Management focused study and professional development plan (PDP) - Essay Example

I. Explore an aspect of management or leadership (LO this would be better achieved if it was you undertaking the skill as you could identify how your experience fitted the theory or vice versa. What are your strengths and limitations regarding management, leadership, and how will this affect both your own and your colleagues motivation or teamwork. One very important aspect of management is leadership. Leadership dictates the impetus or direction of where a business entity or an organization is going. The growth and failure of any organization is usually dependent on the quality of leadership as leadership is a determinant of an organization’s competitiveness. The importance of good leadership cannot be stressed enough with the number organizations and business entities that folded to the failure of its leadership. Leadership coupled with the tools of management, intends to reach or achieve the vision of an organization with its available resource in information, technology, materials, organization and personnel. In today’s very competitive business arena, leadership can spell the difference of an organization’s success or failure. Leadership is a critical element in ensuring the sustainability of an organization. Research in the field of leadership has never been saturated with theoretical and conceptual quests for leadership styles that work with any situation and followers’ condition. (Jamaludin, et al, 2011, pg. 73). One of the important attributes of leaders that attract the interest of many researchers is their leadership styles (Adeyemi-Bello 2001). Leaders lead through a combination of logical decision making and feeling. Depending upon the situation, it may require more emotional intelligence and less logical decision making or vice versa (Mayer & Caruso, 2002). Interest and importance of emotional intelligence is slowly gaining grounds among managers and theorists realizing that since organization is composed of people, there should be an adequate understanding to better optimize the people that composes such organization and to better the capacity of its human resource. According to Lok and Crawford (2004), leadership contributes significantly to the success or failure of an organization. The psychological profile of leaders could be reflected in the performance of the organization (Adeyemi-Bello 2001). Consistent with this observation, Al-Mailam (2004) argued that high-quality leadership is regarded as vital in bringing success to any group activity. One of the more recent and prevalent discussion about leadership is the emotional aspect of it as “leadership has been described as an “emotionladen process” (George, 2000, p. 1046), with the skillful management of followers’ feelings representing a critical leadership function (Humphrey, 2002, 2008). The ability to address underlying feelings and emotions is essential to effective leadership (Mayer & Caruso, 2002). This brings to the fore the relationship and emotional aspect of leadership which has been the subject of inquiry of many management theorist – emotional intelligence. This is quite interesting because the emotional aspect of human resource was used to be thought of as insignificant and irrelevant in the production line that management theorists relegated it as being trivial and unimportant. When science in management was first introduced in an organization and production line, the emotion of the people in the bureaucracy was never considered (Taylor, 1911). Organization then was viewed more of cohesive machine that works efficiently rather an structure that composes of people of different background, interest, predisposition and motivation. Recent management theorists however are looking at it at a different perspective. Mayer and Salovey (1997) elaborated the idea and defined emotional intelligence as "the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and action" (Grewal & Salovey, 2005 p. 332). Interpersonal skills are an essential component to effective leadership (Goleman, 1998b). Leaders must have the ability and flexibility to adapt to an ever-changing workforce, and the emotional intellect to become successful. According to Chen, Jacobs and Spencer (1998) . . . emotional intelligence is attributable to close to 90 percent of success in leadership positions. And individuals with emotional intelligence may be more creative in arriving at potential alternatives to problems, and more likely to incorporate emotional considerations, when deciding among those alternatives (Pope & Singer, 1990). With these study and figures supporting the relevance of emotional intelligence in achieving success in leadership positions, it is now undeniable that emotional intelligence needs to be understood and harnessed. Apparently, recent studies about management and especially leadership now seemed to be more focused on the social and emotional dimension of leadership which early management theorists overlooked as trivial. While early management theorists attempted to make the workplace to be an efficient well-oiled machine (Taylor, 1919), recent studies recognized the individual idiosyncrasies and the emotional aspect of leading individuals in a workplace with the same goal of optimizing productivity to be able to respond to the changing times. Times have changed so “leaders must start by changing themselves before they can effectively stimulate change within the organization (Covey & Guuedge, 1994). Leaders who can boost their understanding of the role and impact of emotions in the workplace can effectively instill meaning and influence into an organization's management structure. A manager who can accurately and clearly think about emotions may often be better able to foresee, deal with and effectively manage change (Mayer & Caruso, 2002). But this emotional intelligence aspect of leadership in an organization is only a pathway or a stage of getting into the ultimate type of leadership which is “transformational leadership”. Transformational leadership is the type of leadership that brings the best of the followers. Transformational leadership … involves the mutual ”rising” of both sides to higher levels of motivation and morality(Jamaludin, et al, 2011, pg. 76). In support of Burns’ opinion on the latter, Bass (1997) further clarified that transformational leadership paradigm move the followers beyond their self-interests for the good of the group, organisation and society. According to this author, this new leadership paradigm does not replace the conceptions of leadership as exchanges that are contingent on followers’ performance, rather, it enhances the role of