Introduction
Managers are often charged with the responsibility of steering organisations forwards towards the achievement of objectives. As they purpose to ensure that the organisation attains its overall objective, they plan, organise and direct the staff effectively according to their individual capacities and skill.
This proper arrangement of specific works according to the appropriate skills available in the organisation eventually leads the organisation to accomplish its goals easily and with minimum use of financial resources.
However, the manager also needs to continually develop his or her skill so as to be able to effectively supervise and manage the staff working under him. This paper covers in detail the personal development of the manager, looking in particular at the personal planning, resource requirements, evaluation of the development plan as well as the supporting and promoting of the welfare of the staff.
Ability to Asses and Plan for Personal Professional Development
Importance of continual self-development
Continual self development is an important aspect of growth and improvement in executing managerial duties and performance because it improves on the capacity to fully meet and eventually even surpass the organisational objectives. This is important for my own growth as a manager as well as for the overall betterment and performance of the organisation through sustaining of skills as well as expertise in order to make change be realised (Armstrong, 2009).
It will also make it possible to structure a self-approach to a continuous programme to sustain the development process. With this capability, it would be possible to take control of my future career, directing it accordingly through an action plan to ensure the ultimate objective is achieved. Thus, the continual self-development cycle if followed diligently will ensure a greater job satisfaction with even improved career flexibility (Boyd, 1976).
Assessing skills and comparing with roles and organisation objectives
Skill assessment is an integral part of the continual self-development programme because it would enable one to realise the weak areas that require improvement as well as the identification of strong points and capabilities. In skill assessment, a Personal Career Portfolio will be maintained based on flexible pro-forma system. This record will thus help in the systematic tracking of performance capabilities and failures as well as record annual performance of continual self-development exercise (While & Attwood, 2000).
The skill assessment process begins with the setting of annual targets that aim directly at accomplishing the set objectives of the organisation. This initiative of proposing the appropriate targets lies with either the manager himself or a group of managers heading the organisation.
Once the organisational targets have been set, the individual management, leadership skills and roles necessary for the attainment of these targets will need to be derived accurately such that it becomes a possibility to attain the targets with much ease (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006).
At the end of the said period, the managers performance will be evaluated against the targets and existing deviations noted. A report detailing each of the failure or deviation will be drawn, giving reasons as to why the actual performance did not attain the set goals. A recommendation on corrective measures that will eliminate the existing gap between actual and set targets should be done with the help of an expert so that it does not produce a biased appraisal (Black, 2004).
Identifying development opportunities
Through a well structured development mechanism, it is possible to identify all the necessary development opportunities for a manager. These mechanisms include the structuring and detailing of a personal development process that aims at improving the career.
This will reflect the entire information about particular skills that a manager has while giving a full account about those areas that require effort. A personal development vision will be helpful as its analysis will make it possible to determine the manager’s future career plans (Brown, 2009).
An annual development plan will be mandatory in establishing development opportunities because it will give systematic actions that need to be executed in order to attain the overall goals and objectives (Armstrong, 2011).
Constructing a personal development plan
The identification of development opportunities can only be achievable after a manager notes down clearly where he needs to be in terms of his career and also be able to think critically. The noted down needs will serve as a structure guide which require reflection at every stage.
To begin with, the manager will need to undertake a skill audit to be able to tell exactly where his capacity and capability lies. This is an important stock taking stage that will systematically try to analyse the strengths as well as weaknesses of the manager. The best model that can be used to help out in the stock taking process is the SWOT analysis. This method will summarise strengths and weaknesses of the manager and also showcase other important aspects or areas like the opportunities and threats (Rughani, 2001).
Once the evaluation process is done with, it would be the perfect chance for the drawing up of an action plan. Apart from setting targets, the action plan will also come handy in identifying and documenting a well thought out strategy. The qualities of this action plan should be such that they are specific in their objectivity and not too general to confuse the manager himself. They should also be measurable such that the manager can break down his entire work into measurable bits.
This will make it possible to measure what can be done in a week or say on a monthly basis. The action plan should also be achievable, meaning the set objectives should be such that it is possible to attain them rather than having ambiguous targets that can hardly be achievable.
They also need to be realistic in the day to day lifetime. Unrealistic action plans will be of no use since it would imply achieving the set targets is next to impossible. Finally, the plan needs to be bound, meaning there needs to be set deadlines by which specific targets and activities should be accomplished (Contrell, 2010).
