Career Dynamics - Assignment Example

TITLE: COURSE: COURSE CODE: STUDENT’S NAME: INSTRUCTOR’S NAME: JOB EXPERIENCE SCENARIO Larisa works as a secretary for Alikas Company that deals with financial analysis. Recently she met Tabitha, a fellow worker and also a secretary in the company during a lunch break, and they began conversing. I work in the human resource department as a manager, and I sat silently as I listened to their conversation. Larisa: Working in the company has become very hectic…….. Tabitha: Yes I understand the workload has become immense especially with the opening of new branches Larisa: My responsibilities have multiplied considering my boss does send me on personal errands. Tabitha: Personal errands? What do you mean by that Larisa? Larisa: Yes, I do not know what to do or whom to complain to? I am sent to take his children from school in the evenings. During the weekends I do personal shopping for him and at time my boss does send me to find house helps for them. Tabitha: That is not part of your job description as a secretary the employment contract that you assented to do not allow you to do personal tasks for your manager. Larisa: What do I do? I am afraid if I report him I will lose my job. The tasks I am given during the weekends interfere with my daily activities. Tabitha, I am stressed up and this is affecting my office work. Tabitha: I would advise you to visit the human resource officer during work hours. Explain your problem and he might assist you with this issue. Larisa: Thank you for the help I will consider the advice, I have to rush back to work. Tabitha: See you around. I walked to the office and decided to wait for her to contact me. According to the office policies there are legal procedures instituted that need to be followed in such cases. The first step involves the harassed employee filing a formal complaint within the human resource department. The accused party is called to give their side of the matter on the accusation. Later on, the formal documentation provides the management with an opportunity to start the investigation on the matter. Once the investigations are completed the two parties are called and the judgement on the matter is pronounced. It took a fortnight before Larisa came to my office to launch the official complaints. The pressures she went through at the place of work clearly affected her normal performance. She was undergoing immense stress that affected her psychological well-being. I referred her to the professional counsellor within the company as I filed her complaints. Later on, I forwarded the documentation to the disciplinary committee within the organization. The committee decided to begin the investigation before informing the manager due to his position they believed he will manipulate the situation to favour them. When the investigations were completed the manager was called and asked about the issue. The manager declined but when the evidence was presented before him he accepted his mistakes. The secretary was given a paid leave of three months from work to provide her with an opportunity to recover from the turmoil she had gone through. On the other hand, the manager was fired from his position. In the company the senior managers have their own responsibilities that distinguish them from the rest. They are supposed to be responsible to the employees who work under them and not to use their positions to manipulate them. The penalty for the management manipulation of their position to fulfil their own personal goals is them relinquishing their positions. The management and the other employees are bound by a contract of employment which they sign before they begin working for the company. Additionally, each employee is provided with a soft copy of the code of conduct within the company. The code of conduct has regulations on how the employees are required to act around each other. Furthermore, before the employees begin working at the company during the orientation week they are clearly told what their responsibilities are to avoid confusion. Also, they are told the channels to follow in the case an offence is committed against them. The case was easy to resolve since the guilty party who was the manager agreed to his offenses and the disciplinary committee conducted a conclusive investigations. Questions Explain ways in which Larisa could manage her stress levels and reasons for her stress. Based on the employment act analyze the judgment provided by the disciplinary committee REFERENCE LIST French, B., Boyle, M. V., & Muurlink, O. (2015). Workplace Bullying in Australia: The Fair Work Act and its Impact. McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational Behavior 7/e. Part B: RESPONSE TO 360-DEGREE PERFORMANCE FEEDBACK Lessons Learnt I learnt that a leader has to delegate and motivate their employees. I also learnt that when one is a leader conflict resolution is one of the tasks that one has to perform and not delegate. The peer feedback