Introduction
A professional is a person that is relied upon by others to help them succeed. A professional may work alone but in the service of others but most of the time a professional is a team player. A professional must learn to work with others. However, a worker, employee, and consultant cannot claim to be a professional unless he or she posses the following traits: competence, integrity, and objectivity.
Personal Statement
A professional must have competence. A professional like an accountant, lawyer, physician, manager etc., must strive to learn more about his or her field. In the case of many professions there is a constant need to be updated when it comes to relevant laws, recent trends, and other developments in their field that they need to know about.
Without competence a professional may apply obsolete techniques that can harm the firm. In other cases, ignorance of newly ratified laws means that the organization can be made liable to violations of rules and policies that could have been avoided if the consultant or personnel hired to advise them of such matters is knowledgeable about these changes.
A professional must have integrity. A person without integrity should not aspire to become a professional. Integrity is the ability to determine if an action is ethical or not. This trait enables the professional to steer clear from anomalous deals and other activities that may hurt the company’s image and damage the reputation of the guilty party as well as others that work for him or her.
A professional is an objective person. A professional looks at a particular problem with objectivity and thus he or she is not swayed by emotions, personal opinion or assumptions. A professional seeks to find a viable solution to a problem and offers to provide a solution that is based on facts. A professional deals with people in an objective manner and does not allow emotions to cloud his or her own judgment.
In my case I must have all these qualities and more. I need to deal with my frustrations and hurdles. Most of the time I am a perfectionist and I cannot move forward if I feel that something is still missing. There are times when this attitude is essential but in other occasions it is a waste of time because I need to learn to prioritize. Furthermore, I also need to delegate tasks because it is not efficient for me to handle everything. In addition I have to realize that I cannot micro-manage everything and that I need to allow others to do the job with minimal supervision because this can help them grow and mature as individuals.
Conclusion
It has been made clear that a professional must possess at least three major qualities: competence, integrity, and objectivity. I must learn competence to be a valuable member of the team and to help my company reach greater heights in terms of efficiency and competitiveness. Integrity is my compass in a complex world that can lead me to behave in a way that can damage my career and reputation.
Objectivity is needed so that I can work more efficiently and not allow emotions and personal matters to cloud my judgment. Finally, I need to learn to delegate and acknowledge that micro-managing those who work under me is something that can lead to a non-efficient operation. More importantly it robs the people the chance to grow as individuals and in the long-term it is also detrimental to the growth of the organization.