Personal Skill Analysis
A general overview of motivating others in management
Doing business, people should remember that motivating others is one of the most important traits. Motivation is an inner feeling, some people have it and others may lack it (Hagger & Chatzisarantis 2007, p.256). No matter whether one possesses this skill or not, he/she may train it. There are a number of different facilities one may use to learn to motivate others. It should be stated that motivation “works behind the scenes to drive action, often in a way that is not obvious” (Muzio, Fisher & Thomas 2008, p. 47).
Analyzing the problem, much information was considered and it may be concluded that motivating others skills may never be applied without the following skills a business person should possess, leadership, motivation skill in general, communicative skill, and pure listening skill. Being a manager, these skills are extremely important. It is rather difficult to give a definition to leadership, still, Northouse (2009) combines a number of different definitions and states the following: Leadership is a process when one person influences a group of people who are aimed at achieving a specific goal (Northouse 2009, p. 3).
Supporting this idea, Adair (2007) states that leadership also involves control, support, informing, and evaluation of the work done. The author considers leadership and motivation like a brother and a sister as it is almost impossible to imagine a leader who would not possess some motivating skills and vice versa. Turning to the problem of motor skills, it is impossible to refuse the information mentioned above.
Furthermore, a close relationship between leadership and motivation skills may be proved by means of the following idea which states that motivational skill encourages other people and make them “want to work with you and for you” (Tharp & Reiter 2003, p. 171). Communicative and pure listening skills are closely connected. When a person listens to somebody, he/she should be able to communicate in such a way that the speaker wants to talk.
Personal Evaluation in the Relation to the Mentioned Skills
When I evaluated the skills I possess in the relation to motivating others, I concluded that I definitely possess all the skills mentioned above. I know that I am a good listener, I do not have any problems with communication, I am a leader and I can motivate people. To prove the statements mentioned above, I would like to provide some arguments which may be helpful for me to state that I can influence others and motivate them. I am a leader as working in the company I can prove my opinion and provide the arguments which will make other people follow me.
Furthermore, I have a lot of friends that confirm that I possess good communicative skills. I can talk on different topics and I suppose that I communicate with people on the topics they want to talk about. Having a best friend, I can state that I am a good listener as in case he has some problems I can always listen to him without interruption. I suppose that it is really important to listen to the speaker and do not interrupt.
Still, to give a person a sign that I am listening, I usually ask questions if I do not understand something and I am interested in it. Moreover, I can state that I have a motivational skill. There have been a lot of situations when my friends did not want to do what I wanted, but I managed to select the words and motivate them in such a way that they did what I wanted. Hence, they understood that it was necessary, that it was important for them as well, not only for me.
Analysis of the Survey
To check whether my understanding of my personal skills corresponds to reality, I conducted research. I created a questionnaire that was aimed at people who knew me best of all. I gave this questionnaire to a couple of my friends and colleagues and asked them to answer the questions. Almost all of the respondents confirmed the idea that I was a leader. They stated that people wanted to go after me as my motivating skills were at a high level.
Nevertheless, people who surround me stated that my listening and communicative skills were at a low level. My friends said that I could not listen to people. They said that I listened to them without interruption, which most people confirmed as a good feature. Still, I do not hear what I am said. In other words, I cannot properly understand what people say to me. My colleagues pointed out that I was not a good communicator. It does not mean that I cannot talk to people, but they stated that I cannot get on the right side of others in communication. Furthermore, some of the respondents stated that sometimes I choose inappropriate topics for conversations and business communication may be spoiled.
Feedback to Personal Evaluation and Friends’ Analysis
Having considered the information in the previous two parts about my personal understanding of my personal skills and my friends’ evaluation, I can say that my personal evaluation was a little overrated. I agree that my friends’ analysis is more objective. People from the side usually see better the advantages and disadvantages of your personal skills. As it was mentioned above, I have got to know that my listening and communication skills are not as good as I supposed.
Having considered the answers of my friends in the questionnaire, I understood that much work should be done both to support the skills I have already obtained (leadership and motivation), and to train the skills I do not have (listening and communicative skills). It should be confirmed that the lack of any of the skills does not allow a person, me in this case, to motivate others. The inability to communicate with people in a proper way and the inability to listen to them may be a great barrier on my way to becoming a good manager. Still, it is possible to change the situation and to train the skills which should be obtained if I want to be a good manager. In this case, a personal skill development plan should be considered.
Personal Skill Development
Importance of personal skill development
The necessity of personal skill development is huge indeed. To achieve appropriate results, succeed in the chosen activities, and demonstrate the best qualities of leaders, it is very important to consider personal skills and be ready to develop them in accordance with the requirements set by society in a certain period of time. In this paper, the evaluation of personal skills, as well as the goals which have to be achieved, is integral.