leaders in enlarging and elevating followers’ motivation, understanding, maturity and sense of self-worth. This explains why I chose to tackle emotional intelligence as an aspect of leadership and management not only to keep in touch with the recent undertaking in leadership but because I believe that this is one aspect about leadership which seems to be effortless on my part. As I just naturally like people, getting along with them and getting through them just flows naturally. While this can be an effort to other people, I do it by instinct. I work comfortably with a team and I have a strong feeling that a team’s feeling toward me is mutual. Having consensus with other people is easy as I am a believer of a participative or democratic process of decision making. I believe in this process of arriving at a mutual decision in a group because by doing so, everybody becomes inadvertently committed to its realization as it has been a productive of collective deliberation of which everybody can make a claim. If that is management and leadership, of which I did not realize before, I am just glad that it is because I just naturally have it. People identify with me because I truly care and are genuinely concerned and interested with them. Such, I would like to develop this trait further by keeping more in touch with other people’s emotional needs and to learn further how to better address them with the end of leading them towards a shared goal or vision. This can be better developed if complemented with other management tools so I will become a more complete leader. But just like everyone else, I too used to think of emotional intelligence as trivial and unimportant. I am just happy that being people smart is something that I can make use of in Management and Leadership. It is only recent when I stumbled upon the works of Gardner, Mayer, Salovey, etch., that I realized how important emotional intelligence is or the ability to relate to other people to leadership. In fact, it is the prelude to transformational leadership which inspires and nurtures others in an organization to become leaders in their own right. This emotional leadership has predominately focused on transformational leadership behavior (cf. Harms & Crede?, 2010), which involves acting as a charismatic role model, communicating a captivating vision, and providing intellectual stimulation and individualized support to followers (Bass, 1985). But of course there is one aspect of leadership that I need to improve on which I felt I am deficient. That is task competence of which I believe I have certain technical limitation. This is too is an important competence to have in leadership for directing people towards a common also necessitates a technical know-how and competence. II. Part two you are required to reflect on an aspect of professional development you may have experienced but wish to achieve within the first six months of your registration (LO 2). You may wish to reflect on something you have noted within your portfolio with respect to your own strengths and weaknesses in terms of leadership qualities, management skills and communication skills. Inferring from the previous explanation of my strength as a leader of being a socially adept person that I tend to direct people towards a common direction, I really would like to develop that strength hoping that such skill set will enable me to evolve and develop to an ultimate type of a leader which is a transformational leader. I believe that to become a transformational leader, I have to be attuned to what other’s feel and should be able to know how to direct that understanding towards a common goal and be able to nurture others to be the best they can be. This aptitude or emotional intelligence is the basic requisite of being a transformational leader; a leader whose vision touches other people that will inspire them to be the best that they can be. I also would like to develop this social skill as I enjoy being with people and could make this natural aptitude to a good use. I do not have to expend any effort when I do this as I naturally get along with people. Getting them to do something is something that comes from me naturally. Such, my learning curve for this aspect of leadership is already advanced but still requires to be developed further. And if that becomes a pre-requisite for good leadership, or even to become a transformational leader, I definitely would like to develop that natural aptitude of mine. To be honest, I never thought that by just enjoying other people’s company and by just really knowing them of what ticks them can get me to become a good leader. Moreso, if that will evolve to a transformational leader. This type of leadership is associated with higher levels of motivation in followers through activating their higher-level needs and generating a closer identification between leaders and followers. A number of authors have suggested that underpinning transformational leadership is the enhanced emotional attachment to the leader (Ashkanasy & Tse, 2000; Dulewicz & Higgs, 2003) that arises as a result of leaders using emotional intelligence. With regard to my weakness which is my perceived inadequacy towards task competence, I intend to address it by capitalizing and utilizing my emotional intelligence. While initial study showed that these two aptitude may seem to be disparate dimension of competence, research showed that they are in fact interconnected and crosses over for emotional intelligence effectively supplements cognitive intelligence to predict superior performance through its dimensions of self-appraisal, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Accurate self-appraisal promotes determination farsightedness, and enhanced purpose in life, direction and meaning (Sosik & Megerian, 1999). I will overcome my perceived weakness in task competence by taking the time to attend technical trainings about the job involve in the organization. Do extra reading about the subject and consult subject matter experts to widen my horizon on the technicalities of a specific task to supplement and overcome my technical weakness. I believe that my perceived inadequacy in this aspect in not about lack of aptitude but just a plain lack of interest. I believe I can overcome this weakness because I am always good at anything once I really engage myself in. Enhancing my technical competency will be no different from other difficult challenges that I have encountered and overcome before. III. Then you must devise a plan using SMARTE (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely and Ethical) goals. Identify the hindrances to achieving your goal and how you will overcome