Developing Personal Management Skills - Assignment Example

Developing Manager Introduction As a manager of any organization, you should make use of all the managerial skills and your personal knowledge to drive the organization or department forward. These skills are a requirement to obtain, develop as well as demonstrating a variety of transferable skills for the management of the other staff. Therefore, managers should be rich in managerial skills so that they can apply to suit the type of organization. However, any manager who is deficient of some skills has time to learn, either from others or developing a career plan that guides him/her in executing duties and responsibilities. Like any other business, organizations have little or no interest on good management and emphasize on exciting and glamorous work of leadership. Nevertheless, managers are subjects to good performance. Generally, managers should translate their leadership skills to high productivity and good governance. Whereas leaders bring forth vision, motivation and challenge, all these things are in vain if there is no effective implementation as a result of good management. Essentially, a good manager should be equipped with vast skills, ranging from planning, communication, and delegation to motivation. Since there are several management skills required for proper management, it is very tricky to build skills in areas you are not comfortable. Leaders have different management skills, and their applications vary (Mcgrath, 2009). However, for good results and long term success, it is worth analyzing your personal managerial skills, knowing your strengths and weaknesses and capitalizing in your best management skills. As if this is not enough, pose a challenge to your to improve in your weakest points. This helps you to identify your strong and weak areas, take advantage on past and manage the latter (Hannaway & Gabriel , 2005). Personal management skills Communication skills Communication is a very crucial tool in the management. In any organization, you have to communicate to your workmates, seniors, juniors and the stakeholders. This tool has given me confidence in place of work and build a lot of trust. As long as I know what am talking about, worries have no place. It implies that as I communicate with staff, I should have substance so that they can listen to me. Likewise, as they pass information, they should have a clear conscience of what they want to pass across. Communication is a very critical skill for managers. For a number of years, employees in one of the organizations, I once worked went for strike because of reshuffling their supervisors. Essentially, there was a need to make changes, but most of them were unwilling. When I joined as one of the managers, tension was all over. I took some time to study the organizational structure and the entire set up, and I realized there was need indeed to reshuffle. The only challenge was that no communication was done correctly. There was a need for other workers to be communicated why it was done. The Human Resource manager and I organized for a workshop for all the affected groups. As I cleared the confusion, there was a lot of contentment. I realized that they had not been informed. In fact, some admitted that it was a good idea. Although I was not perfect in my skills, they lowered the red flag and worked more motivated than before (Hannaway & Gabriel , 2005). Listening skills Although this is part of communication skills, it has been one of my weapon. Most managers are so impressed that they spend most of their time telling people about others and themselves giving them no time to express themselves. However, no matter high you go in the rank, you must listen to others. This is the only way the stakeholders and the manager can know what is going on in the organization. Listening makes the managers improve the organization. When I was attending my client in the office, there was propaganda that I was mitigating workers. During the process, I realized that some workers were harassing their colleagues. Although no cases had been reported, the habit had become a routine. When I asked the worker why it had been happening, I was surprised that nobody wants to listen to the juniors in the organization. Even if they reported, nobody took affirmative action. Listening enables managers to learn what otherwise could never have been revealed. It minimizes tension and conflict that may arise. Motivation skills Appreciating others is not an easy task. For instance, telling an employee, “you are very lucky to have a job” is enough to motivate someone. Most of the managers fail to appreciate what the junior do. In one, occasion, I went to look for a job in a private organization. Dressed in a decent suit, I entered into the Human Resource office. The secretary was very busy attending to the boss, arranging to the office and moving up and down. At last, it was now my turn to see the boss. Since I was new in the organization, I had a rough time to convince her to let me in. My self-expression and presentation took me to the boss’ office. As I walked out later, I whispered to her, “Thank God you have a job. I am looking for an opportunity to be like you. Keep it up.” She was moved by my words. She admitted that she had never seen much significance of her job since she was just a secretary. I realized that she was inspired to serve others. Motivation and encouragement raise self-esteem and the desire to work even better. Everywhere I go people take a positive direction and regain the lost hope. One of my motto is to work, even not me, to encourage others to work as if they will never work again. This has been an inspiration by Martin Luther King. Leadership skills This is a specialized persuasion form that focuses on getting others to follow you. As a leader, you should act like a commander who marches into a battle field ahead of the army and make sacrifices win the battle. In the same way, a manager should be a commander in his organization and lead his/her employees to better performance. Although influencing others to follow you may be an inborn habit, managers should strive to accommodate the views of all employees and influence them to follow them. When I was employed as a branch manager in the hotel comfy, there was high turnover rates and frequent conflicts. All the workers had different ideas that the manager could not accommodate (Mcgrath, 2009). For once, I held meeting with their supervisors and heads of sections. After listening to their complaints, I drew for them a development plan. Although initially there was a rejection, all came into terms after consultation. I mobilized all of them to follow the policies but in sobriety. This brought contentment from the senior to the junior most employer. Essentially, what the previous manager missed was good leadership skills enough to influence others to follow