Personal, Professional and Career Development
Personal, Professional and CareerDevelopment
Introduction
Thetransition from academic to professional life is an exciting shift of interestand focus, which demands proper career-life planning, intensive understandingof personal development and growth, adaptive skills in the workplace, and agreat deal of decision making or problem solving. In the perspective of anorganization, stimulation of personal, professional and career development ofemployees is a game changer in increasing their effectiveness in the workplace,thereby developing a positive performance (Beausaert, Segers & Gijselaers,2011). As an MBA student, I come to the crossroad of making sound plans anddecisions on how to make myself – my profession and career life – better. Thisessay will describe my personal goals and career purpose as an evaluatecomparison with my current status and my future plan of actions. Insights intothe future career development agenda will also be included in this paper with adiscussion on values and strengths to be explored for the benefit of careerdevelopment.
Personal and Career Purpose – How to Achieve Them
I took abusiness-related course with the plan of getting an MBA because of a singlereason: I want to become an effective manager or a business executive.Academically, I prepared myself for a future job in the business industry. Trueto it, after getting the bachelor degree, I embarked to an experientialknowledge, but the academic knowledge I had was not enough to keep me going.For that reason, I enrolled in this MBA course. This is a tool that will bridgethe gap between the real world and my knowledge. Overall, experience andknowledge prepared me to become an effective leader, manager, or executive of acompany, who will have a big impact in changing the landscape of the businessenvironment.
The end goal of my professional and careerdevelopment plans is becoming a “personal brand” in the business environment.Why this end goal? All efforts being made today will all be waste if the knowledgeand experience gathered won’t be shared or won’t make an impact to theindustry. In essence, achieving the end goal of my professional career would bea testament or a referendum to the experience and knowledge that I gained. Theend goal is not just about being a manager or an executive of a company, but itis being a “voice” in the industry that will change the concept of managementand how organizations should behave. Simply, becoming an authority in theindustry is what the end goal means.
Yet, achievingthe end goal is not easy one. Of course, the foundation work has been ignitedwith the academic knowledge. This MBA course is a big road paving theachievement of the end goal. All big goals start small. With this, I startedwith the basic positions in the organization. This way I was able to learn theropes of business – the real world and not just the discussion of theclassroom. If I want to become an effective manager or executive, I need toknow what’s happening in ranks below me. Being at the bottom of theorganizational chart was an experience that set my desire to excel.
As I pursuedknowledge and experience, there were people who made instrumental impact.Foremost, it is to note that academicians were helpful in shaping the theoryaspect of my knowledge. And of course, direct supervisors in the workplace andmanagers were able to draw my attention on how to apply theory into practice.Together, these people were monumental in reshaping the concept of knowledgeand experience. Rather than starting out with things my own, the guidance andhelp of these people were dramatic in making my career path.
As earliermentioned, the end goal is a big thing to achieve and there are short termgoals to reach. These short term goals are very essential to the end goal. Forinstance, if I must become an authority in the industry, it is important tobecome an authority in the organization first and this can only be achievedthrough climbing the ladder of the organizational chart. If I won’t be able toclimb the organizational ladder, it would be impossible to be effective inbeing an authority in the industry.
To achievethese goals – short terms or end goal – it is important to maintaindetermination and focus on the goal. These are what needs to happen to achievethe end goal. Without these, it would be impossible to stay on the track andkeep the direction toward the goal.
Quality Career Decisions
Working withan important organization in the Middle East is career move that puts my careergoal on track. According to Martin (2010, Forbes), the good thing of working ina large organization is it allows employees to work on various departments orpositions, thereby giving employees opportunities to learn and acquireexperience. This is so true with my decision to hand on my application to theorganization I am working with. With the size of the organization, I wasassigned to do various task responsibilities that create a technical andexperiential flexibility in me. This is significant because it puts me into aposition of knowledge of the business operation as a preparatory for my futuremanagerial goals.
In the samemanner, side from the experiential knowledge brought by my work position, I wasalso ushered into a better career development with my decision in enrollingmyself in the MBA program. While I had great experience and position in theorganization, I needed additional knowledge on how to become an effectiveleader, manager or executive. With this MBA program, I embarked into a journeyof being the manager and just a simple employee of the organization. I wasopened to the arena or the world of the management and the administration.
As a person,being in a large organization is motivating and challenging. While I am aflexible person who can work on whatever tasks given, I also understand that ina large organization, I am only competing with myself but with others as well.In this regard, I had to exert extra effort to be effective in my tasks and tostand out. This may sound overly competitive, but this is the reality of thelarge organization. As much as my end goal is to become a manager, I need toclimb the organizational ladder, and I can only do that by being the best ofmyself and stand out among my colleagues. And it’s worth it because of myposition at the moment.
