Development Of Personal And Management Skills: Reflecting On Self-Management And Leadership Skills

Discussion

In this report on development of personal and management skills, the aim is to reflect on self-management and leadership skills by utilising a range of models along with developing and justifying a personal development plan which will help in the facilitation of an enhanced effective level of leadership and management. In addition to that the transferable skills such as supportive communication, motivation, empowerment, conflict management and team effectiveness will be discussed utilising theory and applying the same in an organisation. The purpose of this report is to identify the transferable skills which are required in a workplace as well as applying the supportive management and leadership skills (Lejeune, Beausaert and Raemdonck 2021).

Task one: Reflection of management and leadership skills as well as personal development plan 

Management is referred to an organisation’s administration which can either be non-profit organisation, a government body or a business which can either be a science or art of management of resources for the business. It is also referred to as the administration and coordination of the tasks in order to achieve the goals and objectives where these activities includes setting the strategies for the organisation as well as coordinating all the efforts portrayed by the staffs in order to achieve these goals by applying the available resources (Rimmer 2018). 

Similarly, leadership is referred to the capability of an individual in order to guide and influence the followers or the other members of a business organisation. It consist of making sound decisions, articulating and creating a clear mission and vision, along with developing an achievable goals as well as providing the followers with the tools and knowledge in order to achieve the goals and objectives. An effective leader will consist of features such as strong communication skills, management skills, self-confidence, innovative thinking, creativity and perseverance along with willingness to adopt risks, levelheadedness and openness to changes. There are five major models of leadership, namely, authoritarian, participative, delegative, transactional and transformational leadership (Beygi and Gholipour 2016).

The management and leadership skills which I possess are communication skills which is a necessary skill in order to tailor and adjust the communication with employees as well as upper level management, by following the generational and cultural lines. Another skill of mine is motivating individuals by assessing their drivers for motivation and providing them with the opportunities to gain recognition and appreciation. Strategic thinking is another leadership skill of mine which is essential for the rapidly changing marketplace, especially from the technology to consumer demand. Strategic thinking enables me to assess the present situation, setting realistic goals and development of a plan to reach the objectives (Tasker 2015).

Management and Leadership Skills

However, there are certain weaker aspects when it comes to leadership and management skills, which requires improving, such as development of emotional intelligence which is the ability to control and understand the emotions and providing appropriate reaction to others’ emotions. Delegation is another weakness of mine which is the struggle I face when it comes to assigning roles, responsibility and tasks by assessing the inbuilt skills and capabilities of an individual. It is crucial for effective management to identify the appropriate team members in order to handle the specific tasks along with making sure that they tools and knowledge are provided for the completion of the jobs (Grit 2019).

Learning style is referred to the attempts in order to define individuals by the manner in which they learn on the basis of their individual strengths, personal preferences as well as other factors such as favoured learning environment and motivation. The learning style which I believe I possess is the Diverger, as per Kolb’s Theory of Learning Styles, where there is a dominant abilities are present within the aspect of concrete experience as well as reflective observations, which essentially holds opposite strength to that of the Converger. Here, the individual looks at the bigger picture as well as organises smaller information into a meaningful formations. A Diverger will be tend to be more creative and emotional along with that they prefer brainstorming in order to generate newer ideas (Bintani 2020).

A personal development plan, which is also known as PDP, is referred to an action plan which can be utilised in order to identify the individual goals and objectives and the aims for the achievement, the strengths and weaknesses, the aspects which will require further improvement and development for meeting the goals and objectives as well as necessary resources required to achieve the goals and objective and hindrance to the process. A PDP is referred to the self-evaluation as well as self-reflection which can be typically utilised within the higher education and at the workplace. Although it can also be advantageous exercise for the personality development (Kivimäki and Meriluoto 2018).

The objectives which I have selected for the purpose of personal development plan is development of delegation skills, development of technological and software skills, development of cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence, learning new methods of motivational techniques as well as enhancement of the oral communication skills, which has been highlighted within the skills audit and SWOT analysis as the weaknesses and threat which requires improvement and enhancement in order to develop and grow myself further. The strengths which I possess, as it has been highlighted within the SWOT analysis table are coaching, interpersonal, leadership, planning and strategist skills. However, on the other hand, the weaknesses which has been highlighted are lack of delegation skills, understanding inbuilt individual skills and capabilities, capability to merge the organisational and individual goals as well as navigation skills (Aguinis and Gabriel 2021).