gave me a 23 score out of the possible 25 for leadership. According to the peer feedback I am a motivational and supportive leader who concentrates on the needs of the group. Furthermore, I am a visionary leader who does focus on ways that will be beneficial for the team. Lastly, I am objective when resolving conflicts in a group. Conflicts are a common factor in all groups and as a leader I work had towards ensuring that I tackle the root cause to avoid the reoccurrence of the dispute. My gaps include non-committal to the group meetings. Most of the times I prefer to delegate work to my team members and at times due to many responsibilities I tend to miss some of the group meetings. Secondly, I am a perfectionist this fact tends to alter my performance in the group and it does result in delays in the achievement of the objectives of the group. Lastly I fail to identify the consequences that may be fall the team and as often resulted in the team facing some predicament that could have been avoided. When it came to team work I was ranked 20 out of 25. Root Cause The performance gaps are due to firstly my upbringing. I have grown up with the perfectionist mentality where I believe in doing everything the right way to my own satisfaction. The attitude has resulted in my stubbornness when it comes to corporation with the team members and this has affected my performance rating as a leader and that of my team. Secondly, I can say that I am short sighted in my decision making this has resulted in me making decisions that have adverse effect to the group. The attitude has resulted from environmental pressures that force me to end up making decisions that eliminate one problem without thinking of the long term consequences. Thirdly, I have many obligations that steam from working and studying this has resulted in me being non- committal. My performance in the team and as a leader has suffered from this issue since I tend to miss out on most of the teams meetings that take place. Additionally, I tend to delegate most of the activities that deal with the team and have resulted in me performing dismal in the 360 per review by my fellow team mates. Also, the team members have recorded low performance in the fulfillment of their activities. The effect is that the team members rush to complete the activities of the projects within the set time. Also, it has resulted in the jobs not being according to the predetermined status. In my peer review assessment I got 20 out of 25 in the team review. Specific Areas for improvement I plan to change my attitude with respect to being a perfectionist when it comes to handling team activities I have to incorporate the points of the other team members in the activities that we engage in. When assessing my performance gaps most of the problems arose from me making the wrong decisions that seemed to suit me alone and not the entire team. I often used the excuse of being busy to avoid attending all the meetings that took place. Secondly, I have to attend all the meetings that are held by the team members. I have learnt that a leader is someone who provides guidance and holds the team together (Northouse, 2015). On the third aspect, I need to find information from all facets to ensure that I make conclusive decisions for the team. The members of the team depend on me to make sound decisions that will improve the welfare of the team. When it comes to making decisions on a particular problem I need to exhaust all sources to ensure that the team will benefit from the directions that I have selected. On the last aspect, I need to focus on the consequences of the decisions that I have made. I have to make conclusive decisions that will have a positive impact on the team. In other words is that I need to be a visionary leader. A visionary leader is a leader who makes sound judgements by examining the short and long term effects of their decision (Scielobr. 2016). REFERENCES Scielobr. (2016). Scielobr. Retrieved 21 September, 2016, from http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext Northouse, P. G. (2015). Leadership: Theory and practice. Sage publications. Part C: PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT ANALYSIS Lessons Learnt From the Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire I have learnt that I am more of a theorist and less of an activist based on the scores. I had a score of 16 in the theorist section that is classified under the moderate section, a score of 8 in the activist section which is classified under the moderate section, a score of 15 on the reflector that is classified under the strong preference section and a score of 13 under the pragmas section which is classified under the moderate section (Honey and mumford learning styles questionnaire, 2016). Additionally when evaluating the Learning Model Instrument I fall in the second domain that of the Feeling planner. The feeling planner this is an individual who performs better when they interact with other