A Professional Development Plan
Introduction
According to Ross (2015), professional development refers to a progressive process that entails the acquisition of new skills, knowledge, and increasing one’s experience in relation to one’s profession, work, or learning environment. This process plays a critical role in the effective maintenance of trained, qualified, informed, and motivated workers alongside members of different teams at the workplace. Inarguably, professional development calls for the creation of a plan to assist in the documentation of the goals, objectives, and skills required in achieving organizational set goals as a way of supporting continuous development and improvement (Norris, 2008). A Professional Development Plan (PDP) is, therefore, a critical determinant of achieving the desired success in each individual’s life. Nevertheless, PDP’s effectiveness depends on an individual’s planning, which is a unique process that involves the development of a plan of actions to be followed alongside the short and long-term objectives to be attained. The success of the entire program relies largely on personal awareness, moral values, continuous reflection, and gaining focus towards achieving the set goals. LesteR and Lester (2016) research findings show that creating the plan can help in identifying an individual’s intentions while inspiring them to take the correct action. For instance, this plan has two major sections. The first section discusses the personal leadership development plan with an effective identification of personal skills, values, and interests alongside personal goals and plans. The last section looks at personal leadership philosophy with a vivid description of the goals and purpose of the actions taken.
Identification of Personal Skills, Values, and Interests
Human Resource Management is one of the most exciting professions in my life. I have grown up with an ambition of becoming a human resource manager in one of the leading global companies such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Apple. As a result, I have invested a plethora of efforts not only in education but also in experience and knowledge acquisition to gain the best skills and attributes that can help me in actualizing this dream. Efficient utilization of the MBTI results played a critical role in the identification and improvement of interpersonal, technical, and decision-making skills alongside the strength gathered while pursuing this profession. Undoubtedly, these results provided a critical self-assessment approach to each area of my life. My main area of strength lies in the ability to develop and empower employees through continuous motivation, creation of strong teams, and ongoing positive influence. In essence, an effective human resource manager should have the capacity to control different groups and teams of individuals since leadership is an integrated process involving the exercising of power over a group of people (Lester & Lester, 2016). Additional areas of personal strength include continuous and efficient management of core processes coupled with the use of participative decision making through capacity building.
This assessment identified a set of different limiting factors that occur both internally and externally as I tried to invest more efforts towards attaining my dream. Numerous external based challenges act as obstacles towards the effective achievement of my dream as a human resource manager. Foremost, I have always been afraid of relocating from one place to another. This fear makes it difficult to gain new opportunities in different parts of the country as well as the entire world. Owing to my health concerns associated with arthritis and hypertension, it is difficult to migrate to areas that experience extreme weather conditions. There are also additional traveling limitations such as, having inadequate resources to move and cope with the living conditions experienced at new places of work alongside the challenge of meeting a completely different group of employees and teams to control and manage. Additionally, having a relationship that is dependent on my sweat and struggle make it difficult to move from one country to another. The decision to move out has always been faced with a lot of challenges especially from family members, including parents, who entirely depend and benefit mutually on my presence both socially and financially. Nevertheless, the failure to manage change effectively and the challenge of living with change caused by different variables at the work place form the largest group of external limiting factors (McKitterick, 2015). Additional external limiting factors include ineffective communication and inflexibility, which have been shown to be critical traits in personal leadership.
As a human resource manager, there is need to develop a proper understanding of the diversity that exists between friends and as a roadmap towards achieving the desired organizational success. Understanding people’s diversity can help in increasing my ability to utilize participative decision making while managing vital processes within the organization and ensuring that there is proper achievement of the personal set goals. Introversion and procrastination are other internal factors that have limited my desire to become a competent human resource manager. Being an introvert has seen me avoid different groups of people who may play a critical role in realizing my dream. Additionally, procrastination has seen many chances go untapped, as I have continuously avoided making the required progress in life such as pursuing more human resource demanding courses and training to better my skills. These continuous challenges have enabled me to identify effective management of change, living with change, and managing information overload as the roles in which I am weak. Locke and Latham (2012) critical analysis shows rigidity and inflexibility, which are the main areas of my weakness, as common challenges that affect most of the human resource managers.
The most important guiding principles that will lead to success in my work should entail continuous identification of my weaker roles to help in the effective realization of adaptability and resilience as associated competencies. According to McKitterick (2015), resilience is the capacity of human resource managers to respond and adapt quickly to unexpected situations. As such, being resilient and managing the associated information overload can help me to adapt to different changes and challenges associated with my occupation. The two will also help in aligning my practices with the organizational goals and mission. Additionally, they will assist me to remain an integral component of the employment team and ensure that the desired success is achieved.
However, the achievement of my dream will rely on the employer’s commitment to providing the essentials needed to augment each operation in the organization. Such variables should include continuous on-the-job training to increase my skills and professional knowledge and update me on the current occupational trends alongside sustainable health insurance policies. The insurance cover should cater for my family alongside other employees to ensure efficient execution of all management roles. The employer should also consider offering promotion opportunities, as they occur to ensure a continuous improvement of the reward to match the current cost of living.
