The Developing Manager - Assignment Example

The Developing Manager Reference Table of content Introduction 2. Management skills performance 3. Personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats 3.1 Strengths 3.2 Weaknesses 3.3 Opportunities 3.4 Challenges 4. Objectives and targets 5. Managerial and personal skills support for career development 6. Review of career and personal development needs, current performance and future needs to produce a development plan 7. Conclusion 8. Bibliography 1. Introduction The purpose of this report is to provide insights into the managerial behaviours of a prospective manager in the hospitality industry. The report takes into consideration the personal and managerial skills which are influential in shaping the career path of a manager. This report looks at my own personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats which are aligned to my career aspirations of manager in the hospitality industry. To achieve my full potential, I have developed a set of objectives and values and how they shape my career development. Further, this report examines my current position in terms of personal development needs, current performance and future needs in the excellence of this career. 2. Management skills performance Managers have different skills and aspects which help them when dealing with different issues in order to bring out the best out of a situation. Skills of a manager should be aligned with the need to achieve the set goals of the organization. I’m a team leader and I have been involved with leading and coordinating people to achieve the set objectives of the hotel where I plan to work as a manager in the future. My knowledge, strengths, and abilities have enabled me to influence control in most of the groups in have worked with. This is because I’m a transparent, honest leader with high public relation skills. This has enabled me to communicate effectively with my team. I have also managed to use my skills to motivate hard work which has seen my team provide enormous support to our target. As a leader, I’m internally motivated and my resilient capacity allows me to go on even at tough times which are mostly prevalent in the disadvantaged places (Sandra, C., 2009). I have good conflict resolution skills. While I have successfully managed to be a very effective facilitator, my efforts are mostly dragged behind my criticism which threatens to wreak havoc while we are working. Some members may offer criticisms which are not well taken by the recipient resulting to conflicts. My knowledge, strengths, and abilities as an effective leader allow me to be effective in such areas as conflict resolutions, delegation capacities and organizational skills. This helps me organize and manage tasks without being perceived to be unfair by some members. I believe that possession of such abilities enables me to improve the performance of my groups to achieve our purpose as outlined in our objectives. Organizational skills help me manage the team’s resources properly as our situation requires as to be very economical and avoid wastage as supply is minimal (Sandra, C., 2009). Effective organizational skills in team management; I have the capacity to form working teams which have a reduced level of conflicts. This ensures that the teams are able to work effectively towards achieving the goals of the hotel. In this case, acting as a coordinator to mobilize the staff to work together and achieve set goals drives me to work together with others to realize the set goals (Deutsch, & Coleman, 2000). Appreciation of different cultures; managers are able to communicate with other people when they have established connections with culturally different people. This ensures that they establish an understanding of one’s culture such that the subordinates won’t feel offended culturally by the activities of the managers. Effective communication skills; the manager should possess effective communication skills such as active listening, ability to speak fluently and competently by uttering information in bite-size’ pieces which allows for effective decoding, practicing pace communication and use of effective body language and nonverbal cues. I pride myself in being an open person who is able to appreciate and work with people of diverse culture towards a common goal (Smith, Farmer, & Yellowley, 2012). Courage; a manager should have the courage to face challenges and effect measures capable of resolving issues in their departments. This is based on their competencies and capabilities. It is imperative to say that staff in the hotel will appreciate to be given orders by a manager who has courage and self-confidence. This is why I plan on gaining much competence and improving my expertise from time to time to ensure I have the competence, the self-confidence and courage to give viable instructions to the staff. Decision making capacity; I pride myself in having good decision making capabilities. This is because a manager with high capacity for decision making enhances fair and just decision making during conflict resolution leading to increased respects and trust by the employees. 3. Personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats 3.1 Strengths My personal strengths help me in building my career as a manager. The skills and experiences I have acquired through my studying and through interaction with managers in the hospitality industry gives me an edge in the practical field. Some of my strengths are; Effective communication skills I’m articulate in giving public speeches, directions and instructions. Ambitious in aiming high ad striving to achieve the best. Highly motivated and have the ability to motivate my team and other people around me. Ability to make viable decisions which has positive effects on the output. Courage and self-confidence which is developed by my competence. I believe these are my strengths because they drive me to excel in school life, personal life and my part time job effectively and I’m able to multitask all of them. As such, I believe that my managerial job in the future will be very successfully since I have the right framework to base my skills on. 3.2 Weaknesses Several factors in my daily activities in this field cause challenges for me and they need to be improved in case I want to excel in my future endeavours as a manager in this field. My weaknesses are the reason for my limitations in terms of success in achieving full potential. Some of my weaknesses include; Upgrading conflict resolution skills; while I have been very successful in the past in solving conflicts in my groups, I have realized that conflicts extending out of the workplace are very difficult to solve. Though I’m articulate in speaking, my writing lets me down. This poses a challenge where I’m required to present hand written materials. I believe this weakness will in future be obsolete due to improvement of technology. Nevertheless, I need to improve my writing skills. I’m poor in doing follow-ups on delegated tasks. Delegations are a very important activity as it saves time and resources. That’s why this weakness needs to be improved. I’m a perfectionist and unable to appreciate substandard work no matter how challenging. I believe these are my weaknesses because they reduce my efficiency. 