Charting Action Strategies to Achieve Goals - Admission/Application Essay Example

? Charting Action Strategies to Achieve My Goals: Communication, Engagement and Problem Solving Introduction Setting my personal course for strategic action begins with being able to manage myself with regards to time, finances and relationships that I have both socially and professionally. Once I have understood myself, I believe I will be better able to understand others as I set out to attain a leadership position in my chosen career. This process will include acquiring and developing a wide range of skills; and integrating these to achieve personal and team success. This is because a leader needs to be able to resonate, connect and inspire so as to develop a high level of personal engagement (Blum, 2010). In addition, I believe that personal achievement of my goals entails two key areas of development cognitive and social; where I endeavor to focus on both professional growth that is, seek out further learning and training opportunities, as well as social development in reference to learning how to build and foster fruitful networks. Professional growth also includes development of cognitive abilities that are crucial for problem solving techniques along with comprehending advancements in my career. For instance, any new technologies in linguistics with regards to learning and teaching should be clear and comprehensible to me. Social development refers to development of non-cognitive abilities that will determine my behavioral along with social conduct (King, 2007). I have identified three areas that I plan on learning, improving and perfecting so as to ensure that I am a successful professional leader, without disregarding social leadership; they are communication, engagement and problem solving. I am confident that focusing on these three areas in pursuit of my personal goals will make me successful. This is because I will be able to keep tabs on myself with each in mind and continually fortify my strengths and improve on weaknesses. Moreover, I intend to create a personal mission statement that will act as a blueprint for my career development as it will be a description of the person I want to become (Tracy, 1993). This will involve writing down how much I would like to earn so as to ensure I get a personal return on the efforts and energy I put into an organization. Likewise, I will identify how I can maximize output with regards to my capabilities. This will be a process of self-communication and personal engagement. Also, I intend on doing an audit of personal strengths and skills by asking myself questions such as what makes me marketable, what sets me apart from others? This will allow me to achieve more than monetary rewards for my efforts and energy. This will include a process of problem-solving as I will be able to isolate areas that need improvement and figure out to improve them. Communication My first goal is to improve my communication skills continually where I plan to be aware of my reactions, perceptions and language use at work and socially. Communication encompasses both skills and knowledge development where one should first learn to self-communicate before learning to communicate with others on a one-to-one and group basis (Ustun, 2006). I plan on doing this following a problem-based learning style where I first pinpoint personal challenges I have when communicating and formulate strategies of improving them. On a professional level, I must learn how to communicate with my superiors and co-workers distinctly and boldly. For instance when receiving and passing instructions to my co-workers and other staff I have learnt that I am able to deliver these boldly but I need to work on my weaknesses by remaining aware of them and acting as soon as I realize them. This implies being flexible so that I may not come out as being ‘robotic’ if for example I make a mistake I must be ready to acknowledge and correct it immediately. On a personal level, I am learning how to communicate with my family while maintaining the ‘informality’ I am used to despite of the fact that I am in a different country with a different culture. This will mean learning how to strike a balance with my emotions in different contexts such that I am able to anticipate and contain them (Brown & Fenske, 2010). A more defined communication strategy as a future leader involves cultivating three abilities showing staff how the organization’s goals and values can help them achieve their personal goals, establishing professional credibility and being persuasive. Revealing to customers how their personal goals will be met through the organization goes hand in hand with three factors, feeling security, winning and feeling accepted. A leader must be able to convince executive managers, as his or her superiors, and employees. For example, with security one must communicate to senior management that entrusting employees with certain responsibilities and organizational material will bring about success. At the same time, a leader should convince employees that their positions within the organization are secure and their efforts will be well rewarded. Establishing professional credibility entails passing on knowledge to employees in a confident manner, showing competence and being trustworthy. These define strategic communication where one is essentially selling an idea or concept to others in contrast to expressive communication where one is merely delivering instructions, telling others what to do (Neal, 2010). Engagement Throughout my years working at financial institutions, it was always clear that my position in the company was built around more than hard work. This is because I realized that once I became disengaged and sought knowledge instead of financial reward, I began to question what motivated me. How could I care about a company or its mission? What did this mean to me? More importantly, how could I convince or make clear to staff and superiors that the mission and values of the company were important? This has led me to participating in the organization with a ‘higher’ purpose in mind where I seek to develop myself and the company synonymously. I have been able to identify crucial qualities that I should possess in order to accomplish this and these are having initiative and being a team player. Over the course of my learning at Royal Roads University, I have learnt that the answer to my questions revolved around happiness as well as other intrinsic rewards versus monetary bonuses and other extrinsic rewards (Daft, 2008). As a leader this implies that I will be leading by example and out of conviction as I will be able to buy into the philosophies of the organization and thus be able to convince my coworkers. In