Evaluating Future Perspectives and Defining Necessary Skills
The main strategic goals and objectives of my organization consist of ensuring effective leadership and providing strategic managers with sufficient competence. In this respect, I believe that a strategic leader should be able to achieve consistency between the organizational goals and those established in a business environment. In this respect, the perspectives of my professional development will be aimed at developing leadership and communicational skills because the human factor is the key to overcoming problems and providing viable solutions. My personal goal is to head a strategic management department to be able to monitor project accomplishment and understand problems within the department.
Regarding the conditions and criteria necessary for handling operations within an organization successfully, a list of skills is required to enhance my performance and increase the organization’s productivity and success. Specifically, I should be able to make important decisions in critical situations, gain greater experience in team working, provide a basis for self-development, and enhance my competence in negotiation, delegation, and prioritization. Also, I will concentrate on the strategy of motivating others. Limiting the self-image does not contribute to identifying my veritable potential. Therefore, objective evaluation of real opportunity and abilities to communicate effectively can help me achieve the highest results in management.
Assessing the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Identified Skills
A careful examination of identified skills has contributed to understanding my strengths and weaknesses. The analysis of existing strategic management skills, therefore, has identified that I have sufficient time management skills and the ability to negotiate. However, communication skills still need to be advanced because I lack confidence and accuracy while promoting ideas to people. Because I have problems with proving my idea evidence for my decision, I should pay much attention to verbal communication skills, which is the core condition for becoming a leader.
Despite the communication gap, my team building and leadership skills leave much to be desired. Specifically, I consider decision-making a serious challenge because I am afraid that the solutions I provide are not effective enough. Hence, the decision-making process should be accompanied by a quick reaction and evaluation of the situation, which means a quick adjustment to changes.
Some of the required skills are still necessary to achieve to enhance personal development and increase overall organizational performance. The skills audit assessment shows that delegation and prioritization are of particular concern because I cannot use those skills effectively. My previous experience shows that I have serious difficulties with prioritizing personal needs and defining consistent steps of task accomplishment. Sometimes, I pay too much attention to the nuances that do not influence the overall performance and, vice versa, some of the aspects are not considered carefully to meet the requirements.
As it has been presented previously, motivating others is also a valuable ability that each manager should have. In this respect, this skill should be significantly enhanced to become an effective leader. Hence, sometimes I can persuade others to accomplish a set of tasks related to the project in case all problems are accurately identified. However, if I fail to explain the goals of the task, people are reluctant to follow my instructions.
Objective Explanation of Strengths and Weaknesses
Judging from the above-presented analysis, an increased feeling of responsibility is a contributing factor as far as strategic management is concerned because of the increased significance of the identified tasks. I have understood that inability to distribute information and rely on other members of the team can create serious obstacles to accomplishing a project promptly. In this respect, sufficient time management skills are indispensable to coping with different aspects of strategic management. Strategic managers should be congruent with the proper development and professionalism of their subordinates to impose corresponding responsibilities on them. In this respect, my ability to manage time effectively contributes to striking the balance between the allocation of resources and the identification of time at each stage of accomplishment.
While assessing the level of delegation and prioritization, I should admit that these are the most essential skills for managing and coping with difficult situations. Conceiving the art of delegation is the main condition for becoming an effective manager. In reality, my inability to evaluate the extent of significance prevents me from taking important decisions. The point is that I should confront a challenging business environment to define approaches to delegating people and involve other subordinates in committing specific tasks. Also, failure to allocate responsibilities and prioritize the set of tasks to be performed can lead to stressful situations and provide no results in the future. In this respect, efficient delegation, as well as coping with stress, can be achieved through the implementation of effective communication and mentoring aimed at adjusting to change and providing optimal solutions.
Honey and Mumford Learning Styles Test Accomplishment
The Honey and Mumford test has demonstrated that I have theoretical and pragmatic styles as the leading ones because I have scored 14 points for each. The next is a reflector’s approach to learning (12 points). I have received the lowest scores for activist learning style (9 points).
Judging from the above-presented chart, pragmatic and theoretical approaches dominate in my learning style. This means that my skills and decisions are based on the objective and systematic evaluation of each detail of an issue. I carefully consider each problem to find possible solutions out of several variants before making a decision. More importantly, I prefer checking newly introduced ideas, concepts, and methods for effectiveness in a practical environment. On the one hand, a pragmatic-theoretical approach creates a solid platform for creating a consistent and logical strategy that has strong potential for overcoming practical constraints. On the other hand, a lack of activist techniques can significantly hamper the process of accomplishing an organization’s goals and objectives.
Development Plan
Defining the target goals of the plan
With the help of the Honey and Mumford self-assessment test, I have defined which skills and abilities are more developed (negotiation and time management) and which personal skills need to be enhanced. As a result, personal evaluation of skills audit has revealed that such skills as delegation, prioritization, team building, and communication are not sufficiently developed and, as a result, I have much difficulty with distributing responsibilities and planning project details promptly. Judging from the above-presented assessment, the following goals should be established:
- Designing a training program aimed at enhancing delegation and prioritization skills and understanding the main aspects of leadership.
- Developing effective communicative techniques is necessary for comprehending the problems among the employees and finding solutions. Specifically, listening and discussions are key factors for improving the coordination between managers and their subordinates.
- Implementation of a collaborative approach to problem-solving should contribute to building an effective working team. Team-building techniques, therefore, largely depend on the manager’s ability to set priorities before accomplishing a specific project.
Each goal will be achieved through the implementation of a specific training course composed of three parts. Each part will be comprised of three lessons to study separate concepts carefully. Lessons will be designed for two days where the first day will be aimed at understanding the theories and the second day will be spent on practicing the comprehended theories. In general, three weeks will be necessary to understand the theory and practice of the newly identified concepts.
Evaluating the outcomes
Once I have completed the skills audit assessment, has established the improvement plan, and has identified the learning styles, I should admit that the strengths and weaknesses analysis was quite precise. Regarding the weaknesses, I have introduced several practical assignments and theoretical knowledge that have significantly widen my understanding of how the established goals can be achieved. Nevertheless, while following the target and objectives of the Development Plan, I have highlighted certain inconsistencies that need to be amended. Specifically, I believe that a more sophisticated approach should be chosen for enhancing prioritization skills because I still have problems with defining the level of importance of specific issues.
About the above, the next stage of the Development Plan will be aimed at introducing a systematic, pragmatic approach to mastering the basic concepts of prioritization. Additionally, the practical part of the established assignment should also be elaborated to meet the established objectives. I believe that the introduction of business competition can significantly contribute to enhancing my competence and experience.