Personal Development Plan

For addressing the lack of delegation skills, the activities which I will have to undertake is through group activities where the individual with the lowest skills will be provided with the position of leader, who in turn will be delegating tasks and responsibilities to the other group members. Other than that, with the help of games and activities such as scavenger hunt as well as Legos, I can develop this skill within myself along with the help of group projects and presentations. The resources which are required for the development of this skill are a supportive team and a setting for scavenger hunt as well as Legos.

For addressing the development of technological and software skills, I will be required to undertake activities for enhancing reading and writing skills, gaining digital literacy and learning basic software and application for which software tool such as MS Word, MS PowerPoint and MS Excel are required. For the cultural and emotional intelligence aspect, activities and games can be played within a diverse group along with role-playing and utilising assertive form of communication, although a diverse group is required in order to fully learn such skills because it comes from real life experiences (Liedtka, Hold and Eldridge 2021).

For learning the motivational techniques, the activities which I need to undertake are asking open ended questions which will lead to conversations, adopting responsibility based tasks, working within a group and evaluating the programs as well as switching roles and for this a group is required along with internet facilities. For the enhancement of the oral communication skills, general group discussion, debates, active listening, interviews and interactive sessions can be helpful where through individual, group and pair debates can be helpful (Shaheen and Hameed 2020).

Supportive communication is referred to support provided in the form of verbal as well as nonverbal format, during the times of physical and emotional distress and during other stages of life cycle which might be distressful, for the intention of providing support which will assist the individuals in need. Supportive communication has become a strategy which are utilised in order to support an individual to cope up with their experiences and feelings. Within the organisational context, supportive communication is often referred to as the effective communication which is one of the prerequisite for achieving the organisation goals and objectives, as no group, individual and organisation can work without communication, in a remote manner (Ntoumanis et al. 2018).

Communication leads to coordination and cooperation within the workplace and might collapse due to lack of communication, as individuals will not be able to communicate their feelings and needs to the other people. It is seen if an open and effective communication is motivated within the organisation, more number of cohesive team will be emerged (Mikkola 2019). In Apple Inc., the communication policies which they follow is on the basis of four key principles which are respect, honest, compliance and confidentiality, which have helped them to become successful and worldwide. They operate through a closed system which helps in making sure that the communication is conducted through the official platforms only where employees are not allowed to communicate through other social media channel and utilise only the official communication source (Jones and Hansen 2015).

Motivation is referred to the concept which has been derived from the term ‘motive’ that is meant by the desires, needs, drives and wants within an individual. It is referred to the process that helps in the stimulation of the individual actions in order to achieve their goals and objectives. Within the workplace, the psychological factors which stimulates the behaviour within people are desire to earn money, recognition, success, team work and job satisfaction. One such key function of the management is for the creation of willingness among the employees and workers in order to perform to the optimised version of their capabilities (Herzberg 2017).

Therefore, the leader’s role is for enhancing the interest within the employees in order to increase their interest, where the process of motivation consist of three steps namely, a feeling of desire or need, stimulus where the needs are increase and needs are satisfied through the achievement of the goals and objectives. Motivation is also referred as the inducement or incitement which are required in order to fulfil through the actions. It is one of the major drivers for the organisational employees in order to meet the goals and objectives set by those individuals along with the overall organisational goals (Kanfer, Frese and Johnson 2017).

Motivation is highly required within an organisation because it helps in increasing the productivity, making sure that there is efficiency within the organisation, promoting the loyal within the employees, facilitating a direction and making sure that the workforce is proactive. Motivation within Apple Inc. is majorly through incentive compensation system that they utilise for motivating their employees that includes monetary benefits such as bonus pay that will provide them with the payment on achieving the goals and targets which are provided to those certain employees during the particular period. They are also providing employees’ stock ownership plan as well for motivating the employees (Cook and Artino Jr 2016).