essence, I am able to engage with my staff and help them engage with the company while considering its goals and values. As a leader, engagement entails ensuring that my staff has the necessary knowledge and materials they require to carry out their tasks effectively. In addition, I would need to avail training and growth opportunities to them while considering their individual goals; and maintaining open communication within the organization (Tippets, 2013). This will afford me an opportunity to enjoy more job satisfaction. As a leader, employee engagement refers to the degree to which employees feel obliged to an organization with regards to their responsibilities and persons they are accountable to. I believe in defining my leadership path, it would be imperative to develop strategies that promote retention of talent, customer loyalty, improve organizational success and stakeholder value. My first action point is viewing employees as partners and cultivating relationships with them that go beyond what they do for the organization. Secondly, affording employees a work life balance and seeking to further understand their behaviors, wants and needs. Thirdly, looking at talent retention with the mission and goals of the organization in mind so as to maintain focus and cohesion between organizational goals and their personal goals (Lockwood, 2007). Problem solving As I have moved forward through my education, I have learned that successful problem solving, whilst employing active listening, was the key to greater engagement, both with the company and the customer. I am beginning to understand how listening can synthesize with problem solving. Problem solving involves listening before one can begin the discernment of issues (Daft, 2008). Working at a bank involved numerous problems. Traded elements within portfolios were very costly to the bank or the customer when errors were made. Morale was minimized as losses increased and customers lost. I realized that interacting with customers on a personal basis via phone calls and face-to-face meetings and reassuring them that the bank was working on their systemic challenges allowed them to develop a sense of confidence. This allowed the bank to retain some customers during a difficult time. Reassuring customers is part of the active listening process where one is able to avert their fears and concerns where problem solving involves listening before one can begin the discernment of issues (Daft, 2008). Being brought up in a patriarchal environment resulted in me learning to operate in a dictator style. This implied that discernment of issues was based, largely, on what I perceived and often did not include the input of others. Once I began travelling I found out that not all cultures are accepting of this leadership style which meant that I had to change. This put me in a dilemma as I was torn between what I had been taught growing up and what I have learnt going forward. By and large, I have realized that I must become a better and more active listener by learning to engage others on their opinions and thoughts without undermining them. I believe that this will be essential in my social and professional development. The synthesis of improved communication and engagement are essential elements while developing a more effective problem solving strategy. I intend to become a better problem solver by placing emphasis on values-based leadership which makes use of active listening skills. Values-based leadership is a relationship amongst leaders and followers that is grounded on collective, strongly adopted principles that are encouraged and acted upon by the leader (Daft 2008). As part of charting strategic action towards my personal goals, I strive to clarify my values with regards to what I stand for and believe in as well as virtues I wish to possess. This is crucial in a leadership position as it will act as a guideline as I approach my work and interact with colleagues, family, friends and acquaintances. This means that I will seek out employment in organizations that share similar values hence facilitating active involvement in its success. Conclusion I believe that a core part of implementing my strategic actions is involving those that know me well in the process, as ‘advisors’ to offer constructive and objective criticism. Particularly, my family who have seen me evolve from my tender ages till now as I adopt to new cultures and languages. I feel that through use of a concept known as Team Performance Sharing (TPS) where I enlist their help and principally learn from each other, I will be able to sustain this process. TPS is a philosophy of management where an organization seeks greater levels of performance through contribution and participation of its people (Masternak, 2012). In my case, I intend on involving coworkers as well once I attain a leadership position. This will foster open communication, active and fruitful engagement and boosting of problem-solving skills. The fruits of TPS, in the strict sense, are that team members get to enjoy financial reward once their performance improves. For me, I believe that TPS will strengthen the bond between my family members and I; which in turn will help me achieve social development. At work, as well, it will help me nurture fruitful relationships with coworkers and at the same time increase productivity. References Blum, A. (2010). Personal Strategy. Leadership Excellence. Vol. 27 (7), 18. Brown, J., Fenske, M. (2010). The Winner's Brain: 8 Strategies Great Minds Use to Achieve Success. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Lifelong Books. Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience. Stamford, CT: CENGAGE Learning. King, G. (2007). Strategies for reaching achievement. Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table. Lockwood, N. (2007). Leveraging Employee Engagement for Competitive Advantage: HR’s Strategic Role. SHRM Research Quarterly. Retrieved from http://198.22.197.80/Research/Articles/Articles/Documents/07MarResearchQuarterly.pdf Masternak, R. L. (2012). Engaging staff with team-based performance sharing. Healthcare Financial Management, 66(5), 120-4. Neal, K. (2010). Stepping up to the plate: Developing an effective business communication strategy. Information Management, 44(2), 38-41,43. Tippets, M. (2013) Retain, Engage Best Employees With Video. Innovation Insights.Retrieved from http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/retain-and-engage-the-best-employees-with-video#axzz2km0hEvpD Tracy, B. (1993). Action strategies for personal achievement. Niles, IL: Nightingale-Conant Ustun, B. (2006). Communication skills training as part of a problem-based learning curriculum. Journal of Nursing Education, 45(10), 421-4. Read More