Project 1

Personal Reflection
By ANDY

Summary of what was done

• Reflection about how I would go about managing my work priorities.

• Reflection about how I would go about managing my professional development.

1. What makes a good role model and how would I ensure that I acted as a role model for employees I supervise?

A role model is a person who others look up to and admire. A role model provides inspiration and motivation to seek out accomplishments. Role models send messages about their beliefs by what they do and say. Here are some traits of positive role models.

A role model is self-assured and happy with who she is. If a role model displays that she has self-esteem, those who look up to her will, too. A role model displays a streak of independence showing she does not need to follow current trends. Role models trust in being themselves. They are proud of who they are, but not cocky.

Being human means having to constantly deal with stress and overcome obstacles. A role model sets a good example on how to handle pressure. Athlete role models can handle stress and can come through when the pressure is on. While they may not win every game, when they fail they attempt to learn from their mistakes.

Trustworthiness is another quality of a good role model. A role model is honest and doesn't lie. A role model possesses integrity and does the right thing even if no one is looking or he does not receive acknowledgment for his act.

A good role model also does what she says. A good role model delivers on her promises and can always be counted on even when she is overwhelmed and wants to quit. Perseverance is a key trait. Role models demonstrate that if they work hard to attain something, then others can, too. They give you dreams and goals to aspire to.

How you treat others speaks volumes about who you are. A good role model listens to others and also considers opposing points of view. He treats others how he would want to be treated and is considerate of others. When making mistakes, a role model does not place the blame on others; he owns up to his own shortcomings.

In order to ensure that I act as a positive role model to all my employees, I should let others to supervise me and provide me with effective feedback regularly, in the mean time, I should strictly follow the role model principles.

2. What are the traits of an effective leader? Do I have these traits? How would I develop these traits?

What qualities are those? Well, to be a highly effective leader, you must ...
... inspire action.
Try to paint a vision of the future that inspires your people to do whatever it takes to get there. The best leaders also clear away the organizational roadblocks that constrain employees’ natural creativity and initiative, unleashing a tremendous amount of energy in the process.
... be optimistic.
We all want to work with and for people who lift us up into the clouds instead of dragging us down into the mud. Make sure to seek out the positives in your people, helping them overcome their own feelings of self-doubt and spreading optimism throughout your organization.
... have integrity.
Research shows that the top thing that employees want from their leaders is integrity. Be honest, fair, candid and forthright, and treat everyone in the same way that you yourself would want to be treated.
... support and facilitate your team.
For people to do their very best work, they need an organizational environment that supports them by making it safe to take risks, to tell the truth, and to speak up ... without being punished for doing so. Support your employees by creating this kind of environment, and it will facilitate their progress toward attaining your organization’s goals.
... have confidence.
Highly effective leaders know deep down inside that they and their team can accomplish anything they set their minds to. Failure is not an option. Tentative leaders make for tentative employees. If you’re confident, your people will be too.
... communicate.
In any organization, knowledge is power, and great leaders ensure that every employee, from the very top to the very bottom of the org chart, is provided with complete and up-to-date information about the organization’s goals, performance, successes and failures. To achieve this level of connection, you should also provide ample channels for two-way communication between employees and managers, actively soliciting their ideas for improvement and rewarding employees for submitting them.
... be decisive.
One of the most basic duties of any leader is to make decisions. Highly effective leaders are not afraid to be decisive and to make tough calls quickly when circumstances require it. Once you have all the information you need to make an informed decision, then don’t hesitate--make it. And once you make a decision, then stick with it unless there is a particularly compelling reason for you to change it.
No matter what type of organization or industry you're in, it's possible to become a more effective leader, inspiring your people to give their very best every day of the week. Make a point of practicing these 7 leadership traits, and you will be a highly effective leader too.

I have some traits of an effective leader, however, there are more traits that I do not have so far. In order to develop these traits, I should keep learning to improve my competence in a professional way while keep track of all my goals and plans.

3. How would I ensure that my work goals and plan reflect the organization’s goals and plans?

I should find out what the organization's plans and goals are. Then I can assess whether my personal work plan is inline with the company's. I need to feel that your's and there's are harmonious and parallel and heading in the same direction for the be successful at attaining the "big picture".