Green (2002) admits that “each person has a unique personality and way of looking at the world they live in”, this is why the process of self-assessment is obligatory (p. 3). A personal skill development plan has to be developed taking into consideration a number of significant issues like goal setting to the time period. If a person fails to take one of the above-mentioned steps in time in accordance with the instructions set, the rest of the work as well as the expected outcomes may undergo considerable changes and influence considerably human perception of personal duties.
Period to be considered for development
One of the first issues which have to be admitted by people who are going to develop a personal skill development plan is the evaluation of the time given. In the case analyzed in this paper, there are three whole weeks that may be devoted to the development of a plan. The number of days is clearly identified to meet several purposes. First, three weeks provide a person with a considerable amount of time to achieve a number of goals set. Second, three weeks are enough not only to take the steps and succeed in activities but also to analyze the results and define what promotes the success of actions and what introduces some challenges.
There are a number of steps and activities which may be taken by a person to improve personal skills and achieve good results in motivating other people. However, in case the steps are taken within a short period of time, there is a threat of poor understanding of a matter as well as wrongly defined purposes for the future. So, taking into account that there are six specific goals set in the personal skill development plan, three weeks seem to be enough to achieve each of them in a certain period of time.
Goals for personal skill development
Anderson, Yull, & Hellingsworth (2004) explain that “in today’s ever-growing competitive culture, individuals need to be as diverse as possible whilst still retaining their technical skills and knowledge base” (p. 267). To achieve success in any sphere of life, it is crucially important to define goals and make sure there is a good plan to pursue each of them. Right now, it is necessary to underline the goals which have to be achieved in a personal skill development plan that lasts for three weeks. There are six different goals that are developed considering personal skills, weak and strong points of a person who has to find appropriate sources of motivation, and be able to motivate other people to follow the same successful example.
- The first goal of a plan is based on the idea of the preservation of the already achieved skills and knowledge base. One of the most serious mistakes which influence the way of human leadership is the inability to consider knowledge gained. This is why it is crucially important to be confident that personal experience, knowledge, and skills may be preserved and considered during the process of personal skill development. This is the long-term type of goal, and much attention has to be paid to it.
- The second goal that has to be achieved is connected with the evaluation of the current state of affairs under which motivation takes place. In other words, a person has to find information about various aspects of life from time to time and be aware of the requirements set by society a person lives in. This is also a long-term goal that has to be achieved during a long period of time.
- The third goal in the plan under discussion is closely connected with an idea of skills improvement. There are two types of skills that are not developed appropriately. They are listening abilities and communicative skills. This goal has to be of short-term type (Miller 2009, p.222) because as soon a person can achieve this goal and get successful results as productive the activities of a person would be observed in the future.
- The fourth goal of the plan is to improve the relations between a person and other people who are unfamiliar with each other. It is necessary to have some kind of push to help other people understand the requirements (Hawkins 2009, p.145), this is why a person should be able to develop this stimulus to work with people. On the one hand, it is not that difficult to develop good relations and explain the purposes and expectations for people who are familiar with a leader and whom a leader is aware of. On the other hand, a person is not able to develop relations of good quality with people who are unknown to a person. This is why it is necessary to set a goal that should encourage a person to develop relations of various kinds with different people.
- The fifth goal under consideration is based on the educational process and improving various personal skills at the same time. For example, if a person is able to develop his/her leadership skills, this person should also evaluate the situation and be ready to improve some other aspects of management like communication or listening. It is very important to combine several actions and activities, and personal skill development should consider this fact.
- The last goal that has to be achieved is connected to personal attentiveness and attitudes to the tasks and conditions offered. A person should be able to understand the requirements and offer the steps with the help of which a situation can be improved. This is why the last goal is based on the idea of diverse activities that have to be taken at the same time.
Plan for skill development
Evaluation and reflection
Considering the problems I have with skills possession from the side of the literature review which has been conducted in the previous task, it should be mention that to achieve a goal I want, I should be extremely motivated. To be a good manager and motivate others, I should listen to them. Is not it a power that pushes me to certain actions? This information is stated in the work written by Wiseman (2008).
Hagger and Chatzisarantis (2007) write that to be able to motivate others one should be respected among those people and should have a good reputation. This confirms our idea that to be able to motivate others one should be a good leader. The same authors relate the problem of motivation to the business sphere. To be a leader helps to motivate employees. Furthermore, it is impossible to do this if other skills are not properly obtained. If a manager does not hear his/her employees, he/she will not be able to have a good reputation, the workers will not respect him/her and they will not be able to go after him/her. The ability to motivate others is a great helper in business relations.
According to Alderfer’s theory (in Zepeda 2007), a person can motivate others only if he/she possesses some specific skills and qualities, like communication with others, involving them in the decision-making process, encouraging for doing other things, etc. These qualities are extremely important and we have mentioned it while the personal evaluation. Considering the ability to motivate others from the point of view of possession of some specific skills, the ideas offered by Borkowski (2009) should be considered.
