Personal Development and Planning - Coursework Example

Personal Development Planning By Personal Development Planning This paper is a about a reflective review exercise on my person development planning in my career. The paper has the following four parts (a) a description of my pathway choice and how it helps me to develop employability skills (b) brief description of one regent’s example supported by reasons for the choice and fit with employability skills (c) brief description of one vocational example with an explanation of the choice and ways in which it demonstrates my employability skills, and (d) a discussion of what I hope to learn out of this reflective review exercise. Let us begin by looking at my pathway choice and how it enables me to my employability skills. My Pathway Choice and how it enables me to develop employability Skills My pathway choice is global management and marketing. My studies in global management and marketing have enabled me to develop employability skills in the following ways. Firstly, my studies in global management and marketing have made me to have the right professional attitudes. The two main ways in which my studies in global management and marketing have enabled me to have to develop professional attitude is through enabling me to have ethical sensitivity in in carrying out my various professional duties, and to be able to take initiative and to take action unprompted. Having ethical sensitivity is a very important professional attitude that greatly enhances one’s employability skills. In my pathway choice, for instance, there are various issues that will require me to make sound ethical decisions. For instance in marketing, I should make sure that I have given my customers all the important information that they need before purchasing the products or the services that I sell to them; although revealing honestly some information to the customers about the products that you are advertising or selling may make some customers not to purchase the products, ethical sensitivity, however, requires one to disclose all the necessary information to the customer. The ethical sensitivity professional attitude, therefore, has greatly enhanced my employability skills because it has enabled me to be able to deal honestly with my customers. Just like ethical sensitivity, having the ability to take initiatives in your career is a very important professional attitude that enhances one’s employability skills. In my career path, for instance, being able to take initiative is a very important skill; this is because, in global management and in marketing, there are many decisions that one will have to make solely, without involving other people- as a manager, one has to be constantly taking initiatives on various issues. For this reason, therefore, my career path of global management and marketing has greatly enhanced my employability skills. The second way in which my career pathway has enhanced my employability skills is through helping me to develop the right professional behaviour. The two main professional behaviours that I have learnt in global management and marketing course is self-management and critical analysis; self-management and critical analysis skills are important skills in any profession. In my career path as a manager and a marketing professional, the self-management skill is quite important; this is because as a manager and a marketing professional, I will have to manage my time and my various activities well, so as to ensure effectiveness in my work. Also, as a manager and a marketing professional, I will need to apply critical thinking and critical analysis skills in my various duties. For instance, as a manager, I will need to apply critical analysis in various issues that will arise in my department, so as to be able to solve the problems in the right way. These facts, therefore, show that my career path has enabled me to develop and to enhance my employability skills. The other way in which my career path has enabled me to develop employability skills is that it has enabled me to develop various professional skills. The following are the main professional skills that studies in global management and marketing has enabled me to have. Firstly, my studies in global management and marketing has enabled me to have skills in problem solving. Through this course I have learnt various ways on how to overcome a myriad of challenges that I am bound to face in practice as a manager and a marketing professional; I have learnt that one of the best ways to solve these kinds of challenges is to have communication skills and listening skills. As a manager, skills in communication will help me to effectively express my ideas on how to solve various challenges facing my organization. Listening skills, on the other hand, will enable me to listen carefully and to understand the various views of my colleagues and my juniors on how to overcome various challenges facing the organization. Problem solving, therefore, is an important professional skill that has enhanced my employability skills. The second professional skill that I have learnt in global marketing and management is on the importance of teamwork. In my studies in global management and marketing, I have learnt the importance of teamwork. Working as a team brings about synergy in work and enables the members of a team to combine their various talents and capabilities for the good of an organization. As a manager and a marketing professional, the skill of teamwork will help me a great deal in managing and working with my juniors and my other colleagues in an organization. The third professional skill that I have learnt in global management and marketing is leadership. In this course, I have learnt to be an effective leader. In my studies in global management, I have learnt various theories of leadership and various values of effective leaders. The skills