3.3 Opportunities Despite my challenges, I have several opportunities which are very helpful in helping me improve my career. The opportunities focus on reducing the effects on my weaknesses on my job aspiration while improving the strengths I already have. Such opportunities include; I’m receiving training on time management. I’m interacting with other team leaders to learn from them. I’m carrying out a survey to rate myself in my groups both in school and at work. I’m planning a to-do list to save time. These are opportunities since they are helpful in limiting my weaknesses and solving my challenges. 3.4 Challenges Challenges are like weaknesses as they also limit my chances of achieving full potential in my career aspiration in the hospitability industry. My over ambitious attitude makes me very fatigued and this can cause me to project on others. As such, trivial things may result into relationship conflicts. Balancing my duties takes all the time leaving me with no time to rest properly. This is especially aggravated by the fact that I have difficulties delegating tasks which leaves me with a lot of work to do. I’m highly inpatient with underachievers in my teams both at work and school. I’m uncomfortable delegating tasks which makes the other members perceive me as authoritative. I believe these are my threats because they undermine my strengths and limit my performance. 4. Objectives and targets In order for a manager to succeed, they should have set objectives and goals which guide them in their daily activities towards achieving their goals. Objectives should be set and achieving according to the order of their priorities. My objectives in line with my career are set in order for which they should be achieved. This allows me to satisfy the urgent objectives and the simple ones whose achievement aids in the achievement of other subsequent goals. My objectives are as asset below; To achieve a distinction in my hospitality management course which will give the foundation I need to manage in this industry. Improving my knowledge and capabilities to enable me acquire a job in one of the leading hotels Build my own distinct identity in the industry buy restructuring my takes in a way which improves the output of the hotel both in quality and quantity. This will allow me to market myself a brand in the market. Improving my strengths while at the same time declining the weaknesses and threats in have in this industry; this will allow me to develop a niche in the industry through hard work. My own values should be aligned with the objectives in order to have a framework which helps in guiding me on the right path to be taken in achieving my own objectives. My values as manager are set as below. To adopt a customer- centric approach where feedback from customers is given centre-stage and improvements done to improve the service as an when the feedback is given. To focus on dynamic ways of achieving results in order to seize opportunities especially since the hospitality industry is very dynamic and keeps changing from time to time. To be guided by the principles of diversity, equality, discipline and quality service as the industry requires a person to uphold equality of all customers and employees regardless of their language or cultural background. To focus on motivating employee and make the hotel the best place to work. This will be done by working closely with the employees to make sure that, objectives and goals of the hotel are achieved effectively. Developing my own poetical in this industry will entail building on motivation which aims at achieving personal and group objectives. This is achieved by setting and monitoring goals; employees are largely motivated by setting goals through holding frequent staff meetings. In these meetings, they evaluate the performance of the employees and their achievements against the set goals. During review meetings, they discuss the challenges they are facing and consequently deliberate on ways of improving their performance. This motivates employees because they are able to share their progress and receive positive reinforce (Smith, Farmer, & Yellowley, 2012). I also plan to build my capacity by setting performance standards associated with career path and pay rise. Performance of the staff is indicated by their success in attracting the attention of the clients and ensuring retention of such clients in the future by building loyalty. Setting performance standards gives the staff a sense of responsibility which leads to their achievement in advancement of their careers and consequently enhance pay rise. This does not only benefit the employee but also the hotel through increased clients (Torrington, Hall &Taylor, 2005). As a manager, I view effective communication as a vehicle which drives the whole organization forward. With effective communication, employees are highly motivated since grievances are raised and addressed effectively. This allows the employees to avoid task and relationship conflicts and enable the employees to appreciate diversity and equality in the work environment (Sandra, C., 2009). 5. Managerial and personal skills support for career development My managerial and personal skills are aligned with my development of career development a manager in a hotel. Personally I’m good in applying ethics in my managerial operations as a moral leader I possess traits such as honesty, integrity and trustworthy. This involves respecting the soundness of organization and adherence to the codes set by the organization. This allows me to do the right thing, reason well and uphold the highest level of justice even in the most difficult circumstances. My personal standards enable me to be fair and considerate by making clear justifications in all situations (Waddock, 2007). Honesty; honesty allows me to be honest and always tell the truth. As a manager I should pick employees with highly valued potential and nature them for the good of the organization. Honesty can also be nurtured to other employees. Integrity; I uphold high integrity levels, fairly judge all employees the same way, be fair and open. This involves having transparent ways in which processes are carried out in the organization in terms of leading and also in management. The process of managing change, appraisal and rewards should be fair. In return, employees respond positively in a transparent and accountable working environment. Emotional intelligence; I’m endowed with empathy. As a manager, I should be a good listener and establish and warm atmosphere conducive for working. This includes establishing working relationships and establishment of loyalties which enable to employees to form a sense of identity and trust in the operations of the organization Positive attitude, Confidence, determination, and persistence; this is demonstrated by a high degree of