him. Analysis of personal strengths/opportunities and weaknesses/threats Actually, management is never a bed of rose flowers and requires one to be professionally sound. A good manager is not only pillar to his/her organization, but also an asset to his/her subordinates. Therefore, it requires one to understand his/her position well to meet all the demands. Strengths and opportunities Delegation of duties and responsibilities: some managers are hands-on when managing the staff. These managers do partial work and delegate the rest to the other members. However, not all duties are delegated. The best way to delegate is to let them (subordinates) to finish up their duties first, and later do the delegated. This will help them feel appreciated in their work and create trust. As a manager, I let my juniors work under my instructions, but I do not follow them once I delegate a duty, for instance to a supervisor to mobilize the waiters to wash the utensils, I entrust them with all mandate and I do need to make a follow up anymore. It is my duty to develop leadership skills in them so that they will become good managers in future. Equal treatment to employees: There is a tendency for managers to discriminate others and give others better treatment. This treatment creates jealousy and hatred among the workers and poor performance. As a manager, I treat my staff as if they are my own children. I know they have different talents and personalities. In fact, some are black sheep and others are performers of the team. There is no way I can isolate performers from the others, yet they are a team. Whatever characteristics they have, my duty as a manager is to house them together, make use of their talents and strengths in the right perspective. This will motivate the lazybones to identify their talents and cope with the others. Supporting the subordinates: it is expected that employees come across daily problems during the normal duties. Therefore, it is the duty of the managers to assist them to solve them. Some of these may be personal, and others arise due to job situations. I teach my staff how to deal with their problems and job crisis especially those within manageable level. Nevertheless, I do not go too far to en extent of handling petty things nor go-to-person. There is a limit to go lest I become their nanny and solve even the slightest booboos. Credit offers: bad managers steal staff’s ideas and demand credit from them. It is a sign of failure for a manager to be endangered ideally when his/her junior staff shows outstanding performance. In fact, rewards and credits will be given to the manager when one of the staff members performs well. As a manager, I know how to identify performers and reward their exceptional efforts all the time. I reward any effort put and encourage more efforts. Weaknesses and threats Whereas not all that glitters is not gold, so a human being is not perfect in his ways. Too organized: whereas it is good to be organized as a manager, too much of it is cumbersome. Nobody is perfect and calls for adjustment to accommodate all the employees, some of which are performers and others black sheep. As a manager, I find hard to house the black sheep especially when I plan duties. More often, I plan duties to be accomplished at a certain period and fail to recognize the low performers who may disorganize the whole plan. This threatens my work a manager as I may be seen as a non-performer (Mcgrath, 2009). Rigidity to change: although change is inevitable in all organizations, change may be accompanied by restructuring and loss of jobs. Sometimes, it is a threat to embrace change without stepping on other people’s toes. Personally, I like change; but up to some level. Any change that threatens my position as a manager is not welcomed. However, I learn to cope with dynamic situations so that I do not remain adamant. Too much technology: while technology is a source of great ideas, too much indulgence in it limits people from initiating their own ideas. Overdependence in it is not good for good management. I like technology, but I am adamant to allow my staff to overuse it. This limits their creativity and innovation within the organization thus redundancy in performance. Furthermore, use of modern equipment is a threat to job opportunities. Some duties that could be done by human labour is done by machines. I fear technology since it is a threat to work performance and opportunities. Prioritized objectives and targets when developing personal potential When you are developing a personal potential plan, it is worth (Mcgrath, 2009): 1. Explaining the purpose and paybacks of planning the work, and being answerable to others for their work Essentially, planning is very important to time management and calls for organizing as well as prioritizing work. This is because it the best way of action, approximate the time needed to accomplish a piece of work. It ensures that there is proper management of time and resources and avoid repetition and duplication of work. As a manager, it allows you to have a visible and accessible plan that enables you as a team leader to achieve the objectives of the organization. As planning is a fundamental tool, it helps the manager to achieve the objectives, prioritize them and influence others to do the same. 2. Explaining the purpose and paybacks of negotiating realistic objectives for work There is great a benefit of negotiating realistic goals and objectives for your work. Actually, the goals and objectives should meet the SMART test i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. Ideally, they should be easy to understand by everybody and get support from managers and employees. It is wise to establishing goals and objectives with respect to the job at hand. The main reason of negotiating realistic objectives for work is to ensure that the assigned duties are done in time with the focus on the outcome. It also allows one to plan his/her time better and be responsible. 3. Giving a description of ways of giving priorities to targets as well as setting timescales for personal work The way you prioritize your targets is first to keep all the tasks in a task list on the share-point. Actually, using the share-point task allows one to set the required priorities and their due dates. Setting due dates for every task shows a reasonable timescale for each one of them. Furthermore, you can enlist your priorities in a spreadsheet. Using journals and diaries’ software like Microsoft outlook can be very beneficial when prioritizing tasks. 4. Describing the anticipated types of problems that may occur and giving suggestions of handling them. This involves the application of problem solving theory by use of four-step approach: deciding the type of problem, choosing a probable solution, implementing the solution and evaluating the process. 