Developing Essential Skills for Personal and Professional Growth

Overview of Personal Development

I worked in indigo airlines as an executive security officer for 3 years after completing my graduation in B.Com. I have chosen different field to get the experience of new roles and responsibility and this give me totally new experience in airlines industry as I have been appointed as security officer which is new opportunity for me as a fresher. I then decided to switch to another job and joined as Guest service manager in 3 star hotel Cheltenham regency hotel. My main objective to work in different areas so as to gain and enhance the knowledge and to develop overall personality (Osland and et.al, 2017).

This has also helped to acquire new skills in airlines as I get to know about their management and role and responsibility in security department and my experience is just amazing. After that I joined hotel and posted as manager which gives me immense pleasure to work with as this hotel is reputed and has good image (Abebe, Kimakwa and Redd, 2020). Through this I could my existing knowledge and skills to the new roles and responsibility which has helped in the development of my personality and increase my experience of working. In this tough competition in the market, it is hard to compete with minimal knowledge and skills and required some technical skills as well to sustain the market. I have also tried to develop such skills in my career and my always focus is on continuous learning and never stop and to constantly enhancing my techniques and experience that will help in my future growth. Through working in different roles and responsibility I am able to analyse my strength and weakness and working on that which is very important to do so. I have also go through the some books through which I could develop my skills and to enhance it for my future growth plans.

Overview of personal development

As it is become important to focus on improving the personality to perform any managerial task and responsibility and I found it very essential in my initial days of career. I think they play key role in building your overall personality in personal and professional life and it really helps in accomplish any task and activities (Ouedraogo and Chrysostome, 2019).

Apart from the it helps in developing the self-awareness and self-realisation that what skills we have and what we have to develop as per the situations demand. After knowing the importance of personal development my main focus is to enhance it and to grab the knowledge effectively. Through the critical incident log I have the great advantages in it and its help in improving the base of self-awareness through enhancing the lights on reflection part. I observe that enhancing the some of the skills is very important in the professional and personal career as I have observed in the CIL. Through that I realised to enhance the skills so that I could perform more better in such difficult situations and could handle them effectively in near future (Alhababsah and Yekini, 2021).

Group Working Skills

Group working skills

As a manager in the hotel management, I have to work with whole management and team and to supervise the staff to guide them effectively. This skill is useful in every department and roles and has to be acquired by every person in the management. So I as a Guest service manager has realised the importance of skill and I observe that I was lacking in this. For example, in system failures, housekeeping issues I found that group working skills is key to acquire to manage such situations Putri and et.al, 2020).

I used to communicate with the staff and senior management where I have to interact with everyone at same time where group working skills is necessary to have in every senior position. In order to enhance my career and overall personal and professional personality this skill helps in creating the good impression on the management staff. Through I will able to learn communications skills, build the confidence and helps in breaking the complex task into the parts. This helps in managing the challenging situation easily and able to get the variety of perspectives of different people and negotiation skills will also enhance (Baghdasarian and et.al, 2019). In my career of both airlines and hotel interacting with new personalities is part of my job.

To improve such skill, I have to make the part of my routine life in order achieve it and to follow certain tips and techniques as well. I can go through some books and develop such habits in my personal and professional life to understand the value of this skill. Through the book I get to know about the Belbin theory mention that successful teams nine different roles that to be performed by all team members. This theory helps in developing the skills of group working skills and helps in enhancing the overall personality and effective groupwork. I have tried to go through some tips and steps to increase my group skills and to efficiently manage all task and activities properly. This skill is also be useful in my future growth and other roles and responsibility and will increase my performance in my job. Through these other types of skills will automatically increase with the improving of these skills and effective practicing the problems in the management and gives the confidence to perform the task as a manager. It overall helps in increasing the personality and gives sense of understanding the situations wisely (Masud and et.al, 2019).

Presentation Skills

Presentation skills

In the current scenario of healthy competition in the corporate world we could observe the need of creative and innovative skills that helps in creation of confidence in an individual to perform the task and activities. Presentation is art which is rare nowadays and which could be develop in an individual through continuous practice and study (Salahuddin and et.al, 2020).

