Personal, Professional and Career Development
Introduction
The transition from academic to professional life is an exciting shift of interest and focus, which demands proper career-life planning, intensive understanding of personal development and growth, adaptive skills in the workplace, and a great deal of decision making or problem solving. In the perspective of an organization, stimulation of personal, professional and career development of employees 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 and decisions on how to make myself – my profession and career life – better. This essay will describe my personal goals and career purpose as an evaluate comparison with my current status and my future plan of actions. Insights into the future career development agenda will also be included in this paper with a discussion on values and strengths to be explored for the benefit of career development.
Personal and Career Purpose – How to Achieve Them
I took a business-related course with the plan of getting an MBA because of a single reason: I want to become an effective manager or a business executive. Academically, I prepared myself for a future job in the business industry. True to it, after getting the bachelor degree, I embarked to an experiential knowledge, 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 bridge the gap between the real world and my knowledge. Overall, experience and knowledge prepared me to become an effective leader, manager, or executive of a company, who will have a big impact in changing the landscape of the business environment.
The end goal of my professional and career development 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 knowledge and experience gathered won't be shared or won't make an impact to the industry. In essence, achieving the end goal of my professional career would be a testament or a referendum to the experience and knowledge that I gained. The end goal is not just about being a manager or an executive of a company, but it is being a “voice” in the industry that will change the concept of management and how organizations should behave. Simply, becoming an authority in the industry is what the end goal means.
Yet, achieving the end goal is not easy one. Of course, the foundation work has been ignited with the academic knowledge. This MBA course is a big road paving the achievement of the end goal. All big goals start small. With this, I started with the basic positions in the organization. This way I was able to learn the ropes of business – the real world and not just the discussion of the classroom. If I want to become an effective manager or executive, I need to know what's happening in ranks below me. Being at the bottom of the organizational chart was an experience that set my desire to excel.
As I pursued knowledge and experience, there were people who made instrumental impact. Foremost, it is to note that academicians were helpful in shaping the theory aspect of my knowledge. And of course, direct supervisors in the workplace and managers were able to draw my attention on how to apply theory into practice. Together, these people were monumental in reshaping the concept of knowledge and experience. Rather than starting out with things my own, the guidance and help of these people were dramatic in making my career path.
As earlier mentioned, the end goal is a big thing to achieve and there are short term goals to reach. These short term goals are very essential to the end goal. For instance, if I must become an authority in the industry, it is important to become an authority in the organization first and this can only be achieved through climbing the ladder of the organizational chart. If I won't be able to climb the organizational ladder, it would be impossible to be effective in being an authority in the industry.
To achieve these goals – short terms or end goal – it is important to maintain determination and focus on the goal. These are what needs to happen to achieve the end goal. Without these, it would be impossible to stay on the track and keep the direction toward the goal.
Quality Career Decisions
Working with an important organization in the Middle East is career move that puts my career goal on track. According to Martin (2010, Forbes), the good thing of working in a large organization is it allows employees to work on various departments or positions, thereby giving employees opportunities to learn and acquire experience. This is so true with my decision to hand on my application to the organization I am working with. With the size of the organization, I was assigned to do various task responsibilities that create a technical and experiential flexibility in me. This is significant because it puts me into a position of knowledge of the business operation as a preparatory for my future managerial goals.
In the same manner, side from the experiential knowledge brought by my work position, I was also ushered into a better career development with my decision in enrolling myself in the MBA program. While I had great experience and position in the organization, I needed additional knowledge on how to become an effective leader, manager or executive. With this MBA program, I embarked into a journey of being the manager and just a simple employee of the organization. I was opened 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 a flexible person who can work on whatever tasks given, I also understand that in a 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 to stand out. This may sound overly competitive, but this is the reality of the large organization. As much as my end goal is to become a manager, I need to climb the organizational ladder, and I can only do that by being the best of myself and stand out among my colleagues. And it's worth it because of my position at the moment.
In fact, to maintain my edge, I got myself into the MBA program. I am interested in managing an organization, in directing its course of action and bringing in my ideas into the overall operations of the business. As much as this interests me, 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 career plan.
As far as I understood this, quality career decisions are anchored on keeping track with the end goal and in utilizing the advantages of the moment. Looking at this perspective, it is important to keep being focused. Several people failed in life because they have several goals and objectives in their career path. I believe in the need of having a singular goal in life. In making quality decision, this singular goal in life will make a strong guidepost. Otherwise, plurality of goals may only dilute goals and objectives.
While I believe in the need of having a competitive advantage, I believe too much of it should go away. With a mature look of career development, this should not be fueled by the goal of being rival with other people. I need to become an effective manager, I need to get this thing out to ensure that my decisions are sound and grounded on proper rational rather than on emotional attachments.
Evaluating my actions and the course direction of my career, I can say that I have stayed in the path to achieve my end goals. In terms of learning, both the academic and experiential knowledge have been beneficial in keeping me adept and abreast with the demand of my future career goal. In fact, I can connect some of the experiential knowledge that I had with the academic learning that I acquired with the MBA course I am enrolled. With the aid of the combination of theory and practice, I can say that my learning goals are starting to take shape as part of my preparation for better opportunities in the future. This is a good start to turn the direction toward becoming an executive and authority of the industry.
Now with the learning goals achieved, I am ready to take tasks that are purely managerial and administrative. In a sense, everything is starting to take shape because I am more equipped with knowledge and experience for the job. If I am going to divide my career development agenda, it is easy to create objectives. Mainly, the first division of the agenda is to acquire enough knowledge, and second to use this knowledge to become effective in the work area. The final phase of the career agenda is to excel in the managerial area and become effective in this area as the ladder to become an authority in the business industry. Through achievement of the learning goals, it is easier to become effective in the work area 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 and objectives into actions through facts and information. This could only be achieved if I get enough knowledge and experience. It would be impossible to lead or manage people in the workplace if I don't have the knowledge of the business, or how employees behave. This means that in order for one to become effective in a supervisory or managerial job, it is important to get enough knowledge and skills, which could be understood with the aid of experience. No manager becomes effective if there is no enough knowledge – both academic and experiential – to guide the person.
In working with my colleagues, I was able to understand the difficulty of achieving career goals. Yes, in creating a life plan or a career path, there are difficulties to take, especially those driven by personal attitude, values, and behavior. My perspective on how people in the organization behave is driven by the thought of competition. Because of this, I look at workmates with the desire to rival with them. With this, I must build interpersonal relationships that are not driven by this desire. Instead, I need to build relationship with people that are beneficial because I aim to become an effective executive and manager in the future. In this regard, I will be able to make proper problem solving that will create sound decision making process.
Conclusion
As a person, I have learned that there are attitudes and values that are beneficial to the career plans of a person. But there are also values that should be avoided because they can be detrimental to the flow of the person's career path. With this, it is important to balance these attitudes and values in order to keep things in the right perspective and to achieve goals. Personal development is very important if one wants to grow in the career and professional path taken.
As a professional, it is very important to acquire enough knowledge before embarking to decision making. Professionalism in the workplace demands the use of facts and information to create decisions. Only with knowledge can a person become effective in the workplace. In terms of career development, it is very important to combine personal attitudes and values with professional skills.
References:
Martin, C. (2010). Weighing the Pros and Cons of Working for a Large Company. Retrieved from http://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 plan and the undertaking of learning activities, expertise-growth, flexibility and performance: the role of supporting assessment conditions, Human Resource Development International, 14:5, 527-543