5. Explaining the purpose and paybacks of getting others informed on the progress It is very important to update the other people of the progress so that they can also plan and prioritize their capacities. For instance, if someone is depending on you to finish up what you are doing before they start their own, it is worth informing them how far you have gone. By so doing, you can also get information on the timescales on when this work should be completed. If you cannot beat the deadline for any reason, they also have a chance to re-prioritize their workloads to suit their plans. 6. Explaining the purpose and paybacks of letting others know on time whether their work plans could be rescheduled. Apart from the obvious courtesy, it is probable that some other workloads depend entirely on completion of you work. Essentially, rescheduling requires prior plans and depends on what you can/cannot do. It is also a basis of business ethics. 7. Explaining the purpose and paybacks of identifying as well as learning from the mistakes. Admitting your mistakes is helpful to you as a person and whom you are talking to. They will appreciate you and guide you on how to avoid such mistakes in future. In fact, they can offer training, support and extra guidance. 8. Explaining the purpose of procedures, guidelines and codes of practice that are appropriate to own workloads Health and safety related procedures are mandatory to be followed. Therefore, one should have them in place all the time. Essentially, procedures guide how the policies will be implemented. On the other hand, guidelines directs one on issues like dressing and feelings while codes of practice guides one on outlook and what others expect from you. How personal and managerial skills support career development From the early stage of any career, it is very important to have a thought of a career plan. Having a clear picture of where you are heading to will help you to reflect on your skills, knowledge and experience you gain from the job you are doing at the moment and how they shape or influence your future career. You will see the need of being self-aware of your strong personal skills and what you need to improve. First and foremost, recognizing personal weaknesses is the first step to address and develop for a chosen career. On the other hand, a career development plan helps in setting both medium and long term career objectives. However, for an effective career development plan, there is a need to establish a concrete career strategy. For instance, you may know your ultimate goals and objectives, but if you do not identify leading steps towards this achievement, your plan is in vain (Hannaway & Gabriel , 2005). Building practical strategies Both managerial and personal skills shape the strategies laid down. The strength of the strategies depends on the skills applied. However, to develop clear and sound strategies, there is a need to have (Mcgrath, 2009): i. Realistic expectations – the process of career development is a process and calls for both time and effort. To have a good harvest in future demands a lot of sacrifice now by the stakeholders. For instance, while you expect promotion in your work place after some time, you need to develop adequate skills that justifies your promotion. This is mainly because businesses have flows and ebbs towards promotions and hiring. Furthermore, while you think of how you will be promoted, give yourself limits and timescales to accommodate changes beyond your control. ii. Determined goals and objectives – having a steady focus will help you to break your career path to manageable steps. As you accomplish your current strategy, you already have a plan of the next step to take. iii. Set priorities – by taking a survey of the future required skills and experience, you obviously develop a long-to-do list. To make it realistic and manageable, you need to prioritize so that you can begin with the most crucial skills and experience and maintain a steady focus on the short term. Strengths and weaknesses Your personal strengths and weaknesses influence how you nurture you future career. If you cannot understand them, you may be deceived to join a wrong career. For instance, when a vacancy is advertised, you see the skills and experience required. In context, you identify the skills required if they are in line with your career. This helps you to take the next step of making an application. Skills may be general, transferable of PR-specific. Personal career development plan A career development plan is a systematic and purposeful technique of having a review of your current career, making a decision of where you want to be and setting SMART goals to get there. There are five basic steps to follow. Viz (Kumar, 2009): 1. Knowing Where You Are The place to begin is where you are at the moment - call it point A Then, what drives you? What has changed or influence your choice of career? How do you get back to your career track? Have a thought of your professional and educational qualifications, skills, work experience, hobbies and interests 2. Know where you are going This can be called point B i.e. career destination Ask yourself these questions Where do I see myself in one year, five years, ten years…. If I had all the resources to achieve my dream career, what could I be? How has my expertise influenced my work? 3. Know all that takes to reach there This is facing the reality of life. Narrow the gap between A and B through consultation, research and decision making. 4. Put it on paper Once you have I, 2 and 3 done, make a summary of your career development plan and put it on paper. Write all the steps you need to achieve your career. This will help you reflect on them every day. 5. Just do it! If you want to be realistic to yourself, then you have to act. Otherwise, they will remain in paper. Act according to your plans. Summarize your career development in a table shown below. Last Updated: Goals Competencies Resources Needed Action Steps Timeline Short‑range (1 Year) 1. 2. 3. Mid‑range (2 Years) 1. 2. 3. Long‑range (3‑5 Years) 1. 2. 3. Conclusion Having all said and done, both managerial and personal skills will influence performance of employees. In building strategies, the manager will understand his/her workers very well. In laying out policies, he/she will consider the type of workers at hand and how their performance is affected. In doing so, he/she will protect their strengths and weaknesses to enhance unity at work. This encourages their career development (Hannaway & Gabriel , 2005). Plan you career well to suit your skills, experience and qualifications. References Hannaway, H. & Gabriel , H., 2005. The Management Skills Book. Chicago: Gower Publishing, Ltd.. Kumar, A., 2009. Personal, Academic and Career Development in Higher Education: SOARing to Success, London: Routledge. Mcgrath, 2009. Basic Managerial Skills For All. NY: PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd.. Read More