My Strategy for Mastery

"My Strategy For Mastery"

In this paper "My Strategy For Mastery" I will use the base questions assigned to recount my strengths and weaknesses in the roles that have been discussed during class. I will show which roles I am strongest in and what roles I am weakest in, how I view myself in them and what avenues I will follow in order to improve my overall managing skills. I will look at how my views of myself have changed due to the work in this course and where I am now as a manager, and where I hope to be in the future due to these roles that I now have a deeper and better understanding knowledge of.

What is my level of competency in each of the roles?

In terms of my level of competency in each of the roles we have discussed during the work in this course, I would say that I do seem to have a good grasp on the things that make up or are expected by most of the roles. That being said I also have learned, and still have to learn much about all of the roles covered in class, especially the ones I find myself to be weakest in. My weaknesses by far were that of the roles of Mentor and Facilitator. My mid-range roles were that of Monitor, Coordinator, Director, and the Producer Role. My strength roles were that of Broker and Innovator; and as such I feel that my level of competency is the highest behind these two roles. But throughout my working life so far I feel as though I have gained a good amount of knowledge in all of the roles covered in class. I think that my work in the restaurant and food service industry in general allows for an easier understanding of all of the roles of management that we have discussed during this course. I feel in the smaller environment of a restaurant type setting, as an employee you really get to see all of the choices and situations managers are faced with on a daily basis, as opposed to a bigger corporate environment where as an employee you may not work as closely with managers. But even with all of the knowledge and competency of these roles that I walked into this class with, it was this class where I was able to receive a better understanding of these roles in management and what types of management roles I most closely associated my own managing personality with, as well as which were my strengths and which one's were my weaknesses and thus which ones I needed to work harder on to gain better competency.

Where are my particular strengths and weaknesses?

My strengths I discovered through this class were that of Broker and Innovator, with Innovator being my strongest role. The strength in the Broker role I feel comes hand-in-hand with my strength as an Innovator. I feel that the Broker role is strength of mine due to my use of networking when it comes to confronting managing situations. I have always been of the mind set that if someone I know personally, or a contact, can provide a better solution to a problem, or provide an avenue that normally I couldn't take without them, than by all means I should try an utilize the people I know in an effort to make my own solutions better. I think that my strengths as a Broker come directly from my strongest role as an Innovator. As an Innovator I think of different ways to gain solutions to problems facing my in all aspects of management and life. Thinking outside of the box to find new and different solutions to problems has always been the answer for me personally. I have always felt using the same avenue others have used to solve a problem in the past, is doing a disservice to the problem and to the solution. Not even taking the time to see if there is possibly a faster, or all round better solution to a problem feels to me like wasting time so I guess it makes sense that Innovator is my strength.

When it comes to my weaknesses, I found both the Mentor role and the Facilitator role to be my weakest by far. I found Mentor to my weakest due to the fact that I always find it difficult to listen to others problems, and see those problems and talk through them in order to make others feel important. I have a very cynical outlook on things and I constantly find myself viewing the job as the only important thing, and that personal problems come secondary, if at all, to the greater good of the problem at hand. When it comes to training, while I seem to be very good at training people, I often train in a more robotic way than a personal way. I even notice this about myself when I work at waiting on tables in the restaurant, I would consider myself the most efficient server and not the most personable. When it comes to another weakness for me, the role of Facilitator, many of the same issues arise that make Mentor a weak role for me. I find it tough to consider the issues of others and be mindful of those issues when faced with working problems. I would rather come to a quick solution when it comes to conflict management and then move forward, rather than dragging out and talking about all of the issues facing co-workers in order to find a solution that works well for everyone and appeases all of their individual concerns. I have always felt the work is more important than the individual. Although when it comes to working in groups or teams, obviously I need to make a few amendments to my line of thinking since the work now relies on the team. But I have always been more of a "do-it-yourselfer" than a group or team orientated type of guy, and while I can work well and thrive in a group setting I often prefer to work as an individual. Often I view teamwork as more of chance for others to slack than to gain greater results through the group, and as such, the roles of both Mentor and Facilitator seemed to be my weakest.

What should I do to improve performance in the roles?

When it comes to improving these roles, I will focus particularly on my strongest role of Innovator and my weakest of Mentor. With my role as Innovator there are a few avenues I can take towards the improvement of even my strongest role. Using my semi-strengths in other areas to create a good basis of knowledge and action would be my first avenue of improvement. Basically meaning in order to be the best Innovator I can be I need to improve all areas and roles that are the make up of becoming a master manager not just the primary role of Innovator. I need to improve in all the roles of management, and to that effect, I would assume that there is always room for improvement no matter the level of mastery I find myself obtaining in regards to any of the roles. For example with the role of Innovator I could improve simply by improving in another area such as the Broker role. If I have more contacts, and more avenues to consider when it comes time