The Importance of Continued Self-Development

Q1: The importance of continued self-development

Who Am I

I am a forty seven year old male born in Glasgow, Scotland. I am married with four children. My career has focused on electronic production. I have worked for several different companies and lived for more than one year in Vienna Austria, Toronto Canada and Singapore. This has allowed me the opportunity to experience life in different areas as well as within different companies and various seniority levels.

Continued self-development is a key part of growing as a person. This manifests its self in becoming a better, partner, colleague, parent, teacher and member of the community. All of which greatly assists in becoming a more effective and successful manager, as each area helps develop different aspects of self-awareness and from this the ability to understand the motivations that drive our behaviour. This in turn allows us to make conscious decisions to adapt these behaviours thereby allowing more effective interaction, communication and collaboration, should we chose to do so. The important part here is not that we chose to do so, but that we are aware that there is a conscious choice. In the "7 habits of highly effective people" (Covey), it states that there is a gap between stimulus and response, and that this response is not predetermined but can be altered to best suit the situation or desired outcome.

Over the course of my career I have taken several tests, surveys and interviews designed to identify key personality, and behavioural traits of my character. These include Belbin Team test, Myers Brigs, Type Indicator, D.I.S.C, EQ, and Hogan. From these tools, I have chosen DISC, EQ and Belbin to support my three critical incidents that form part of this document. A copy of these three tools can be found in the appendices.

The common traits and behaviours identified across all three tools used are summarized as follows:

In general I am an extrovert. I like to control my environment. I am very goal- orientated and gravitate towards the bigger picture rather than being focused on the day to day details. I am persuasive and will use this skill to drive the output that I desire. I can be manipulative and feel comfortable doing so and I am usually very aware of when I am doing this. I can be difficult to work with due to sometimes being overpowering in my desire to do things my way, and this can alienate people, stifle input and divide the team. I am comfortable with conflict and believe that this is often required to drive the best performance. I am energetic and tend to make decisions fast even if I don't have all the information, and I am sometimes impatient. This can often make team members or colleagues who prefer to take a more methodical approach uncomfortable. I don't cope well with repetitive tasks, being micro managed in terms of time, tasks or work content creativity, or what I regard as being unnecessary bureaucracy or red tape. This can sometimes get me into trouble and have developed ways to help me stop and think about such issues. I also tend to ensure that team members with traits that compensate for my shortcomings' are included, even if I don't agree with their ideas or even if they tend to frustrate me a little, I strive to actively listen to their point of view, not least because it may keep me out of trouble.

On the positive side, I tend to be successful in driving results and can energize and motivate people as well and increase the tempo of the organization towards achieving results faster. I identify young talent in the company and enjoy coaching them. However, I tend to look for people in my own image and this again can cause issue with other team members who value other skills and traits that the ones I tend to promote. I am regarded as a hard worker, getting to the office early and staying until the work is done. I am seen as a good communicator with motivating language and this can inspire people towards increased performance levels. I have relatively quick thinking skills and therefore can adapt to differing and different situations with relative ease, this also allows me to be able to think on my feet when under question in situations such as important presentations.

My motivating factors include being rewarded for doing a good job, be that through promotion, financial rewards or simply public or private recognition. I enjoy immediate feedback rather than time delayed and prefers this verbally. I enjoy being fully accountable and responsible for the task in hand and do not tend to work as well when there is shared leadership of important goals. I enjoy having control of my own schedule and daily work routine and the opportunity to frequently get together with the other team members to give and receive verbal updates.

The red flag areas for me include: having to have respect for my superiors and colleagues or I risk undermining them or causing unnecessary conflict. I need to ensure that there are safety mechanisms baked into the business that protect against me making gut feel decisions that would cause problems. Some of these mechanisms include forcing myself to slow down and work through the details, hiring key team members that can force an alternative point of view, asking for fact based reporting, and having open dialogue as a team to arrive at the best overall decision. I also need to force myself to value the difference within a team and to actively listen to each point of view.

Therefore in summary the key areas that I tend to try and develop are:

* Listening; active listening to different points of view.

* Details & Facts; ensuring that I review the details and not react on gut feel alone.

* Value Opinion; continue to develop the skills to help me value all of the input and opinions including cultural differences.

* Focus; developing skills that allow me to cope better with repetitive tasks and working environments.

* Recognition; reduce the need for praise, reward and recognition, and develop the mind set and confidence that the reward comes from a job well done

* Collaboration; develop skills and an attitude to be able to share the leadership and not always have to be a single point goal orientated leader, but part of a leadership team.

Preferred learning style, using Honey & Mumford method is; Strong Activist & Moderate