Ability to Plan for Required Resources for Personal Professional Development
Identifying the necessary resources for personal development plan
It is not possible for a manager drawing out a personal development plan to successfully determine the resources he requires unless he draws out the action plan first. The action plan will determine the ultimate objective of the personal development and also lay down the procedures and necessary requirements that will make the target achievable. Among the necessary requirements will be the resources (Lunenburg & Irby 2005).
These could vary from financial to material resources but the bottom line is the manager should be able to determine the exact resources required for the development plan. Resource determination begins by carrying out a summary analysis of the self-assessment report carried out in the previous stages. This exploration will help the manager to accurately determine the resources he or she needs to be able to effectively carry out continuous personal development of career.
The self-assessment results communicate individual strengths, interests, values and even preferences together with the skill development needs. With the help of a professional in the human resource field, the manager can go through this analysis and identify areas that he has poorly performed in and which require urgent correction in order to make amends. From this analysis, it will be possible to derive the resource requirement necessary for the corrections (Young et al, 2008).
Developing a business case to secure resources
As part of the development of a business case for managers, it is necessary that all the possible pitfalls are analysed and ready answers be prepared as well as the alternatives. The manager needs to carry out a review of the organisational issues as well as political issues which may hinder the project from realising its ultimate goal.
A review of the policy as well as that of the business process structure would also be necessary so that the business case does not lie outside the set limits. Where there exists a policy for oversight and stewardship of data, then it would be necessary that the manager uses a cross functional group that has been purposefully assembled for the organisation’s enterprise resource planning. This would particularly come in handy for purposes of informing the directory implementation (Zwikael & Smyrk, 2011).
Once this is done, the manager can now proceed and develop his business case. A business case involves cost implications as well as benefits that might accrue to the institution. The manager needs to develop the accruing benefits with all the functional users together with the consumers and assemble all costs. This should be done with the assistance of other staff whose input on the overall strategy will be very instrumental in its success.
The business case must be discussed with all the company stakeholders to find out how the project can be made more refined and beneficial both to the objectives of the firm and to individual performance of the manager. The executive support should also be sought because it will be vital in securing funding as well as in the developing of appropriate organisational policy to support it (Rughani, 2001).
Ability to Implement and Evaluate Personal Development Plan
Processes required in implementing personal development plan
The implementation of a personal development is a process that takes place in various stages. The first stage is the contextual analysis where the manager focuses his attention on the relationship that exists between the set standards and his development practise of his profession. Here, there is need for the manager to think about where he works, what his priorities are for maintaining an up to date in his management and leadership functions as well as in his approaches of executing the roles (Cameron & Quinn, 2011).
The second stage is the analysis of the manager’s needs and goals. The priority areas of the manager can effectively be analysed using relevant forms of evidence learner feedbacks, evaluation of the impact, observations and appraisals given if at all the manager’s performance was benchmarked by an independent person or body.
The manager also needs to make an objective and critical assessment of his own self in terms of the necessary needs and goals for the coming period or year that will fully address all the identified areas that require development (Streeter, 1994).
After successfully analysing the needs and goals, the manager can next develop an individual plan that will address the needs identified. In developing the plan, the manager should carefully think about the activity type as well as the exact focus that would directly be effective for him.
The created professional development plan should give priority to the rationale for each of the identified activities, give the time limits within which the targets and objectives should be achieved, enumerate the outcomes clearly, and finally enumerate the expected measures of success.
The next stage would be the professional development log where the manager now carries out all the activities that have been identified in the plan while ensuring that all the activities completed are recorded accurately. The dates of completion should be noted as well as an indication of the duration of time spent during its execution. The manager also needs to include a reflection on his progress together with the differences that the activities are causing to him, to his colleagues and to his immediate staff.
The fifth stage is the professional development record where the manager puts together a summary of all the significant activities that made an impact in the manager’s practise. This will be evidence enough that the manager has taken the required hours indicated on the personal development plan to perform his managerial roles and duties and crucially show the impact of what has been achieved.
The sixth and final stage of the implementation process is the reflection phase where the manager basically carries out an analysis of the practise and its overall impact. Apart from reflecting on his personal professional practise, the manager also needs to study the impact on colleagues as well as on staff working under him. This analysis will act as a prompt for the cycle to follow next and will form an integral part of the manager’s learning log for the current year (The Institute of Learning, 2009).
Personal development plan impact evaluation
Evaluating the impact of the personal development plan particularly on the achievement of all the defined roles as well as the organisational objective is an important aspect in the implementation process. However, before this happens the manager ought to have established his target achievement in advance before measuring the extent of his performance.