So as a manager in the hotel management and earlier before in the airlines I realised the need of effective presentation skills and I have faced in many situations where I need it most. Gradually this has increased the responsibility and roles and has also developed due to increasing in time. In many situations like in the one of the CIL where food poisoning incident and customer incident I observe the need of effective presentation skills in the situation. To develop these skills, I have to go through some training and development sessions so that I could learn some tips and techniques and apart from that I can also read some intellectual novels and books. In order to succeed in my career, I have to do regular practice of it I my personal and professional life and through this I able to make good impression on my senior managers and staff (Howell, 2017).

Through there are many advantages such as it makes the better communication with team members, it improves the time management, could deliver what audience I want and focus is on key messages. It will also benefit to the business as well as it helps in educate, inform and motivate the customers and increase the sales to the hotels. It also helps in engaging the audience and facilitates in retain the attention of the customer through the effective presentations’ skills. It will be useful in both personal and professional growth and become necessary to sustain in the competitive market as well. It is necessary to make the choice that what needs to be done in order to prepare the proper structure of the presentation as it includes very selective approach to deliver the presentation to the listener. Through these skills we able to build the morale, professionalism among the employees and that will impact the whole team. Hence, there is need to develop the skills of presentation skill in order to inform and persuade the audience and it also shows the sign of good professionalism and leadership (Barnacle, Schmidt and Cuthbert, 2019).

Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking skills

In order to achieve the success in the both personal and professional life there is require the need of effective critical thinking as it is valuable skills in all aspects of life as it encouraged the problem-solving skills as well as. It will help in distinguish between the leader and employee through this skill it enhances other qualities such as creativity and teamwork which is useful in workplace. I as a employee in both jobs I realised the importance of critical thinking skill in many situations as it helps in providing the clarity, accuracy and precision in the life. In the situation of CIL such as safety incident and system failures I feel the need of these skill so that I could deal with those situations effectively. As in the incident of system failures I could use some tactics to find the other way to deal the situation and will help in managing the situation wisely and in the other incident safety measure I feel that this skill will helps in finding out the other way to face the issue. It is skill for life and not just learning and helps in boosting the independence. I could go through some modules and could attend some workshop to easily understand this skill and can apply in my professional and personal life (Bonnieux, 2020).

Through this it encourages the creativity and curiosity and develop the problem-solving skills and this could be achieved after regular practice and learning process. I will learn some tips and method to easily understand the concept of critical thinking skills so that I can effectively apply in my life. It helps me to make the task easier because it provides the clear vision and helps in discovering the essence of problem rather than the mistakes. In my career this skill is essential because as a manger I have to take certain decisions and to deal with the many problems at managerial level and after learning this skill I am able to take the right decision and can make the well -informed opinions which is important. Hence, I will be going to learn and practice this skill to survive more longer in the manager position and able to fulfil my roles and responsibility properly in order to succeed in professional life. It also opens up new opportunities and areas where I can use this skill accordingly (Goswami, Mitchell and Bhagavatula, 2018).

Career management skills

To get the success in the career, there is need to focus on career development area as it includes the competencies which will help the individual to identify the skills and enhance the learning goals to take the right action regarding their career. I am also looking for the new opportunities and growth in the job role so that I could achieve my desired goals and objectives (McKenzie, 2021). 

As a person everyone wants to grow and enhance their skills set in order to improves it professional growth and career. I as a manager I also need to improves my management skills as it included every types of skills and will help me to manage the subordinate and team member. It makes the task easy for me to conduct any activities and guides me that what to do or not. It will be useful in improving the communications, boost the productivity, team building and increase the knowledge of domain. I find it so helpful and useful as a manager as it enhances the ability to deal with the rapid changes and helps in knowing instances that where to use the knowledge to boost the performance of staff of company. I could go through the module and training and workshop to learn this skill and will also require the regular practice as well to effectively learn the models and methods. This is combination of many skills, if an individual able to learn this skill it will automatically get the knowledge of other skills as well. In my all-critical incident log I need to acquire management skill to deal with the situations as it will enhance the my overall personal and professional career. Hence, this will help in the growth and will gives me chance to experience new areas and domain (Nieuwenhuis, Fluit and Kuijer-Siebelink, 2021).

Leadership skills

In this corporate world the demand of effective leadership skills has been increasing nowadays and every company wants the great leader in their management to deal with the situation and develop vision to the management. I as a manager must have this skill to guide and motivate the employees so that they can perform better and it also helps in developing the healthy relationships with the staff and team members. It is being very essential in this dynamic workplace where different people have their different mindset and behaviour and important to manage them properly so that no issue will create (Sayabek and et.al, 2018).

