Individual Reflection and Personal Development Plan Case Study

Individual Reflection and Personal Development Plan - Case Study Example The components of 'personal development' include changes in the individual from minor alterations in work routines to changing habits leading to major developments. Role development entails in far reaching consequential changes such as adapting to a new role to suit individual as well as organizational requirements such as changes in work schedules, changes in organizational goals et al. Before seeking to bring about behavioral changes in others, managers must first identify their intra and inter personal skills, which they have or should acquire to be effective in the new role. They are: Intra-personal skills: Self-awareness, self-monitoring and stress-management skills Inter-personal skills: Communication, motivation, team building, conflict management and feedback. Inter-organizational skills: Networking alliances Yukl mentions supporting, developing, recognizing, rewarding and conflict management as essential managerial behavior for "building and maintaining co-operative relationships." These behaviors may have other objectives such as "to influence task motivation and facilitate effective completion of the task." (Yukl 1998, p. 94) Drucker argues that 'managing oneself', essentially begins with making an inventory of individual strengths and asking the question: 'how do I perform'' While it is not possible to change oneself, one can change one's way of working to improve performance. (Drucker 2005) Managers can learn effectiveness by adopting a pro-active approach of not just acquiring knowledge but to putting it to practice and holding themselves accountable for their actions. This involves four stages: understanding why events have occurred the way they did (reflection);... Managers can learn effectiveness by adopting a pro-active approach of not just acquiring knowledge but to putting it to practice and holding themselves accountable for their actions. This involves four stages: understanding why events have occurred the way they did (reflection); thinking about the application of theoretical frameworks to practical situations and their consequences (conceptualization); implementing concepts to influence/motivate behavior (implementation) and evaluation of emotional and informational outcomes of plan implementation (immersion). Kolb’s questionnaire is a useful tool to analyze managerial learning style of these four aspects. The questionnaire has forty questions to be rated on a scale of 1 to 7. Some of the questions read as:   â€Å"I often spend time thinking about what I am really trying to achieve†, â€Å"I am often more interested in novel ideas than in those that are practical† and â€Å"I regularly devote time to seeking f eedback on my projects† etc. (Kolb 1985). The answers are then tabulated in ten rows of four columns each starting with answers to questions 1 - 4 in the first row. The questions thus arranged in four vertical columns pertain to ‘reflection’, ‘conceptualization’, ‘implementation’ and ‘immersion.’ Areas in which the manager scores high are his/her strengths and those in which he/she scores less than the mean score obviously need improvement. The objective of mapping self-awareness is to develop the ability to identify and diagnose important differences with others.