Personal Goals and Plans
The results gathered from MBTI profile will play a critical role in the effective identification of additional options available for the improvement of my skills both in the short and long run. My plan as a human resource manager is to accept to live with change and invest in more efforts to minimize my weakness as a strategy towards personal skill improvement. Additionally, engaging in critical and creative thinking will also act as a road map towards a continuous identification of new opportunity areas that can help in personal skill improvement. Another plan will involve learning how to manage change. Apart from living with change, understanding better skills for change management can play a critical role in improving my skills as a human resource manager.
Nevertheless, deciding to build and maintain a power base that encourages proper employee motivation and empowerment will offer an opportunity for improving my skills. MBTI results profile will also provide the power of agreement, negotiation and commitment as a fifth option towards enhancing personal HR director skills. However, it will be important to work productively; create a productive work environment and present developmental ideas to achieve improvement in the outlined areas. The three-time period will also offer an option for effective management of my time and stress. This strategy will also enable me to develop a new vision and effective project management as alternative areas of improving personal skills.
SMART goals can play a critical role in the improvement of my skills. According to Norris (2008), setting attainable goals can help one to earn more satisfying results due to their direct relationship with performance. Higher goals are expected to produce more results than low goals. However, factors such as incentives, feedback, results, participating in decision-making and offering an efficient work environment affects the performance of an employee positively (Locke & Latham, 2012). I will begin by setting achievable goals that will lead to increased performance, which will transform into the improvement of my skills.
Leadership Philosophy
My intention is to develop a leadership philosophy that will play an essential role in ensuring that I achieve my target as set. I intend to utilize the SMART technique when suggesting my goals for the enhancement of adaptability and resilience as the main two options for improving my areas of weakness. SMART is an abbreviation of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bounded (McKitterick, 2015). Effective management of change and adaptability will help me to adjust to different challenging conditions that I will face in the course of my job. Undoubtedly, adaptability and accepting to live with change will also increase my ability to think innovatively and creatively to come up with the strategies that can offer appropriate solutions to different human resource challenges. As such, I will demonstrate a high level of preparedness, readiness, and openness to support the invention of several ideas that can help my organization to achieve its goal (Norris, 2008). Additionally, it is important to understand the critical steps that one can undertake to ensure that they improve their skills (Norris, 2008). However, I will ensure that I carry out an adequate evaluation of my personal goals and plans to align them with the working philosophy and practice as a way of achieving the desired sustainable performance excellence. Research indicates that evaluation is one of the essential steps undertaken to ensure that a given program achieves its intended goals.
In practice, I intend to carry out three major activities that will ensure proper alignment of my goals and the entire leadership philosophy as way of actualizing my dream. First, I will enrol and complete a one-year training course on adaptability in January 2018. After completing the course successfully, I will seek for advice from friends, colleagues and family members to measure the progress met. I will also use my ability to be innovative, original and creative to come up with solutions to problems and challenges that I encounter in my job. Secondly, I will ensure that I complete my Master’s Program and enrol for my PhD Degree by February – April 2019. Here, I will ensure that all assignments are completed on time in spite of how busy my schedule is, try to balance job tasks with my schoolwork without being anxious, and practise adapting easily to changes. I will use my strength of being persevering, decisive and my ability to handle challenges to deal with all challenges and problems I will encounter. Lastly, I will ensure that I attend various seminars and workshops addressing topics related to emotional intelligence, resilience adaptability and skill improvement. Here I will also use my confidence and self-assurance to share my views and gained knowledge.
I will conduct both formative and summative evaluations to make sure that my plan meets the intended goals. Consequently, I will initiate the program and seek for advice on its progress from professionals in the area of management within the first fifteen days. According to Norris (2008), these experts can be sourced from institutions of higher learning such as public and private universities as well as professionals managing their consultancy firms. Additionally, I will conduct another evaluation, which will be summative to mark the end of the first 30-day exercise and the origin of the second exercise. In this case, I will champion for the active engagement of all stakeholders including the employees and colleagues to ensure that the plan is effectively meeting its intended goals. The last evaluation, which will be summative, will take place at the completion of the 180-day period and will entail a critical examination of the entire process to ascertain that the desired success was achieved as projected in the results.
Conclusion
The identification of personal strengths and weaknesses is an essential determinant of one’s success. As a human resource director, I have a high value of my strengths, which include employee development and building of strong teams as the main areas that can help in the achievement of the set goals. Moreover, developing employees through motivation and empowerment can help me achieve the success I need as it enables them to possess the appropriate skills and professional experience needed. Building strong teams is also an empowerment tool that can assist in strengthening the cohesiveness of the teams and aligning them towards the same direction. However, it is important to improve my areas of weakness through adaptability and resilience to achieve the set goals as a way of aligning with the above-discussed philosophy.
References
Lester, D., & Lester, C. (2016). 12 steps of self-leadership: The difference maker’s guide to living and leading on purpose. Victoria, B.C., Canada: FriesenPress.
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2012). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57, 705–717.
McKitterick, B. (2015). Self-leadership in social work: Reflections from practice. Bristol, UK; Chicago, IL: Policy Press.
Norris, E.S. (2008). An Examination of Self-Leadership.Emerging Leadership Journeys.School of Global Leadership & Entrepreneurship, Regent University.Vol. 1 Iss. 2, pp. 43-61. Retrieved from: https://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/elj/vol1iss2/ELJ_V1Is2_Norris.pdf.
Ross, S. C. (2015). The road to self-leadership: Busting out of your comfort zone. Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.