In fact, tomaintain my edge, I got myself into the MBA program. I am interested inmanaging an organization, in directing its course of action and bringing in myideas into the overall operations of the business. As much as this interestsme, I need to get the knowledge on how to accomplish this. As noted earlier,determination and focus on the end goal help to achieve goals in life.Determination and focus on the interest must be properly guided with the careerplan.
As far as Iunderstood this, quality career decisions are anchored on keeping track withthe end goal and in utilizing the advantages of the moment. Looking at thisperspective, it is important to keep being focused. Several people failed inlife because they have several goals and objectives in their career path. Ibelieve in the need of having a singular goal in life. In making qualitydecision, this singular goal in life will make a strong guidepost. Otherwise,plurality of goals may only dilute goals and objectives.
While Ibelieve in the need of having a competitive advantage, I believe too much of itshould go away. With a mature look of career development, this should not befueled by the goal of being rival with other people. I need to become aneffective manager, I need to get this thing out to ensure that my decisions aresound and grounded on proper rational rather than on emotional attachments.
Evaluatingmy actions and the course direction of my career, I can say that I have stayedin the path to achieve my end goals. In terms of learning, both the academicand experiential knowledge have been beneficial in keeping me adept and abreastwith the demand of my future career goal. In fact, I can connect some of theexperiential knowledge that I had with the academic learning that I acquiredwith the MBA course I am enrolled. With the aid of the combination of theoryand practice, I can say that my learning goals are starting to take shape aspart of my preparation for better opportunities in the future. This is a goodstart to turn the direction toward becoming an executive and authority of theindustry.
Now with thelearning goals achieved, I am ready to take tasks that are purely managerialand administrative. In a sense, everything is starting to take shape because Iam more equipped with knowledge and experience for the job. If I am going todivide my career development agenda, it is easy to create objectives. Mainly,the first division of the agenda is to acquire enough knowledge, and second touse this knowledge to become effective in the work area. The final phase of thecareer agenda is to excel in the managerial area and become effective in thisarea as the ladder to become an authority in the business industry. Throughachievement of the learning goals, it is easier to become effective in the workarea to achieve the end goals.
Actually,the learning goals and the work experience are two aspects of being a leader.In becoming a manager or an executive, it is necessary to translate goals andobjectives into actions through facts and information. This could only beachieved if I get enough knowledge and experience. It would be impossible tolead or manage people in the workplace if I don’t have the knowledge of thebusiness, or how employees behave. This means that in order for one to becomeeffective in a supervisory or managerial job, it is important to get enoughknowledge and skills, which could be understood with the aid of experience. Nomanager becomes effective if there is no enough knowledge – both academic andexperiential – to guide the person.
In workingwith my colleagues, I was able to understand the difficulty of achieving careergoals. Yes, in creating a life plan or a career path, there are difficulties totake, especially those driven by personal attitude, values, and behavior. Myperspective on how people in the organization behave is driven by the thoughtof competition. Because of this, I look at workmates with the desire to rivalwith them. With this, I must build interpersonal relationships that are notdriven by this desire. Instead, I need to build relationship with people thatare beneficial because I aim to become an effective executive and manager inthe future. In this regard, I will be able to make proper problem solving thatwill create sound decision making process.
Conclusion
As a person,I have learned that there are attitudes and values that are beneficial to thecareer plans of a person. But there are also values that should be avoidedbecause they can be detrimental to the flow of the person’s career path. Withthis, it is important to balance these attitudes and values in order to keepthings in the right perspective and to achieve goals. Personal development isvery important if one wants to grow in the career and professional path taken.
As aprofessional, it is very important to acquire enough knowledge before embarkingto decision making. Professionalism in the workplace demands the use of factsand information to create decisions. Only with knowledge can a person becomeeffective in the workplace. In terms of career development, it is veryimportant to combine personal attitudes and values with professional skills.
References:
Martin, C. (2010). Weighing the Pros and Cons of Workingfor a Large Company. Retrieved fromhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/work-in-progress/2010/04/23/weighing-the-pros-and- cons-of-working-for-a-large-company/
Simon Beausaert , Mien Segers & Wim Gijselaers. (2011).The use of a personal development planand the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility and performance: the role of supportingassessment conditions, Human Resource DevelopmentInternational, 14:5, 527-543
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On – 01 Jun, 2017 By xxxxx