This person states that it is impossible to motivate others if one cannot encourage people for doing something. It is skill leaders possess, so, it is impossible to motivate others if one does not possess the leadership skills. So, it may be concluded that from the point of view of the literature review conducted in the previous task, I have good inclinations for motivating other people, still, there are some skills which I should obtain to become a professional.
Providing the evaluation of the first part of this assignment where the general skills a manager should possess, my opinion about personal skills, and my friends’ opinion about me are stated, it should be mentioned that all those parts are closely connected. First, I definitely possess some of the skills a manager in the business world should have. Second, at the same time, my personal evaluation of the skills I possess does not coincide with the opinion my friends have.
Thus, being able to motivate others, I should possess the following skills, leadership, motivation, pure listening, and communication. Third, my friends agree that I am a good leader and that I have good motivating skills, at the same time they disagree with me that I am a good listener and that I possess communication abilities. It is impossible to avoid this opinion as these people know me and they see better what kind of person I am.
Therefore, to become a good manager and to able to motivate others I should pay attention to the words said by my friends. I should obtain listening and communicative skills which may help me get along with people better. At the same time, I should not forget about the skills I already have. It is necessary to support and constantly improve them. Having evaluated the skills I have and the skills I should obtain, it should be mentioned that self-perfection is a key facility for success. Even If I managed to achieve the goals put before me, I would have to improve those constantly. I understand that obtaining listening and communicative skills is not so easy, that is why I prepared the personal skill development plan which is really helpful for me.
I know that I can cope with the tasks put before me. I also agree that it is difficult to do, but having considered the skills I obtain, I can say that I can motivate myself. The desire to become a good manager who can motivate others is a perfect reason to achieve the goals I put. Evaluating my inability to hear others, it should be mentioned that this ability may be trained with the help of my friends as it is always possible to ask whether I caught an idea of the conversation. Communicative skills may be considered by means of the same method.
In general, all goals set in this project are closely connected to each other, and a person has to achieve all of them to be able to find appropriate sources of motivation and motivate other people in the right way. The goals set in part two correspond to all the instructions set and have all important SMART characteristics which are specific (the goals clearly define what should be done), measurable (several quantitative characteristics are considered), agreed (several people are involved in the plan to help one person improve personal skills), realistic (each step is possible to take under current conditions), and, finally, time-framed (there are three weeks given to succeed in these goals achieving) (Carpolio & Andrewartha 2008, p.285).
The chosen skill development plan is a unique possibility to change a person, to improve various skills, and to help to understand what the characteristics of a good leader are. It is not always easy to understand personal weaknesses and turn them into personal strengths, still, a considerable amount of work, appropriate attitude to the duties, and attention to the details are helpful aspects to be considered. In this paper, a table introduces activities that should be done and the results that are expected. There are a number of chances to succeed in skill development, and the chosen plan is one of the most appropriate and available for me.
Reference List
Adair, J 2007, Leadership and Motivation: The Fifty-Fifty Rule and the Eight Key Principles of Motivating Others, Kogan Page Publishers.
Anderson, H, Yull, S, & Hollingsworth, B 2004, Higher National Computing: Core Units for BTEC Higher Nationals in Computing, Elsevier, Burlington.
Borkowski, N 2009, Organizational Behavior in Health Care, New Jersey, Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Caroline, J & Andrewartha, G 2008, Developing Management Skills: A Comprehensive Guide for Leaders, Prentice-Hall, Australia.
Green, MR 2002, Plan Skills Development, Max Johnson, Melbourne.
Hagger, M & Chatzisarantis, N 2007, Intrinsic Motivation, and Self-Determination in Exercise and Sport, New York, Human Kinetics.
Hawkins, M 2009, Activating Your Ambition: A Guide to Coaching the Best Out of Yourself and Others, Mike Hawkins, New York.
Miller, W 2009, ProActive Sales Management: How to Lead, Motivate, and Stay Ahead of the Game, AMACOM, New York.
Muzio, EG, Fisher, DJ and Thomas, E 2008, Four Secrets to Liking Your Work: You May Not Need to Quit to Get the Job You Want, FT Press.
Northouse, PG 2009, Leadership: Theory and Practice, SAGE.
Tharp, T & Reiter, M 2003, The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life: A Practical Guide. Simon and Schuster.
Wiseman, D 2008, Best Practice in Motivation and Management in the Classroom, New York, Charles C Thomas Publisher.
Zepeda, S 2007, Instructional Supervision: Applying Tools and Concepts, Eye on Education, U.S.
Appendix
Questionnaire for evaluating my skills
- How do you think, can I lead people? Is it easy for me to organize a group of people?
- Can you say that I can make people do what I want? Is it possible for me to provide the arguments which can make others change their minds?
- Do you agree that I am a good listener? Do you feel comfortable when you tell me something?
- Do you think that I am a good companion? Is it easy to communicate with me on different topics?