GMBA8103 Assignment Essay on Improve Yourself
If you want to get, GMBA8103 Improve Yourself: Management Assignment Answers? Assignmenthelpaus.com delivers unique content writing at an affordable price. Students can avail of our MBA Assignment Help Online through our 24/7 live chat support. Our experienced writers assist you with free samples, custom essay writing service etc.
Introduction
Self-development has evolved as an essential notion for leadership development practice and theory. It indicates to the thoughtful development of leadership competencies, introduced, directed, and measured by managers over a comprehensive period. It can be defined as the scheduled enlightened and progressive program intended to improve and endure job-related abilities. It is aimed at increasing one’s readiness and strengths for positions of higher accountability. Self-discipline is an essential part of the self-development. This can be official or unofficial, on-job, or external operational hours. Mostly, this form of development is informal in nature as it is practical behaviour on the behalf of specific leaders and can get up without any outlay from the company where leaders work (Simmons, 2017).
The main advantage of this form is its cost-effectiveness to official training activities which can be utilized to establish leadership abilities in companies. The fundamental component is that the person takes accountability for recognizing and guiding the why, what, when, and how of their development. It is true to say that individual’s self-development is impacted by the cognitive methods he utilizes to interpret the globe. The social cognitive theory states that individuals, their setting, and activities are involved in a triadic-reciprocal fundamental association. At the workplace, the concept of self-development has optimistic properties due to which individual’s outlook, insights, and norms around work and career impact their understanding and activities about self-development (Sivalogathasan, 2015).
This report is going to present a self-development action plan to address two of my development areas in respect of my leadership style. Moreover, this action plan is to be made using two theories named as self-regulation theory and social cognitive theory. Additionally, the action plan will entail the focus, rationale, process, milestones, design, and discussion. It also consists of strategies, justification, implementation intentions, and obstacles.
Development Goals (Problem Statement)
Focus and Rationale
As far as my weaknesses are concerned in respect of my leadership skills, I would like to improve and develop further my skills in areas of relationship management or emotional intelligence and stop my micromanagement skills. These two development goals are being chosen by me as these areas will help me in becoming an effective leader in life. Emotional intelligence refers to the capability to suitably recognize own and other’s emotions, to comprehend the indications that feelings send about associations, and to handle own and other’s emotions (Ahuja & Ahuja, 2015).
Since I possess numerous features of an autocratic leader and I am not good at creating relationships with others that result in poor outcomes and productivity. In this regard, I want to enhance and strengthen my relationship management skills using the emotional intelligence theory in leadership. It will help me build robust associations, succeed at work, and attain my personal and career goalmouths. Furthermore, it will assist me in linking with my outlooks, turn purpose into achievement, and take well-versed decisions regarding what matters most to me. There are mainly four pillars of emotional intelligence named relationship management; self-awareness; self-management; and social awareness. To become an effective transformational leader, this theory will aid me to understand the social complexities in the workplace (Chughtai & Lateef, 2015).
Moreover, I want to improve myself by avoiding or stopping my micromanagement skills. It is true that I used to collapse the confidence of my staff, upset their performance, and irritate them with loads of work beyond their ability. However, to become a transformational leader, I want to stop my micromanaging nature or behaviour, especially at work. Moreover, I used to repel delegating, and dishearten others from making decisions without asking me. I realized that my micromanaging skills not only lessen the productivity of individuals at work but the entire company (DA, 2017).
Besides, I have seen numerous physical and psychological implications of my micromanaging behaviour that were in form of declined productivity, higher turnover, worker disconnection; and buy-in. All workers feel diminished, unconfident, and unimportant due to my treatment with them. I have chosen this area to develop myself as I want to allow innovative ideas of my team and want to give them a chance of development as innovation is the key to advancement. Moreover, I now want to give them a sense of autonomy so that they can rise in their ranks at the company. As per the declined productivity due to my autocratic leadership qualities, I now just want to focus on developing my emotional intelligence, and stopping my micromanaging qualities to direct the individuals at work (Bergstrøm & Raknes, 2016).