positivity and faith in myself in the attainment of the organizations goals vision. My mission is to challenge the status quo through determination and persistent in the operations of the organization. Communication of roles and responsibilities; I’m a good communicator and I have the capacity to provide a route for the success of all the employees in the organization. I’m capable of communicating the roles and responsibilities expected of the employees and avoid surprising the employees with bad news. A developmental plan should be laid out on how to performance should be effected and it should be available for all the employees to familiarize with. My managerial skills are aligned with my effectiveness in the decisions. This is because decision making is very influential in determining effectiveness of the output leading to success in the hotel. High quality decision making leads to high quality output which lead to success of the hotel. Decision making skills are significant in this industry in effecting changes which take place regularly in the hotel due to the nature of the hospitality industry. In order for the manager of carry out his daily functions of planning, directing, organising and controlling, decisions have to be made constantly especially during problems solving and implementing new strategies of performing tasks (Bargal, 2000). I’m technologically skilled and have the knowledge of using computers in running the operation of the hotel. To achieve the set goals and objectives of the hotel, I have the capacity to adopt the Information management system as a communication vehicle which will help me with information by providing diverse information which is crucial in decision making. For effective decision making, the managers should have the right type of information which will lead to quality decisions. The MIS is technologically advanced and connects the manager to different applications thus providing information on company sales, transactions, expenditure, revenue and inventories. This information assists the managers in designing which areas need what resources or capabilities to improve. This will lead to efficient allocation of resources and formulation of strategies (Torrington, Hall &Taylor, 2005). 6. Review of career and personal development needs, current performance and future needs to produce a development plan My career development plan for a managerial position in the hospitality industry will be based on improvements of my strengths and opportunities while reducing the weaknesses and threats which curtailing my performance at the moment. The most important job qualities from my career development include; Have the ability to work in teams by achieving both personal and collective goals. This will entail working with others for the achievement of the objectives set by the hotel. The objectives should be met within a timely deadline. Have the ability to resolve conflicts and make decisions fats enough in order to take advantage of every upcoming opportunity. This is because the hospitality industry is characterized by time to time changes and opportunities could be missed if timely decisions are not made. Have communication skills; this is important for both personal and well as team’s effectiveness. Effective communication reduces the chances of task and relationship conflicts. Ability to plan for work and deliver effective results by effective allocations of resources and capabilities in areas which yield the bets outcomes for the hotel. Proficiency with the technological equipment like computers. This will make work easier and more accurate since the computer provides a lot of information which can be used to aid in decision making. Have the capacity to influence others; this will entail having charismatic leadership qualities to ensure trust of the employees. Have leadership skills. Have previous work experience in similar sector. Currently, I have worked hard into achieving some of my career insights but there are skills which I need ti improve on or develop for me to achieve my future career aspirations. I’m a good group leader and I think I have the qualities required to coordinate and consolidate a team. However, this challenges me because I do not have trust in delegation. I need to develop trust in my team members since delegation will help me get work done easily. I also have a good ability to make decisions relating to our teams with regards to achieving the set objectives of the hotel. However, the teams have become much attached that some relationships inside the groups are witnessed even in personal lives of the staff. As such, most of their personal conflicts are brought to the teams. Thus, I need to upgrade my conflict resolution skills to handle this new phenomenon. I’m highly articulate and coherent in speech presentation. However, I have a problem in presenting coherently written work. While this can erode my confidence sometimes, I do not think it’s a major problem which can affect my future work because the technological application requires for every official document is required to be typed. In line with my strengths and capabilities, I have realized that there are changes that should be done in order to my future career to be successfully. I have noted that I need to improve; Delegation skills-this will help me distribute work to the other team members efficiently. This will significantly reduce the time needed to tackle tasks and also save time. Time management- it will help me balance properly my work, school and personal life. Develop conflict resolution skills- to help in proper coordination of tasks. Carry out a survey to improve my skills-so that I can match the expectations of my team. Interact with other team leaders in sharing ideas- in order to have diversified experience. 7. Conclusion This report has served to provide useful insights into the development of a career as a manager in the hospitality industry. It is imperative to say that a manager in this industry needs to be alert and possess dynamic skills especially due to the nature of the industry where responsiveness to market feedback is very crucial as the market trends change from time to time. The manager must possess skills and characteristics befitting a leader in order to coordinate teams and the rest of the staff towards achieving the goals of the hotel. Furthermore, decision making skills are very important where knowledge of computer application such as MIS plays a very huge part in today’s industry. 8. Bibliography Bargal, D. 2000. The manager as leader. In R. Patti (Ed.), The handbook of social welfare management (pp. 303–319). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Deutsch, M. and Coleman, P. (eds.). 2000. The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Smith, P., Farmer, M. & Yellowley, W. 2012. Organisational Behaviour, Hodder Education, Abingdon. Sandra, Collins. 2009. Managing Conflict and Workplace Relationships. Centage Learning Inc.. Torrington D, Hall L & Taylor S. 2005. Human Resource Management (6th edn) London, FT Prentice Hall. Read More