Empowerment is referred to the power or authority provided to individuals in order to perform an activity. Employee empowerment is referred to the manner in which the organisation will provide their employees with a certain level or degree of control and autonomy in their daily activities. This empowerment includes to have a voice within the process improvement, supporting the management and creation of any new tactic or system as well as operating the smaller departments within the less oversight from the higher level of management. The key principle behind the employee empowerment is to give the employees the methods and means to make crucial decision as well as help them to make sure those decisions are accurate (Hanaysha 2016).

When conducted properly, the results will highlight the productivity as well as enhanced employee’s work quality and work life. Employee empowerment will differ on the basis of the work design and culture present within the organisation. It is also on the basis of those concepts which are related to job enrichment and job enlargement. The job enlargement is a different concept then job enrichment because job enlargement is horizontal expansion and job enrichment is the vertical expansion. Apple Inc. has empowered their employees, in order to bring satisfaction to their customer (Hanaysha and Tahir 2016).

The company aims to empower their employees in order to make them knowledgeable and well-rounded, in every tasks which they perform. The upper level management and managers believe in employee empowerment as it displays a higher efficiency within the jobs that they perform. They have established their own way of empowering their workers successfully through training, development and educational courses in various aspects of the Apple Inc. The company has stated in their website “Empowering Workers: Preparing People for the Workplace and Beyond” which shows their motivation to all their employees on order to become skilful and well rounded (Choi et al. 2016).

Conflict management is referred to as the process which limits the negativity aspect which is present in corn flakes along with enhancing the positive aspects within the conflict. The purpose of contract management is to increase the learning as well as group outcomes which includes the performance or effectiveness within an organisational setting. Conflict management is also known as conflict resolution which involves developing a working environment that precludes the conflict along with a management team that will successfully be resolved and handle the workplace challenges and issues (Madalina 2016).

It is the practice of the ability to handle and identify the conflicts in a sensible, efficient, and fair within the process of managing the incompatibilities or the disagreements which are generated due to differences in opinion, needs, and objectives. There are five ways through which an organisation can implement their conflict management, the conflict management styles with the managers can adopt are collaborating, competing, avoiding, accommodating, and compromising. This practice is essential for the managers to learn because organisational conflicts are common occurrences and identifying as well as handling this context in a sensible, fair and efficient manner will help the workplace as well as organisation to improve (Prause and Mujtaba 2015).

Conflicts are an inevitable part of daily life and within an organisation, however, they can be resolved through accurate resolution tools which address the issues as well as maintain the differences creating major challenges. Apple Inc. resolve their conflict by utilising certain formulas such as empathising and recognising the employees’ emotions by linking it to present situation, through demonstration of similar emotion and through clarification by integrating the employees by applying resolution the issues (Soliku and Schraml 2018).

Team effectiveness is referred to the concept through which the capacity of a team has to achieve their goals and objectives that have been administered by the authorised organisation and personnel. A team is referred to as the group of individuals who are performing independently within their trust, viewing themselves as one unit and sharing responsibilities for their outcomes within an organisational system which are operated within the established boundaries of the system (Greer et al. 2018). There are five major conditions for team effectiveness, that is, compelling direction, real team, supportive contact, enabling structure, and competent coaching which will further enhance the team performance effectiveness. Team effectiveness is highly essential for the development of the organisation because by working efficiently and together as a team, an optimised level of production will be delivered (Alsharo Gregg and Ramirez 2017).

Through team effectiveness there is a positive team spirit building, enhanced productivity, meeting objectives and achieving high quality work. In Apple Inc. the higher level of management has implemented management strategies and policies which will develop a working environment which will foster innovation and creativity. The corporate culture of the company has been developed on cooperation and collaboration among the employees where each department consist of small teams which works together to achieve the goals and objectives. Working with the team motivates the employees to exchange the ideas, feedbacks and opinions that is required for the development of innovation (Mathieu et al. 2019).

Conclusion 

In this report on development of personal and management skills, a brief discussion of leadership and management has been explained along with development of those skills through models of reflection. Further, the appropriate self-learning style has been discussed along with completion of a skill audit as well as SWOT analysis. In the second of the report, the sub-topics of supportive communication, empowerment, motivation, team effectiveness and conflict management will be discussed within the organisational context of Apple Inc. who have applied all these concepts in order to enhance their organisation performance and conduct employee development.

References

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