Process and Milestones
My sub-goals to achieve the goal of improving and developing emotional intelligence skills are to develop emotional awareness, self-confidence, self-control, conscientiousness, trustworthiness, innovativeness, adaptability, optimism, and more. Since I am not good at managing changes in an organization thus I want to improve my adaptability to better become an emotional intelligence individual. Moreover, I want to build my skills in listening to other individuals so that a constructive decision can be made within the organization that is for the betterment of all. Besides, I also would like to facilitate thoughts meaning that I want to attend to the emotions of others. Most importantly, I want to set one of my sub-goals in terms of my social skills that enable me to attain conflict management abilities, building bonds, leadership, communication, teamwork skills, collaborative skills, and more.
Furthermore, to achieve the goal of stopping my micromanaging behaviour, I want to empower and delegate people to make the decisions by themselves instead of coming to me. Secondly, in this respect, I want to improve the retention rate also within the company to further improve my abilities to become a transformational leader. Moreover, I would like to set clear expectations to stop my micromanaging behaviour as it will further help me to tell my team members what I want them to attain, not how I expect them to attain it. More specifically, I would like to set short-run goals that will help individuals to better comprehend what is expected of them and keep them more motivated and focused. Besides, I want to set the sub-goal of asking staff members about how they want to be managed by me. This is a kind of autonomy I would like to give to my employees to get better outcomes from them (Chiniara & Bentein, 2016).
Design and Discussion (Analysis and Application)
Strategies and Justification
The social cognitive theory refers to a psychological theory describing the three-way association between individual factors, actions, and environmental factors. It is the contemporary theory of human behaviour that has a noteworthy ability to impact the corporate actions in modern corporate scenario (McCormick, Alavi & Hanham, 2015). Keeping this theory in mind, I made an action plan in the form of strategies to achieve the above-stated sub-goals in two aspects named as relationship management and micromanaging. The strategies in attaining the sub-goals are illustrated below.
To develop my self-confidence, I intend to understand my leadership weaknesses. It is true to say that one must embrace his weaknesses rather than trying to hide them away. I opt for this strategy as it enables me to work with my team to diminish their impact and I will start to feel less unprotected. Another strategy in this regard will be to start building my network as this particular strategy will offer me resources to draw upon when I need them. Moreover, for improving my adaptability skills, the strategies are intended to be as accepting more challenges; learning from others; renovate my thought process.
Learning from others will require me to recognize an individual in team who is receptive to challenge and modifications, require me to search for people who reacts positively when asked to embrace novel notion (Golmoradi & Ardabili, 2016). I would like to use that person as my mentor and understand his strengths and weaknesses in a bid to learn from them. Furthermore, accepting more challenges will require me to never put barriers in front of me and move forward promptly. Besides, renovating my thought process will require me to instantly searching for methods that can adapt to being adaptable.
In respect of improving my listening skills, the strategies that I intend are to allow the other individual to speak; to keep an open mind; ask questions, introduce my ideas & suggestions, and more. Besides, I will follow the approach of being open-minded to attain the goal of developing listening skills. It means that I would like to listen without being critical to the personal meaning that without judging the person. Furthermore, there will be no jumping in and no justifying habits of mine while listening to other people. Additionally, giving positive non-verbal feedback will also be a strategy that I intend in this regard. It can be said that one’s facial expression is a clear indicator of his thoughts and mood. Thus, I will focus on my body language in form of sagging shoulders, rolling eyes, firmness of face, and so on (Ma & Oxford, 2014).
To develop my social skills, the strategies are supposed to be as paying close attention to what is around me; respect cultural variances; work on enhancing emotional intelligence; practising active listening, and appreciating the essential individuals in my life. All these strategies help me to become a socially intelligent leader. I need to identify and control negative sentiments like anger, frustration in a social environment to learn social skills. Moreover, I need to pay attention to the emotions of the closest people to me in a bid to understand how to connect with them. Furthermore, in respect of active listening, I need to listen to the modulations in what others say that can offer me signs to what they mean (Johnson & Connelly, 2014).
The strategies or action plan that I want to adopt for empowering and delegating the workers are by encouraging two-way communication. It is noteworthy that developing better communication practices can assist the workers in the company feel empowered to develop and engage in a bigger picture. Furthermore, keeping my employees accountable will be another strategy in this regard. It will foster a sense of ownership in the workers to genuinely take on their work. It can be said that when individuals take possession of their work, they are more probable to put additional efforts and feel egotism in the victory they attain (Javed et al., 2019).
