The Essence of PML 4413
Being a competent business leader calls for several years of practice and adequate experience. From the course, it is evident that effective leadership is characterized by an exemplary balancing of several skills. Although various leadership techniques call for different applications of skills and experience, PML 4413 has ostensibly enlightened me regarding the work of a successful business manager. The primary work of a successful manager is planning. Planning entails mapping and drawing out the correct procedure to be followed to realize the company objectives and goals. As a manager, he/she needs to establish the critical steps to be followed. Another critical role of a good manager is organizing. After enacting the plan into place, it’s the role of a competent manager to organize materials for the team. Leading is also a central tenet of a manager. Besides planning and organizing, it’s the role of the manager to lead. Leading entails communication, guiding as well as motivating the entire staff. Controlling is also the role of a good manager. A god manager should ensure that all elements are in place; a manager should frequently check results against goals as he/she determines the progress of the company. Finally, staffing is the central role of a manager. To ensure continuity of the organization, the manager should continuously recruit new members into the team.
As a manager, there exist critical challenges that can end up being sabotaging the prosperity of the organization. From a personal perspective, here are the key challenges that typically faces almost every manager. One of them is dealing with underperforming employees. I have experienced employees who are fond of dragging their issues into the workplace. Although it might not seem to be the problem of the organization, personal issues severely affect the performance of many employees. In extension, employees’ personal issues also tend indirectly to affect the manager. The manager might be forced to spend some time to understand the employee. As a result, this may heavily compromise the effectiveness of the manager. The hiring of the right people for the job has been proven to be a challenge to many managers. Ending up hiring an incompetent person can be a significant setback to the organization, making the manager not to execute their duties succinctly. Responding to a crisis also negatively affects the performance of a manager. The sickness of an employee can severely affect the production process. Sickness can severely affect the plans of the managers. Dealing with outstanding employees can also be a significant challenge to the manager. Having an exceptional employee is good news. However, outstanding employees also pose a significant challenge to the manager since most of them will need content motivation and favors to keep up with the excellent work. In essence, management is a complicated venture that calls for practical application of skills.
To avoid regrets in the future exists major career mistakes that I will try to avoid as much as possible. The major mistake I will avoid is letting someone make career decisions for me. Most students usually seek career advice from their parents or friends. This is a natural trend. For me, I will not allow anyone to sway me from critically examining and choosing my voice of reason. In my career path, I am looking forward to trusting myself and being able to live with the outcomes of the decisions I made. Another error I will avoid is putting my career ahead of my life. I believe that life is all about balance, and it’s my role to ensure that my life is not engulfed by my career. Mental health, family, friends, and other forms of social life are incredibly fundamental for sustainable health, long life, and happiness. As I look forward to putting hard work in my career, I will not neglect my self-care and social life. Not networking is an error that I will significantly avoid as I pursue my career. Regardless of the stage, I will be in my career, having connections usually matter and are very important. I always look forward to being open and ready to make new friends. Another mistake that I will avoid is burning bridges after leaving a job. As I have said earlier, I will not underestimate the power of networking. Therefore, I will keep my workmates, whether former or current close.
Successful leaders tend to appreciate the fact that success, occurring in any form, is not an event; instead, it’s a process. Most successful managers understand that success is something that is molded and cultivated over a period of time. Therefore, in order to realize success, there exist a number of leadership virtues which I will be quick to embrace. One of them is focusing on challenging tasks. In essence, exceptional leaders and managers tend to thrive and live in an arena full of challenges. The essence of challenges is that it helps one grow and nurture the ability one has in oneself. Another leadership habits that I am looking forward to embracing is always making my health a priority. I will take pristine care at different levels. Be it physical, emotional, spiritual, or mental. The vitality of having good health is that it lays a concrete foundation for the establishment of a varied number of opportunities as well as conquering challenges that might present itself in the course of the leadership tenure. Having enough sleep, eating a balanced diet as well as performing regular exercises will be my considerations towards obtaining good health. Learning from the people I admire is another leadership habit I am looking forward to enumerating. Learning from superior people will be crucial since it will open my eyes, therefore not getting trapped, or making mistakes. I will also nurture the habit of setting goals and working towards them. Jolting my goals down and having a daily reminder of them will rekindle the passion for accomplishing them. However, the basic idea behind goal settings is to keep refreshing the mind about them while ensuring I am treading on the right path, which will make me achieve them. While being conscious of my goals, I will look forward to developing a habit of being ready to take action even in the scariest situations. If its fear, then let’s face it. As I look forward to being a brilliant leader, I will be focusing on ways to shatter the status quo by taking action whenever necessary. In essence, I will make it a habit always to take substantial risks. Above all, having a habit of reading every day will help expand my pool of ideas. Reading makes one smarter, reduces stress, improves mental clarity while at the same time, it increases the knowledge base by improving memory, grows the vocabulary, activates reasoning while improving one’s ability to focus. Thus, to be a good leader, one should be focused and always willing to walk and go through the doors of learning. Believe learning will significantly boost the potential to succeed.