In the planning stage, therefore, the manager will be required to establish the kind of difference he wants to make and also identify the person he wants to make the impact to. He also needs to establish a timeline by which the difference will have been made. The manager’s thoughts of the prior picture, evidence as well as data will also be important to draw right at the outset of the planning. Finally, the manager should also ask himself about the kind of pictures and evidence he needs to achieve at the end of it all (Arnold, 1997).
In conclusion, the manager needs to evaluate now the actual difference that he will have achieved. The table below shows the direction from where the manager will be working from:
Source: Guidelines for your continuing professional development
The evaluation process to be concluded by the manager needs to have a ‘so what’ question. For instance, the question could be posed thus, what difference has your professional development activity made on your management practise and to the workers in general?
However careful a manager is during the initial stages of the plan, there is never a guarantee that the plan will go on as planned. It is important that all the unintended and surprising outcomes be reflected upon to offer evidence of deep learning such that it could be proved the plan has actually spurred more critical thinking together with further action. The manager should rethink about what he can do differently and in a changed manner if he was to do the same activity all over again (Mentzas, 2003).
Ability to support and promote staff welfare
Organisations can hardly exist without human beings or the workforce. It is the workforce that needs to be organised and placed accordingly in order that they may execute their duties as expected for the eventual achievement of organisational objectives. However, apart from being members of staff, the workers also have their own personal life issues that afflict them in their day to day life. These factors could negatively affect their output thus hindering the attainment of organisational objectives (Sheldon & Yoxon, 2002).
It is important therefore for any manager to give priority to staff welfare and issues if at all organisational goals and objectives have to be attained with minimum interference. Equitable and fair staff remuneration, staff benevolent fund, staff unions and other legally acceptable bodies that represent and address staff issues should be encouraged by the management and engaged into dialogue more often so as to understand clearly problems that workers are going through.
This in turn will motivate the workers and they will be discouraged from spending much of their time trying to resolve their own personal issues rather than put together their collective efforts in performing their roles in the organisation (Govindarajan & Natarajan, 2005).
In dealing with a staff welfare issue within an organisation, the worker’s representatives should be given chance to dialogue with the management as they are more close to the workers than the managers. Once the workers’ representatives have briefed the management on a developing issue, it is upon the management to seek alternative solutions from the representatives and use it as a guide to formulate the final solution plan to be adopted by the management.
It is not healthy to ignore the workers or dismiss their contributions wholesomely because on many occasions they could be having wonderful suggestions that if the organisation can only refine a bit, then it could turn out to be an amicable solution. However, the interests of the organisation should always be protected from plans that negatively affect the overall objectives.
Once the views of the workers have been obtained, the management team can discuss them and analyse their weaknesses from the organisation’s perspective. Changes can be proposed and applied to iron out any existing challenges and eventually come up with an acceptable solution plan.
These should then be communicated to the workers’ representatives in advance before being adopted fully by the management. The reason for this is to harmonise the positions of the organisation, which is represented by the managers, and that of the workers through their elected representatives.
The staff welfare responsibilities can later on be communicated to the teams using various methods and means. One of the methods through which an organisation can communicate these responsibilities is by giving the team leaders and managers the direct responsibility to inform members of his team (US Government Printing Office, 1995). This is a more effective method as it will take less time for each of the team members to receive the information.
Alternatively, the organisation can resort to use of notices as a means to pass the information to the team members. However, although this method could equally be as fast as the use of team leaders and managers, it is not as effective since workers will read the notices at different times and also interpret the message on their own, giving a general varied interpretation of the same message by varied staff.
Personal Reflection
Continuous personal development is an integral part in the growth and overall performance of any organisation. This is because it aims at adding skills to both managers and workers for purposes of improving their general performance and thus the objectives of the organisation. An effective personal development procedure and plan should begin by assessing current skills and capabilities before determining the areas that require improvement.
The necessary resources required for the development programme should be identified through a SWOT analysis that will make it possible to identify all the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities as well as threats. At this stage, it is important to draw up the personal development plan whose constructs should include the opportunities, skills required, areas where an individual has exhibited strong capabilities as well as any available threats that could have been identified.
The plan should be specific, measurable, achievable, and realistic with time limits so as to make it possible for the development objective to be achievable. The implementation phase should follow next, where each of the set out plans should be followed systematically so as to achieve the intended skill development. An evaluation to measure the extent of the development should be done to determine the extent of the plan’s effectiveness.
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