people. They use a combined effort of their knowledge, theories and skills to come up with effective decision making (Mintzberg, 1976). A combination of the three aspects provides one conclusive finding that I am a people person who performs better through theoretical and practical interactions. When I was part of the team I managed to depict this and this is the reason I had a leadership score of 23 out of 25 in the 360 peer feedback review from the team. The report does reaffirm my experiences and beliefs with respect to leadership, interaction with people and problem resolution. I am a leader who does bind the team or in other words brings the team together based on the analysis of the various forms but have certain weakness with respect to making long term decisions. Specific improvement goals In order to minimize my perfectionist attitude I have to take part in leadership seminars within the next three months. Additionally, I have to enroll in leadership classes during my free time to make me a good leader. Leadership classes often run for a period of 4 weeks semi-annually based on my schedule this activity will not inconvenience me in any way. Furthermore, I need to interact with other people on a regular basis. The interaction will provide me with an opportunity to develop beneficial people skills that will go a long way I improving my team participation score. I can achieve this through talking to my fellow classmates, work mates and participating in fun activities that are crucial in building social bonds between people. On the aspect of being non-committal, I need to make a personal decision to build myself. I can achieve this through creating a schedule for myself where I will organize all tasks in order of priority with respect to time. Additionally, I need to work towards developing a sense of responsibility within myself. The sense of responsibility will ensure that I will be able to take all the tasks I engage in seriously hence resolving the performance gap. I can achieve this through identifying a mentor and working with them towards building myself. The process is a continuous process and I believe that immediate effects of the process will be visible within three months. In conclusion; all the goals mentioned above can be achieved through utmost dedication from me as an individual. Development activities I believe that I need to take part in leadership seminars for me to have a chance of improving my leadership skills. Additionally, I need to take part in various team building activities to improve my interactions with team members. Team building activities are often conducted by the organization on an annual basis to provide the employees with an opportunity to interact with each other. Additionally, I need to read a lot of leadership books they will be beneficial in highlighting the bottlenecks that I can face when I making decisions for a group (Mintzberg, 1976). I believe leaders are made and not born. In order for me to be a good leader I have to work hard towards building myself and the best way is through reading and broadening my horizons on various concepts. Furthermore, I need to volunteer to participate in problem resolution projects. My participation as a member will provide me with an opportunity to learn on ways to evaluate the long term effects of my decisions from the team members. Providing input within a group will broaden my perspective on problem resolution process which in the end will make me a good visionary leader. Moreover, I need to learn how to plan and organize schedules this will be beneficial in ensuring that I effectively make good use of my time (Mintzberg, 1976). Additionally, it will eliminate the chances of me absconding some of my duties due to poor prioritization. In the end I will improve my scores with respect to team participation. REFERENCES Mintzberg, H. (1976). Planning on the left side and Managing on the right. Harvard Business Review. HONEY AND MUMFORD LEARNING STYLES QUESTIONNAIRE. (2016). HR Development. Retrieved 21 September 2016, from http://www.hrdevelopment.co.nz ANSWERS FOR THE TEST 1 V 11 X 21 V 31 X 41 V 51 V 61 X 71X 2 X 12 V 22 V 32 V 42 V 52 V 62 V 72 X 3 V 13 V 23 V 33 X 43 X 53 V 63 V 73 V 4 X 14 V 24 X 34 V 44 V 54 V 64 V 74 V 5 V 15 V 25 V 35 V 45 V 55 X 65 X 75 V 6 X 16 V 26 V 36 V 46 V 56 V 66 V 76 V 7 V 17 X 27 V 37 V 47 V 57 V 67 V 77 V 8 X 18 V 28 X 38 X 48 X 58 X 68 V 78 V 9 V 19 V 29 X 39 V 49 V 59 V 69 X 79 V 10 V 20 V 30 X 40 X 50 V 60 V 70 X 80 X Activist = 8 = moderator Reflector = 15 = strong preference Theorist = 16 = very strong preference Pragmatist = 13 = moderator 1 a 11 a 2 b 12 a 3 a 13 b 4 a 14 b 5 a 15 a 6 b 16 b 7 a 17 b 8 a 18 b 9 b 19 b 10 b 20 a Column 1 column 2 column 3 column 4 1 a 2 b 11 a 12 a 3 a 4a 13 b 14 b 5 a 6 b 15 a 16 b 7 a 8 a 17 b 18 b 9 b 10 b 19 b 20 a Total 4 Total 3 Total 3 Total 2 Grand total = 7 Grand total 5 When plotted on the graph it falls in the second region that is the Feeling planner. Read More