these. Remedial measures that I should undertake to overcome my perceive weakness is to attend immediately any technical training related to the job in my organization; be it company or organization in-house training or taking night classes or weekend class. It should be related to a job function that I am doing which I find myself to be technically deficient. As a measurement of my commitment to this goal, I should be religious in attending this class and will have to be fully engaged with all the activity and requirement of the course. Mere enrollment and attendance will not be enough as a measurement of commitment. I should at least also pass the subject as a minimum goal but will strive to be among the top graduates of the class. This is achievable especially when I really put myself into the training to commit to learning and excel. I usually excel in any endeavor when I really commit and this is no different. Schedule is also realistic as I will make sure that this will not conflict with my work schedule. If it should it be done in a class outside the organization, I intend to do it at night or weekend. If it is an in-house training, I can always volunteer and ask my superior for me to be included in the class and state my reason for volunteering to attend such training. This is ideal and very doable because such training is within the framework of my organization and is designed to complement and enhance my task competency. With regard to ethical consideration, the suggested remedial measure to address my perceive task competence inadequacy conflicts with no ethical standard. In fact is an ideal initiative for it is done voluntarily as a result of honest assessment of my Self that I am deficient in one area and would like to do something about it. It also manifests character, an ideal moral predisposition of a good leader, for I will be going the distance of taking a night or weekend class if such training will not be available within my organization. The hindrance that I foresee in achieving this goal of mine is lack of time and laxity of personal discipline. Taking extra class will surely take its toll on my social life and regular activity. It will take away the time that I usually allocate for leisure, family and myself. It could be tempting to think that it may lead me to deviate from the intended plan when I get tired and bored and make a personal excuse to avoid commitment that the time I am using for attending such training could have been devoted to having fun with family and friends. With regard to personal discipline, taking extra class also entails that I should engage in the study required by the class. That will take effort on my part with no immediate reward except the foresight that it will better me personally and professionally. Also, should the class be taken outside the framework of organization, there is a great probability that I will be using my personal resources to finance such study. That can be tough considering that we are still in a financial crisis today. This however could be surmounted by the vision and personal commitment that this extra effort that I will be doing to improve my task competency and myself, will give me countless reward in the future for I will become a complete leader manager which is an effective leader equipped with the necessary technical competency. REFERENCES Al-Mailam, F.F. 2004. Transactional versus transformational style of leadership-employee perception of leadership efficacy in public and private hospital in Kuwait. Quality Management in Health Care. 13(4): 278-284. Ashkanasy, N. N., & Tse, B. (2000). Transformational leadership as management of emotion: A conceptual review. In N. M. Ashkanasy, C. E. J. Hartel, & W. J. Zerbe (Eds.), Emotions in the workplace: Research, theory and practice (pp. 221–235). Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Bass, B.M. 1997. Does the Transactional – Transformational leadership paradigm transcend organizational and national boundaries?. American Psychologist. 52(2): 130-139. Adeyemi-Bello, T., 2001, Work Study. 50(4): 150-153 Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Chen, W., Jacobs, R., & Spencer, L. M. (1998). Calculating the competencies of stars, working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Covey, S. R., & Gulledge, K. A. (1994). Principle-centered leadership and change. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 17(2): 12-22. George, J. M. (2000). Emotions and leadership. The role of emotional intelligence. Human Relations, 53, 1027–1055. Goleman, D. (1998b). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Grewal, D., & Salovey, P. (2005). Feeling smart: The science of emotional intelligence. American Scientist, 93(4): 330-340. Harms, P. D., & Crede?, M. (2010). Emotional intelligence and transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analysis. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 17, 5–17. Humphrey, R. H. (2002). The many faces of emotional leadership. Leadership Quarterly, 13, 493–504. Lok, P. and Crawford, J. 2004. The effect of organizational culture and leadership style on job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Journal of Management Development. 23(4): 321-338. Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2002). Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT): Users manual. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Multi-Health Systems, Inc. Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence: Implications for educators. In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development, emotional literacy, and emotional intelligence (pp. 3-31). New York: Basic Books. Mayer, J. D., & Caruso, D. (November/December 2002). The effective leader: Understanding and applying emotional intelligence. Ivey Business Journal Online. Retrieved from http://www.iveybusinessjoumal.com/view_article.asp?intArticle_ID=384 Pope, K. S., & Singer, J. L. (1990). Imagination, cognition and personality. Journal of the American Association for the Study of Mental Imagery, 9(3): 183-211. Sosik, J. J., & Megerian, L. (1990). Understanding leader emotional intelligence and performance: The role of self-other agreement on transformational leadership perceptions. Group & Organization Management, 24367-390. Taylor, F.W., 1911. Principles of scientific manamgent. New York: Harper. Zaini; Rahman, Nik Mutasim Nik Ab.; Makhbul, Zafir Khan Muhammad; Idris, Fazli. DO TRANSACTIONAL, TRANSFORMATIONAL AND SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP STYLES DISTINCT? : A CONCEPTUAL INSIGHT. Jamaludin, Journal of Global Business & Economics, Jan2011, Vol. 2 Issue 1, p73-85, 13p, 1 Diagram, 2 Charts, 1 Graph Read More