Strategic management essay sample

Demonstrate how you would assess personal and professional skills required to achieve strategic goals:

-Demonstrate how you would use appropriate methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve strategic goals -Explain how you would apply techniques to assess the professional skills required to support the strategic direction of the organization

In order for an organization to be successful and maintain long term sustainability it needs to ensure that there are effective strategic managers who are well aware of the goals and objectives of the organization so that they can work towards the goals and objectives efficiently and effectively (Williams & McWilliams 2010).

There are various skills that a strategic manager should have but some of the skills that are highly essential are time management skills, management skills, stress management skills, problem solving skills, motivational skills, good communication skills, decision making skills and leadership skills. These skills are further divided and assigned into two categories; Personal skills and Professional skills (Williams & McWilliams 2010).

In my case, I am responsible for the overall operations of the company whether that be any project established or upcoming. Hence I need to ensure that I use my skills are in a proper manner so that they are in line with the organization’s strategic goals.

Personal skills explained in simple terms are the ability to do something. These skills are very essential to every individual whether they be an employee in a company or a student in a university. They play a very important role for managers as they are perceived as a role model for their staff. Time management, stress management and communications skills form part of personal skills.

I would use the method of skills audit to evaluate the personal skills that are required to achieve strategic goals. A skills audit is a process whereby it will help me to think about the things that I am good at and those that require further development (Dadwal n. d.). My organization recommends a skills audit for each of its employees. Another method that I focus on is the feedback method. Considering our company is very new we have monthly feedback session with the director which further helps us to acknowledge our weak and strong points.

Professional skills include skills such as counseling and mentoring, leadership, and presentation skills.

In terms of assessing my personal skills I use the SWOT analysis. This is a possible approach whereby I can identify my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and weaknesses. This identification is intended to help an individual their development needs and wants (Dadwal n. d.). I believe this helps me in developing my career in a direction where I take optimum advantage of my talents, abilities, and opportunities. Section 2

Demonstrate how you would conduct a skills audit to identify learning style: -Demonstrate how you would carry out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet current and future leadership requirements -Explain how you would apply appropriate techniques to identify preferred learning style

A skills audit is whereby one can review their existing skill against the skills that are required in your current as well as future role. It helps in identifying existing skills, identifies what skills might be required in order to carry out your current role, planning effectively, developing and improving the skills and knowledge required for future career. Skills audit is carried out as a five stage process. Stage 1 – Existing Skills and Knowledge Identification

The first stage is writing down the knowledge and skills which are considered important for the current role. This can normally be obtained from the job
description.

Stage 2 – Future Skills and Knowledge Identification
This is noting down the knowledge and skills that are considered to be essential for future role.

Stage 3 – Rating Your Ability
Once the list is ready, the current abilities need to be rated against each skill. This can either be done in a three points rating of strong, weak and average or in five points rating which in more in depth. 1.= no current competency

2.= Some awareness
3.= some competency
4.= high level of competency
5.= fully competent

Stage 4 – Review Your Ability Ratings
This stage advises to get the list reviewed in order to gain feedback, normally by a supervisor in the workplace. Stage 5 – Your Future Development

The last stage is simply using this information in improving, developing skills and knowledge for future development.

Below is a skills audit that I conducted for myself. I believe that I will be needing the same skill set for my future career as well hence I have just conducted the skills audit for my current role.

Knowledge and skills which I consider to be important for my current role Your Ability Rating (1-5) or strong / weak / somewhere in between Planning skills 4
Self-management skills 3
Communication skills 5
Leadership skills 4
People managing skills 4
Time management 3
Analytical skills4
Interpretation skills4
Presentation skills 5
Problem-Solving skills 5
Computer skills 5
Networking skills 3
Decision-making skills 4
Motivation skills 4

There are various models that explain the way people learn. One can be more of an effective learner if they are aware of the range of potential learning methods and known when to apply and what will best work for them (Rosewell, n. d.).

According to Honey and Mumford (2000), they claim that individuals prefer different methods of learning depending on the scenario and experience level. They have provided a questionnaire that examines general behavior tendencies.

This model is used by our organization and I have used it for my preferred learning style as well. There are four learning styles to this i. e.; Activists, Pragmatist, Theorist and Reflector. After taking that questionnaire I can confidentially say that my preferred learning style is a combination of both Activists and Pragmatist depending on the situation. Section 3

Demonstrate how you would implement a personal development plan: -Demonstrate how you would construct a personal development plan that meets leadership development requirements identified in the skills audit -Explain the methods you would use to assess the outcomes of a personal development plan against personal work objectives -Explain how you would evaluate the impact of your own learning against the achievement of strategic goals A personal development plan is where a list of goals and objectives are included for individuals to determine the way to achieve these objectives.