I could take steps like:
Step 1: Look at the overall picture
Step 2: Determine work unit accomplishments
Step 3: Determine individual accomplishments that support the work unit goals
Step 4: Convert expected accomplishments into performance elements, indicating type and priority
Step 5: Determine work unit and individual measures
Step 6: Develop work unit and individual standards
Step 7: Determine how to monitor performance
Step 8: Check the performance plan against guidelines.

4. How would I ensure that I meet my job responsibilities?

Every job has a different set of requirements, and every hiring manager has to justify the salary I am asking them to offer me. Help them by building enough evidence to make it clear I am worth the money.

Quantify
Sum up the bottom-line effect of specific projects in which I participated, and be ready to assign a dollar figure to the role I played; be able to describe that role and why the estimation makes sense.
Count my chickens: If you're in sales or business development or services where part of my role is to generate billable hours, compare my revenue growth to others’or to my quota. Provide more detail than I think I should; be ready to back them up with more evidence.

Certify
If you're in a heavily regulated industry that requires certifications for specific job roles, don't even apply until you have the right ones. Once you have them, list them high in your resume to make it clear that you have them and get them out of the way. If certifications aren't required, do some research to figure out which ones will do some good. An MBA isn't required to get into the executive suite, but having one doesn't hurt. Being a certified aromatherapist, on the other hand, won't enhance your chances of landing a global supply-chain operations jobs.

Demonstrate experience
Lots of companies are avoiding overqualified candidates because they're too expensive and too great a flight risk. Make sure I either have the right number of years of experience or can make it obvious in my resume and cover letter that I prefer the level of responsibility in this job and won't be moving on any time soon.

Get my hands dirty
The poor economy and relentless flattening of corporate hierarchies has forced companies to do more with less – often to do more with a lot less. They want to hire people that are good strategists and managers, but also good individual contributors. In my resume, talk up my leadership and strategic contributions, but don't forget to show what part of the project I accomplished personally, and show them how.

5. How would I measure and maintain my personal performance?

Set up random methods of quality control throughout my company. While my employees are aware of the checks, they don't know when they will occur, so if they are slacking in some way or not performing to par, that will surface eventually. Suggested areas of quality control include spot checking products, reviewing phone calls, and inspecting log books.

Survey my clients about their customer service experience as a way of assessing employee performance. Ask them if they are satisfied with their product or service. Getting an outside perspective on performance is smart as it offers an objective analysis. In addition, client satisfaction should be my ultimate mission, and if my clients are genuinely satisfied, then my employees are getting something right.

Evaluate performance of employees by considering all areas of their work ethic and individual achievements. This method of assessment would look at each employee as a whole and most likely on an annual basis. If an employee is lacking, this assessment would give her an opportunity to improve. If an employee is excelling, then the assessment would recognize that, but still suggest ways of improvement.

Opt to initiate basic employee appraisals to indicate performance levels in various areas of the workforce, and both general and job-specific responsibilities. For example, manager appraisals are intended for supervisors to evaluate the performance of their subordinates. Peer and team appraisals are intended for employees to appraise each other as individuals or within a team environment. Self-appraisals are also an option, in which employees are given the opportunity to appraise themselves.

Resort to more comprehensive employee assessment methods if you fear for the future of your company. Options include hiring a professional assessor who can appraise the everyday functionality of your business, as well as the performance of your employees. An outside assessor can provide impartiality and, therefore, feedback that is devoid of personal relationships and feelings. A 360 appraisal is a second option that subjects an employee to appraisals by all his or her direct superiors and peers.

6. How would I prioritize work?

Step 1 - Know exactly what my work is
The first step is to know what my work actually consists of. Make a list of everything I want to do, along with any deadlines I have. Do not rely on my memory -- get it down on paper, ideally in my daily planner.

Step 2 - Break it down
Once O know what I want to do, organize it, as far as possible, into one day chunks. Every day I’ll have routine tasks such as email, which I can manage so I have an empty inbox every day. Once I’ve dealt with my dailies’, there are only so many hours left in my working day. Obviously, each day is different, but over time, I should get a rough idea of what one day’s worth of work looks like.

Step 3 - Prioritize only the urgent - at first
If things are on my list, I put them there because they do matter.
Instead, start by prioritizing only those things that are deadline driven, particularly if something on my list is for today or tomorrow.
Everything else? Give it equal value and do it according to where I am and how I feel. This gives me a real sense of freedom and flexibility when it comes to the moment of choice.
Eventually I'll get to the point at which you habitually do things as they show up, not when they blow up. Prioritizing by urgency becomes less of an issue because less is urgent.
Make sure the work is yours to do; otherwise, delegate it.