As a manager I have gone through many phases where I observe the requirement of leadership qualities such as to monitor the activities and task of team and guide them towards the common goal. This will also helpful for the company as well as it increase the objectives and enhance the performances of employees by boosting their confidence and morale. It also reduces the conflict among the employees and improves the interpersonal relationship between the employees and leaders and apart from it helps in solving the issues of the employees as they able to share all their problems with their leaders. In my career growth I need to develop the effective leadership skills in order to succeed inn professional and personal life. But it takes times to learn this skill and proper practice to guide and handle the tough situation wisely. There are many approaches and theories that I will preferred to learn this skill and apart from that it sometimes needs the training and development through this I could grab and learn the knowledge. In order to acquire the approaches, I will like to adopt the democratic style which gives the freedom to the employees to take the action and enhance problem solving skills. This will also improve the working condition and confidence among employees and feel the part of organisation. I have gone through some instances where I learn the importance of better relationships with the employees and this could be achieved through effective leadership style. This will assist in mu future job roles also if I want to switch to another job I also need this skill as it require in every domain and especially in managerial post. In the my all CIL I feel that leadership needs in every incident and will help me in taking the right decisions. I will give my full efforts to develop the qualities and desired style of leadership so as to increase my personality and will give positive impact on my career growth. My whole experience in both airlines and hotels indicate that there is huge demand of developing leadership styles for every professional individual. 

Strengths

I identified my strengths and weaknesses very late after my high school I started at least thinking about my strengths and weaknesses. MY biggest strength is I try to learn things from others and I am very patient . if I am not doing something correct , If any one says that it is not the way or you should correct your character, I never get offended and make it right . So I believe while in working a group or my group working skills are good first of all because while working in a group simply means a teamwork and while working as a team needs patience and accept others opinions and listen to everyone in the group and appreciate other group members ideas and opinions and all these characters I have in me and also I have worked in Indigo Airlines for 3 years. I started as officer level and then after one year I become an executive security , so we worked as a team of four , three security officers and one skipper/ramp staff for one flight. The Skipper was the leader of the overall flight and within the three security staffs there would be one senior staff that is a excutive or senior executive level staff . The Indigo was very keen for the on-time performances of a aircraft , So after a flight arrives when only had 34 minutes and in 34 minutes the door of the aircraft should be closed. It was important that if my job is over I should go help the other team member in his job so that we achieve our target because if flight gets delayed the four of us had to give justification to our manager of each and every minute. I am also good at decision making like after I become executive security then in the aircraft I used to be the leader of the flight in security officers and sometimes passenger come with issues like forgot their phone or somethings at the boarding gate. Then it was my duty to deal with such passengers and take a timely decision or convince the passenger and get the flight timely departed.

Weaknesses

My weaknesses are like if in the class when any professor asks me to present something or do a presentation I really get nervous saying more simply I have stage fear. It is the biggest weakness of me that I have very poor presentation skills and even I have fear of public speaking. From my childhood onwards I have stage fear and it is drawback I have in my life. Critical thinking skills of mine are also very poor because a critical thinker means who thinks using his brain and I normally even thinks with my heart like while doing a the MBTI questionnaire there was a question do you think using your brain or heart , at that moment I realized one of my weaknesses.

Opportunities

As far as the opportunities are considered in the coming one year I guess have great opportunities to change my weaknesses to my strengths for that I guess the Brookes University which I have choosed for my higher studies would be a great help. I have different opportunities in Brookes as here people from different culture ,country come under one platforms so I would be able to learn many things to in this coming year.

Threats

The biggest threat would be that i am very keen to another person feelings and l don’t like to hurt anybody’s feelings and some people who know me have told that this is great threat because where we should speak there we have to say unlike looking to someone’s feelings and this factor will not help me to become a leader never and in the leadership skill this will be great drawback.

Conclusion

From the above reflection part, it has been concluded that developing the skills in my professional career is very important and will be extremely useful. I realised the importance of each skills in my journey of airlines and hotels and find it is necessary to increase the further opportunities in the career. Some of the skills such as critical thinking skills, leadership skills, Career management skills, presentations skills and Group working skills are very useful in todays time and will help in improving the overall personality. Through the Critical incident log I manage to identify the areas that need to be improved and analyse the way to achieve these skills. At last, it is necessary to manage to learn these skills and get the full benefits of learning and development so that an individual could achieve the greater position and be successful in life.

References

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