual want to do and the conditions they are in. This is important in my career life to ensure privacy, fast access to information and functioning in different context like multi lingual and multi cultural environments (Danner, et al, 2011). References Bertoli, P. & Pistore, M., 2004. Planning with extended goals and partial observability. Proceedings of the 14th Int’l Conf on Automated Planning and Scheduling ICAPS’04, p.270-278. Burke, W., 2009. The Douglas McGregor Legacy. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 45(1), p.8-11. Conley, D., 2010. College and career readiness. Houston a Challenge, 67(6), p.10-14. Danner, D. et al., 2011. 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