It can be challenging to decide the career path to follow after completing studies. In my case, I am looking forward to enrolling in higher studies before I finally settle in the job industry. However, before I make the final decisions, the first thing I will be will do is to take time to analyze and put a focus on my area interest. As I plan to go further studies, in the next 12 months, I will be willing to open up a sole proprietorship business. By running my own business, I will be able to clearly understand my weakness, strength, and other factors that make a good leader. In the next twelve to thirty-six months, I will evidently be the boss of my own. Entrepreneurship tends to call for various skills. The crucial skill that I will learn from entrepreneurship venture is the focus. Learning how to focus will help develop my leadership skills as I look forward to taking considerable roles in the future. Besides learning how to focus, entrepreneurship will also instill inside me the essence of communication and how to maintain a proper communication channel. I will be able to implement a pool of leadership and management techniques I learned in class. Bu doing this, my central aim will be towards achieving the best in the future. My dream of becoming a company Chief executive officer.
As I strive towards excellence, there exist three significant values that act as my guiding principle. The first is open-mindedness. Being open-minded and respecting people’s ideas will help in the creation of a good network. The second is reliability. I believe that by being reliable, it will help improve my competence and being on top of things. The third and last is honesty. Honesty is the pillar that holds any society. Honesty breeds reliability and promotes ethics at work. For business life, I also have three pillars that define my operations. The fist and key-value are integrity. Businesses are built on integrity. To gain customers and promote the image of the business integrity needs to prevail. Trust comes second in my business life. By being trustable, it means I will be able to gain more business partners; as a result improving my business life. Commitment to customers is the third business value I uphold. Customer commitment breeds reliance there retaining customers while attracting new ones. The community value I uphold is the belief in change, and that change is an individual responsibility. To realize a change in the community, everyone will need to take responsibility for him/herself. Another community value I uphold is good healthcare. Healthy living is a lifestyle. By having good health, community prosperity will be realized. Above all, integrity and authenticity are the most significant pillars that hold the community together. Integrity and authenticity create trust within a community; it enables a cohesive co-existence between individuals in a community. It is these values I believe in, and they are the ones that can build a cohesive society.
Identifying one’s passion and working towards them is the road to a happy life. On my passion and interests list, having a perfect friendships top. I believe that no one can succeed alone without a shoulder to lean on. That’s why I believe in friends and perfect friendship. Doing creative works is also among my interests. Creativity improves mental strength while at the same time, enabling one to discover new horizons. In business life, one of my interests is to create a pleasant business environment by promoting uniformity while encouraging cooperation within my team. Besides, I yearning to attempt to influence legislation so that their main aims are to promote the prosperity of a business. This will help businesses to thrive and make tangible returns. In community life, my fundamental interests are living in an affair community. There exist different groups within a community, the superior and the minority groups. Therefore, working towards promoting equality in the community is my vital interests. Another community life interest is the maintenance of sensitivity towards members. I look forward to a community where its members’ concern is adequately addressed. This will facilitate the existence of a positive community.
Everyone who wants to succeed has expectations that they work towards every day. In essence, one of the personal expectations I am looking forward to in the next 24 months is to network widely. Networking is vital not only in personal development but also in career development. Networking will enable me to make new friends and meet old colleagues who have vast experience. Another expectation in the next 24 months has the ability to manage my time effectively. I have been penniless at time management. Therefore, in the next two years, as I will be going about with daily life experiences, I will be very keen on time management. Time management will evidently help improve my productivity levels in the future. In the business sector, my expectations are that I will face significant challenges. Some of them may be severe, which, if not well handled, they can make me quit. Expecting challenges will make me able to make adequate preparations. As I expect challenges, I also expect my business to grow. I expect the growth of a business to be witnessed based on capital investment. I intend to pump to my business. In the community expectations, I forecast a community that has massive engagements. With increased engagements between communities, ideas will be easily shared. My other community expectations are that and harmony will prevail in the next 24 months and beyond. The essence of peace is that it will provide a favorable environment for conducting business and setting up other activities.
One of the significant challenges I am bound to experience in the next 24 months is the job search. Although I wish to venture into entrepreneurship, job search will be crucial since I also look forward to having some office work experience. Financial challenges are also among the crucial challenges I am bound to experience in the next 24 months. Financially, I am not stable. Therefore, I am expecting to work tirelessly as I try to make ends meet. Another challenge I am expecting is making new friends. I look forward to expanding my social network; identifying the right individuals for my inner cycle will be a significant challenge. Under students’ goals, one of the barriers that will make me not realize my goals is peer pressure. The solution to this is through establishing a conscious development framework, being goal-driven, and working towards achieving my goals. For career goals, the fear of uncertainty will be a significant barrier. To beat this, I will develop a sense of self-belief and motivation from within. For my personal goals, lack of excuses and procrastination form a great barrier. Apparently, these are the things am I will be working on in the next six months. Failure and disappointing others are crucial things that trigger fear inside me. To overcome these fears, I usually determine the worst-case scenario in reference to the best-case scenario. After doing this, I usually focus on the “why,” and determine the reason for me doing what I was doing. However, in the next 24 months, I look forward to focusing on some leadership attributes that I feel there is a deficiency. One of them is communication skills. In leadership, communication is critical. Therefore, improving my communication skills will be a huge step towards realizing my leadership ambitions.