in leadership, therefore, have greatly enhanced my employability skills. The fourth professional skill that I have learnt in my studies in global management and marketing is IT skills. In the modern world, IT skills are important and relevant in virtually all professions. In my studies in global management and marketing, I have learnt various skills in IT. These skills, therefore, have enabled me to develop employability skills. Having looked at my pathway choice and how it has enabled me to develop employability skills, let us at one regent’s example, supported by reasons for the choice and fit with the employability skills. Description of a Regent’s academic example The regent’s academic example that I am going to describe below is on a three day trip in Bramley lakes; we went for the trip as a group and we learnt a lot of things in the trip. The following is the description of the trip and the many lessons that we learnt in the trip. It is normally through challenges in life that we lean many things and have experiences that help us in future in tackling life challenges. I learnt this truth about life in our trip to Bramley with my colleagues, the students. Our three day trip to Bramley was indeed eventful, and it is unforgettable. In the Bramley trip, we were divided into groups of six people. The trip supervisor appointed me the leader of my group. At first I was not very comfortable with my group because my colleagues did not show enough enthusiasm and motivation towards the assigned task and they did not understand the meaning of the exercise; this was indeed the main challenge that we had in our group. Despite this challenge, however, I learnt a lot from the trip; the fact that I was appointed the group leader was a great opportunity for me to enhance my leadership qualities because it allowed me to have a sense of control over my team mates when guiding them and motivating them during certain moments of the exercises. Despite the organizational challenges that we faced, however, our group performed very well and we indeed managed to achieve our objectives. If I were to generalize and to rate our ability to meet our objectives, it would be safe to say that we did pretty well. Another major challenge for me in guiding the group as their leader was to listen to the views of my teammates carefully, without imposing my own views on them. With time, however, I became accustomed to listen to my teammates, without forcing my opinions on them; everything became easier for me once I learnt the art of listening to the views of my colleagues. Before we went to Bramley, I was really a bit reluctant about the trip because I did not see its meaning; I wasn’t enthusiastic about engaging in physical exercises in the trip. It wasn’t until after the exercise that I learnt that the exercise was quite important since it enhanced my leadership qualities and my ability to work with other people. By the second day of the trip, I was fully dedicated to the trip, to the extent that I forgot about my phone completely. Additionally, I would like to put out that my confidence was very high especially because I was appointed my team leader and I had to prove to my colleagues that I was a competent leader. When my group faced a problem of uncertainty, I was there to give suggestions and overcome the obstacles. My position as the leader of my team gave me an opportunity to learn how to take initiatives in leading other people. For example, inthe exercise of the roller ball, I suggest a great idea to the team. I advised my team that we must formulate angles for the bridge in order for the ball to stay 15 second in our designated square. Apart from learning how to take initiative as a leader, I also learnt the value of teamwork, and I also learnt how to work with a team. At first, I was afraid that I would not be able to participate well in the group because I doubted my ability to contribute as a team member, but, having been appointed the leader of my team gave me enough motivation to lead my group members and to make a lot of input in the group. Last but not least, the most important leadership lesson that I learnt in the visit to Bramley was on conflict management; as a leader of my team, I led my group to manage conflicts we incurred in our team. One example of this was in rafting exercise. The rafting exercise required physical strength and I was not good at it; two of my group members did not have interest and were not at all committed to the exercise. When, however, I showed the two members of my team that I was annoyed and reminded them that we had limited time left, the two members were forced to partake in the exercise and turned the conflict into a positive outcome. In conclusion, I would like to say that this experience has changed me as a person and that my idea of this trip changed from being unclear and somewhat unnecessary to being very helpful and worthwhile. I would have never thought in a million years that I would be able to lead a group and contribute to the team enough to complete all objectives. Through this experience, my team working skills greatly improved and my motivation towards working in a team has augmented by a thousand times because I always thought that I am a type of person who likes to work alone without using the help of others, but I have learnt that I can perform really well in teams to a degree that I become nominated as a leader. At first I was not very comfortable with my group because the guys did not show enough enthusiasm and motivation towards the assigned task and failed to see the point of the exercises. Frankly, that was the main challenge we had in the group but needless to say the fact that I was appointed leader was a great opportunity for me to enhance my leadership qualities because it allowed me to have a sense of control over my team mates when guiding them and motivating them during certain moments