The strategies in respect of setting clear expectations are intended to be as defining specific expectations; communicating without any ambiguity; setting realistic goals, and reviewing frequently, focus on the win. Moreover, I would like to make long-term goals first and then divide them into small goals with a particular period to attain them. It will enable the employees to clearly understand the steps to achieve the goals set within the stipulated time given to them.
About social cognitive theory, social communication serves as an instrumental strengthening of behaviour either positively or negatively. Furthermore, there is a concept of self-efficacy in social learning/ cognitive theory that also suggests that the team people usually are probable to have higher proxy efficacy for a leader with perceived robust communication skills than those with poor communication abilities (Ng & Lucianetti, 2016).
Implementation Intentions
Implementation Intentions refer to the planning approach which may assist in overcoming deferment by systematizing action control and these are the effective tool for transformation. Moreover, it indicates an ‘if-then’ plan means that if situation X is encountered then I will start behaviour Y in a bid to fulfil goal Z. These intentions postulate the behaviour one aims to take and the situational background wherein he aims to take said behaviour.
An implementation approach must consider how to certify determination in the presence of problems and commotions. Besides, the implementation intentions are formulated to aid the achievement of goalmouths by stipulating when, where, and how goals focused reactions must be started. It is noteworthy that the implementation plans have an optimistic impact on the achievement of goals in the areas of leadership skill development (Greenan, Reynolds & Turner, 2017).
Since I am going to improve myself in terms of my ongoing behaviours in leadership at work, implementation intentions will assist me in facilitating the ongoing practice of novel behaviours till they become involuntary and aid to endure such behaviours over time. It is true to say that implementation intention is the best self-regulatory approach that is useful for enhancing the assistance of self-set goals being a process of allocating exterior signals to behaviour that are frequently absent in self-set goals (Seo et al., 2018).
The implementation intention that I want to take concerning managing conflicts in the interpersonal situations will be as “when my heart jumps to speed, then I will start using my mindfulness conscious methods and emphasize how calm I initiate to feel”. I will be going to handle the situation of group conflicts by using the techniques to control my behaviour like reading books, meditation, attending seminars to learn the methods, and so on. I have carried out my implementation intention and I transformed myself into a calm person rather than being aggressive in the workplace. I felt the things are becoming easier for me to control myself and others at the same time during the conflicting situations at work. Moreover, I guided my subordinates also to follow my implementation intention to feel relax and avoid conflicts.
Obstacles
The obstacles that I might come in changing myself in regards to my autocratic leadership style, micromanagement skills, and relationship management skills are numerous.
- Failing to get on track: It is the first obstacle that can weaken my goal accomplishment. There can be numerous factors influence against getting happening on my goals. It is true that if a behaviour is not part of my routine, I can easily disremember to act the planned behaviour. It is due to the situational strains on consideration and commemorative assets may serve to decrease the stimulation level of a principal goalmouth intention compared with other purposes. Furthermore, if I remember what I suppose to attain, there is another glitch that must be resolved, named as grabbing the prospect to act. It is mainly severe in case of the existence of a deadline for adopting the behaviour or if the prospect to act is untaken only temporarily. In such circumstances, an individual may fail to start goal-focused reactions mainly due to the fact they flop to notice that a worthy time to get underway has reached or they are uncertain how they must act when the moment presents itself.
- Overstretching oneself: It is another glitch in goal endeavouring that has to do with the point that people have to follow numerous goalmouths. Therefore, over-extending one in a constant goal hobby is expected to endanger the attainment of succeeding essential goalmouths. In this respect, efficient self-regulation of goal endeavouring has to protect the individual’s ability to effectively involve in succeeding goal hobby one determined for the early goal has finished.
- Not calling a cessation: Commencement and shielding goal striving from unwanted influences are important for effectively reaching goal completion. Though, there is another glitch that must be resolved named separating from goal endeavouring that has become uncreative. The dis-involvement might be upfront if goal observing suggests acceptable growth or accomplishment of anticipated results. It can also be said that it is hard to dis-involve from a continuing goal recreation if self-defensive distresses are triggered.