This is considered to be a very structured approach (BSBM notes). Below is my personal development plan which I had constructed in a previous assignment prior to conducting a skills audit. This plan was constructed considering my current job and the skills I needed to do it capably. I had also considered the potential changes in the years ahead. I noted down both my short term as well as long term ambitions and the time required to achieve them. I carried out a realistic approach towards the preparation of this plan. I including my learning needs and how they will they satisfy the needs for accomplishing my personal as well as organizational objectives. In constructing a Personal Development Plan one also needs to consider the resources that will be required in order to achieve the objectives as well as setting a realistic time. While constructing this PDP I kept the SMART goals in mind. After conducting the skills audit I would make more entries into the plan considering the rating I gave to each skill.

Development NeedAction NeededResources NeededPersonal ObjectiveOrganizational GoalDate for Achievement & Review

1. Improve Planning skills

-Set own deadlines, rather than follow actual deadlines

-Train staff in a way that they come up with their own schedules and then consult with me
On the job experience as well as learning programme.

Improvement in the planning skills will make me work more efficiently and effectively, less stress.

Working effectively and efficiently will make it easier to achieve organizational goals.

December 2012

2. Improve Self- management skills

-Provide some flexibility in the to do list, learn to prioritize On the job experience as well as learning programme application into the workplace Self-management skills will help me in a way that I can better deal with the tasks that are assigned to me Since I am the Operations manager, the tasks I do, have an effect on the organizational goals and objectives

On-going

3. Improve Self-confidence (trust own decision making power)

-On the job experience, interaction with colleagues
-Weekly review of accomplishments, mistakes, and then learn from the mistakes -Learning programmes, as well as workplace experience
-will help overcome the emotional elements which is part of my weakness, need to trust my decision making power so I am more stronger and confident in making decisions -Operations Manager needs to act in the best interest of the company. Since better self-confidence will further help me in making decisions and trusting them will eventually result in meeting organizational goals

Ongoing
4. Networking skills

Need to socialize more, attend conferences, business parties, etcGuidance from director and senior managementWill help in future career Will help organization considering it runs several projects On-going 5. Time managementNeed to time myself, set alarms, deadlinesOn the job experience Saving time, less stressTasks done effectively and efficiently On-going

In order for me to assess the outcome of the Personal Development Plan against my personal work objectives I would conduct a review every once in a while, to see whether that outcome has been achieved. I need to determine to what extent I have met the goals. In case the outcomes have not been met I should make appropriate changes to my plan and monitor as to what is it that I am not doing correctly. Additionally I can also keep a learning log where I make entries after a couple of weeks where for instance the time management skills, I can set an earlier deadline for a task and see whether I am able to finish it on time, that particular activity can be recorded in the learning log, hence this will help me for the self-evaluation at a later stage. The learning log will be recording the track routine which will eventually help me in reviewing my outcome against my personal work objective. My evaluation will assess the extent to which I have made progress in implementing the Professional Development Plan and achieving SMART objectives. When I have achieved the strategic goals I will make a comparison of what I am doing differently which will eventually lead to the understanding of what I have learned against achieving the strategic goals. Reflective Learning Statement

The main themes of this unit has impacted and will surely impact my work role in the future. I have gone through lots of articles, notes, journals provided to gain an understanding of what strategic management is all about. In addition to this I have spoken to managers in the workplace who are way more experienced than me to gain an insight and then relate the real life example with the theory and I understood the concepts in depth by this comparison. At the start of this unit I consider that I was weak in a few areas and I had to conduct a lot of research but my strength of being motivated and determined lead me into conducting appropriate research for this topic given that there is not enough (according to me) material provided on Moodle as in comparison with other units. I feel very comfortable about this unit now.

References

Dadwal, S n. d., “ Personal development plan and Learning styles”, Powerpoint notes, viewed on 1. 10. 2012, retrieved from internet. Honey, P. & Mumford, A. (2000). “ The learning styles helper’s guide. Maidenhead”: Peter Honey Publications Ltd. Rosewell, J n. d., “ Learning Styles”, The Open University. Williams, C & McWilliams, A 2010, MGMT, Asia Pacific edn, Cengage Learning, Melbourne.