of the exercises. Having looked at one Regent’s academic example, let me now explain one vocational example with an explanation of choice and ways in which it demonstrate my employability skills. The example that I am going to explain is on a vocational trip once went with my church youth group in Spain. The trip was organized by my church leaders with the aim of helping the young people to visit another country and experience a different culture and a different way of life. The total number of the young people who took part in the trip was sixty youth. According to the program, we were to meet Spanish youth, who would take us round various places in their country, and help us to understand their culture and their way of life. We arrived in Spain safely and we were warmly welcomed by the Spanish youth. On the second day of our arrival in Spain, we were organized into groups of 1o people, and each of the ten members had to become a leader of the group for two days; the whole trip was to last three weeks. I became leader of my group in the second week of our trip, on the 8th day. Although the period that I served as a leader was relatively short, two days only, I, however, learnt a lot in the two days that I served as my group leader. One of the thing that I learnt on leadership was on how to relate with people of different cultures. Although our group consisted of 10 youth from my country, our team, however, had three youth from Spain, who took us round various places in Spain, and who explained to us the various aspects of the culture of Spain. For that reason, therefore, our team had fifteen people in total. Leading a team with people of different cultures was quite a challenge to me. This is because, firstly, language was a big barrier in our communication. Although we had some interpreters in our group who understood both English language and Spanish, communicating through the aid of the interpreters was a real challenge to me as a leader of the group. This challenge taught me to be patient as a leader; I learnt through this challenge that leaders should be patient with the various limitations of the people that they lead- language barrier was a real limitation in my group. Secondly, leading people of different cultures was a real challenge to me because people of different cultures have different viewpoints of reality. For that reason, therefore, as the leader of my group, I had to be very humble and to look at things from different perspectives, lest I disregard and annoy some of my group members. This challenge taught me to be humble as a leader. Besides the cultural challenge that I faced as a leader of my group, I also faced the challenge of leading people with conflicting interests. For instance, at one time, as the leader of the group, I give my group members a list of possible places that we could visit and I asked my group leaders to select and to agree on the places that they would like to visit. By doing so, I thought that I was being democratic and fair to them. Instead of discussing and agreeing on the places that we would visit, however, my team members disagreed completely and they seemed irreconcilable. As the leader of the group, I had to find a way of helping the conflicting sides to arrive at a compromise and at a consensus. To help them arrive at a consensus, I called all my group members for a discussion and I asked the group members to put the interests of the entire group before their own personal interests; I also persuaded my group members to be sober in their deliberations, and not to let their emotions rule over them. Through persuading my group members to reach a consensus, the conflicting sides of my group members agreed to reach a compromise, and they agreed on places that we would visit. This incident enabled me to learn the skills of conflict resolution as a leader. The other important lesson that I learnt in the trip to Spain was on how to handle people of different personalities. In my team, there were people of different personalities. For instance, some of my group members seemed always discontented with almost everything; some other group members were always critical of whatever decision that I made as their leader. As a leader, however, I had to cope with these people, who were unhappy with my leadership style. These people taught me to learn that as a leader, one should be ready to interact and to relate well with the people who are unhappy and critical of his/her leadership style. Having looked at one vocational example, let us what I hope to learn about myself out of this reflective review exercise. One of the things that I hope to learn about myself out of this reflective exercise is on my talents and my capabilities as a person. I hope that this reflective exercise will help me to discern and to discover my talents and capabilities in life, through carrying out various tasks and through interacting with people of different personalities and different backgrounds. The second thing that I hope to learn from this reflective exercise is the level of leadership skills that I have. Through carrying out various tasks and roles as a leader, I hope that I will be able to gauge my leadership the level of my leadership skills; also, I hope that this reflective exercise will help me to learn many leadership skills. From this reflective exercise, I also hope that I will learn how to interact with people of different personalities, cultures, and backgrounds; I hope that the reflective exercise will help me to be able to interact better with people of all walks of life. Lastly, I hope that this reflective exercise will help me to learn how to apply the skills that I have learnt in class in real life situations. Through being assigned various roles, especially on leadership, I hope that this reflective exercise will help me to be able to apply the theoretical skills that I have learnt in class. Read More