7. How would I use technology to organize and manage my work?

I could use technology like “evernote” to organize all my to-do tasks. In the meantime, other smart apps could help me to organize and mange my work as well, eg, smart apps that could save time for me, computer systems that could store and categorize work-related materials to improve both efficiency and effectiveness.

8. How would I ensure that I maintain a work/life balance?

When I plan your week, make it a point to schedule time with my family and friends, and activities that help me recharge.
If a date night with my spouse or a softball game with friends is on my calendar, I'll have something to look forward to and an extra incentive to manage my time well so I don't have to cancel.

Take stock of activities that don't enhance my career or personal life, and minimize the time I spend on them.
I may even be able to leave work earlier if I make a conscious effort to limit the time I spend on the web and social media sites, making personal calls, or checking my bank balance. We often get sucked into these habits that are making us much less efficient without realizing it.

Consider whether I can outsource any of my time-consuming household chores or errands.

Don't assume that I need to make big changes to bring more balance to my life. Setting realistic goals, like leaving the office earlier 1 night per week.

9. How would I ensure that my personal knowledge and skills meet meet required competency standards?

Keep learning while keep an eye for any standard changes in my professional areas. If there is any chang comes up, relevant changes should be made by me as well, like getting the new certification required by the industry recently and so on. Keep a routine self assessment and get supervision from peers.

10. How would I determine my developmental needs?

I may find it helpful to talk to my line manager or Head of Department if I feel you want to clarify any of the requirements set out in the person specification. My Annual Review meeting will be one place to have this discussion, but I can raise the issue of development at any meeting with my manager or HOD during the year.
At this stage, it is also worth thinking about the skills, knowledge and behaviors that I may need to develop in the future in your current job. I may know, for example, that my role will be changing or that I will be working on different projects or that I am interested in a career change. What new or different skills, knowledge and behaviors will you need?

It is important to ask myself some rigorous questions at this stage and answer honestly! Are there areas of my work, for example, where developing more confidence would make a real difference to my success in your job? Are there knowledge, skills and behaviors that I only need on occasion that would benefit from some development? Can I identify areas where I feel confident and believe I perform well that could be an even greater strength for me with some development?.
Try and be as specific as possible about what I need to do differently. This will really help me when I am deciding how to best address my development needs. It will also help me review and measure my success.
For example, “I need to learn how to use Outlook to sort, prioritize and store my emails,” will be much more helpful than “I need to be more organized,” when it comes to deciding what development I need. It will also help me check how the Outlook training I undertook actually made a difference in my ability to be organized.

11. What is my personal learning style and how would I ensure that I took advantage of learning opportunities?

My personal learning style is to perceive knowledge through ways of logical and verbal mostly. In order to take advantages of learning opportunities, I could combine as many as other learning styles together, but using the leaning styles I prefer the most, so that I could catch the learning opportunities in the best possible way.

12. How would I gather feedback from others about my personal performance and how would I use this feedback to improve my competence?

There is no question that email is one of the most valuable ways to gather feedback.

However, there are a few ways I can improve the way feedback reach out to me via email to maximize this channel’s effectiveness ...

Crafting a useful peer review survey is no easy task. There are so many potential questions I could be asking peers, but I have to be careful in my approach.


Listening through social media can prove particularly useful for gathering feedback. I refer to this method as “social listening” because direct comments or mentions on social networks are not the only way for my personal performance to get responses.


13. How would I use networks to increase my knowledge, gain new skills and develop relationships?

I could effectively using the networks to gather information which are work related, learn new skills and stuff from peers and other experts from my industry or other industry. In relation to relationships, I could use the networks to meet new people, making new friends and perhaps some potential partnership.

14. How would I ensure that I acquired new skills to maintain my competitive edge?

Competitive advantage occurs when an organization acquires or develops an attribute or combination of attributes that allows it to outperform its competitors. These attributes can include access to natural resources, such as high grade ores or inexpensive power, or access to highly trained and skilled personnel human resources. New technologies such as robotics and information technology can provide competitive advantage, whether as a part of the product itself, as an advantage to the making of the product, or as a competitive aid in the business process (for example, better identification and understanding of customers).

I need to figure out what my competitive edge is and then develop skills that are related to maintain the competitive edge accordingly.