- Getting disrupted: It is true to say that if individuals thrive in getting started on their goalmouth, it is probable that in a short period they will get disrupted and halt taking the act required attaining their goal. The main cause behind these things entails yielding to undesirable states, falling victim to bad habits, and tempting incitements/ stimuli. There may be things that can influence me to do things against my goals set. Like, if I want to attain the goal of managing conflicts at work, then suddenly when I am doing meditation, I am losing my focus due to a sound environment that leads to losing my self-regulation. Thus, poor environmental supports can prevent me to develop self-regulatory skills. Furthermore, there can be my bad habits in the form of taking decisions by myself that can prevent me to attain the goal of involving others in decision-making. Besides, there can be bad moods also which can stop me to attain my goals (Gollwitzer & Sheeran, 2006).
Conclusion
From the above reflective essay for the skill development plan, it can be concluded that I am going to improve and develop further my skills in areas of relationship management or emotional intelligence and stop my micromanagement skills. Such two development goals are being chosen by me as these areas will surely help me in becoming an effective leader in life. Moreover, it can be inferred that the theory of emotional intelligence is going to help me attain better relationship management skills that I am lacking with my autocratic leadership style. Furthermore, it can be found that I have seen numerous physical and psychological impacts of my micromanaging behaviour that were in form of declined productivity, higher turnover, worker disconnection; and buy-in.
These are the negative impacts of micromanagement skills that I have and that needs to be eliminated with certain strategies and plans for forthcoming. About social cognitive theory, social communication serves as an instrumental strengthening of behaviour either positively or negatively. It can also be concluded that the implementation intention that I want to take concerning managing conflicts in the interpersonal situations will be as “when my heart jumps to speed, then I will start using my mindfulness conscious methods and emphasize how calm I initiate to feel”. The problems that might stop me to attain the intended goals are getting disrupted; falling to get started; not calling a halt, and overstretching oneself.
References
Ahuja, S., & Ahuja, A. (2015). Impact of emotional, cognitive & spiritual intelligence on quality of life: Giving inner peace. International Journal of Research in Economics and Social Sciences, 5(7), 1-8.
Bergstrøm, P., & Raknes, L. P. (2016). Prosperous Micromanagement; A qualitative study of leadership behaviour in high-performing retail stores (Master’s thesis, BI Norwegian Business School).
Chiniara, M., & Bentein, K. (2016). Linking servant leadership to individual performance: Differentiating the mediating role of autonomy, competence and relatedness need satisfaction. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 124-141.
Chughtai, M. W., & Lateef, K. (2015). Role of emotional intelligence on employees’ performance in customer services: A case study of the telecom sector of Pakistan. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Management Studies, 3(2), 101-108.
DA, L. H. (2017). Are You Micromanaging Your Team? How to Find Out and How to Stop. The Journal of Medical Practice Management: MPM, 32(6), 394.
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta‐analysis of effects and processes. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, 69-119.
Golmoradi, R., & Ardabili, F. S. (2016). The effects of social capital and leadership styles on organizational learning. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, 372-378.
Greenan, P., Reynolds, M., & Turner, P. (2017). Training Transfer: the Case for ‘Implementation Intentions’. International Journal of HRD Practice, Policy, and Research, 2(2).
Javed, B., Abdullah, I., Zaffar, M. A., ul Haque, A., & Rubab, U. (2019). Inclusive leadership and innovative work behaviour: The role of psychological empowerment. Journal of Management & Organization, 25(4), 554-571.
Johnson, G., & Connelly, S. (2014). Negative emotions in informal feedback: The benefits of disappointment and drawbacks of anger. Human Relations, 67(10), 1265-1290.
Ma, R., & Oxford, R. L. (2014). A diary study focusing on listening and speaking: The evolving interaction of learning styles and learning strategies in a motivated, advanced ESL learner. System, 43, 101-113.
McCormick, J., Alavi, S. B., & Hanham, J. (2015). The importance of context when applying social cognitive theory in organizations. Handbook of research on management ideas and panaceas: Adaptation and context, 110-129.