Assignment for Professional development for strategic managers

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 Assignment for Personal Development Plan Via Skill Audit
 Assessor Name : Dr. Rabaa Amr
 Presented by : Mohyee Ali Abdallah

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Employers always looking for unique employees who take the responsibility for their learning
and development needs to gain the personal and professional skills needed to support the
strategic direction of an organization.
Task 1: Be able to assess personal and professional skills required to achieve strategic goals
Ac 1.1: Use appropriate methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve strategic goals.
Every person is distinct in something, just a little people know their effective abilities and many do
not know anything about themselves, and there are many ways to evaluate personal skills required to
determine if this person can achieve the strategic goals for an organization or not.
Personal skills (Behavioral skills) : very important for the person for professional success ant it
plays very important role to reach the success for any organization,
Personal development is continues program for individuals which leads them toward organizational
development. For personal development there are few skills which are very important. These skills
guide an individual toward success. Without these skills nobody can move forward in his or her life.
It is important for an individual to develop skills of communications, personal and interpersonal skill,
time management and problem solving.
1. Communication skills: to be active listener which means to pay close attention to the person
who is speaking to you, and when you’re speaking, it’s important to be clear and audible, and
to be able to accept critical feedback and provide constructive input to others.
2. Time management: Blackmore (2010) inferred that it is essential to have time management
skills in professional and personal life for improving the productivity. I have various skills
through which I can prioritize my work and personal tasks as well. Being a strategic manager,
I have to handle various tasks in a specified time period. It also helps me to achieve time
based targets which further results in the achievement of the long-term organizational goals. It
also assists in maintaining a balance between my professional and personal life.
3. Prioritizing work: it is one the most important personal skill, it gives you analytical
awareness, this will allow an individual to choose work on its value. This is a skill which will
allow a person to have the wisdom to do work according to its importance, through this most
of people can achieve their objective in personal life.
4. Setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-based) objectives,
prioritizing work tasks, dealing with time wasters,
5. Decision-making: These skills shows a person's ability to take quick decisions in a particular
situation. Thus, the manager should be efficient in decision-making to ensure that the work is
not delayed. It also helps in achieving the organizational goals on proper time.

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Ac 1.2: apply techniques to assess the professional skills to support the strategic direction of the
organization:
Techniques to assess the professional skills which required to support the strategic direction of
organization is very necessary in this assignment. There are some techniques which are very
important to assess the professional skills.
Mentoring:
Mentoring is also contributing in the achieving goal or objective of an organization it is a way of
overcoming many problems. According to Boxhall (2003) a mentor is someone who can advise and
guide us in our carrier. He or she has a number of roles as an appraiser, a supporter, a communicator
and a superior and his subordinates and if it is unlikely that a manager can carry these functions.
A good mentor has coaching skills is trustworthy respected and is free from major distractions either
within or outside the workplace, without a mentor reflection is also not also very productive
experience. It can be a bit like looking for piglet. As a Consultant of AB management I can spend
time thinking without arriving at a conclusion, it helps of course if I have structure to my thinking, in
mentoring the questions are what is happening has happened? What brought this about? What went
well and what did not go well? How can the situation be improved? What might we learn form the
situation that might influence future action?
Coaching:
Guskey (2000) point out that all human beings are born with a dream, which are there goals in their
life. Attaining a goal is not that easy and hence there is a need for a clear and correct path for the easy
attaining the goals. This easy attaining of the path can be achieved with the help of a coach and
coaching. And so it is said that coaching is the practice of giving sufficient direction, instruction and
training to a person or a group people, so as to achieve some goals or even in developing specific
skills. Though coaching is a system of providing training, the method of coaching differs from person
to person, aim or goals to be attained, and the areas needed. Still there are some common methods in
coaching. They are essential part of an effective coaching.
Leadership:
Guskey (2000) suggested leadership is a key skill, and it’s one that can make a huge difference to
anyone’s career. At work, problems are at the center of what many people do every day. As a
consultant of AB management either solving a problem for a client internal or external, supporting
those who are solving problems, or discovering new leadership skill.
The problems we face can be large or small, simple or complex, and easy or difficult to solve.
Regardless of the nature of the problems, a fundamental part of every manager’s role is finding ways
to solve and lead them. So, being a confident leader is really important to our success. Much of that
confidence comes from having a good process to use when approaching a problem lead. With one, we
can solve problems quickly and effectively. Without one, our solutions may be ineffective, or we’ll
get stuck and do nothing, with sometimes painful consequences.

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A SWOT analysis also is a common strategic business planning tool that involves composing a list
of four elements related to a new business project: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
It can be also a framework for analyzing person strengths and weaknesses as well as the
opportunities and threats that you face. This helps you focus on your strengths, minimize your
weaknesses, and take the greatest possible advantage of opportunities available to you.
SWOT analysis worksheet:
To perform a personal SWOT analysis, the leader should collect the answers to the following
questions about Co-workers to determine which of them can achieve a specific goal.
Strengths Weaknesses
 What advantages do you have that others
don't have
 What do you do better than anyone else?
 What do other people (and your boss, in
particular) see as your strengths?
 Which of your achievements are you most
proud of?
 What values do you believe in that others fail
to exhibit?
 What tasks do you usually avoid because you
don't feel confident doing them?
 What will the people around you see as your
weaknesses?
 Are you completely confident in your education
and skills training? If not, where are you
weakest?
 What are your negative work habits (for
example, are you often late, are you
disorganized, do you have a short temper, or are
you poor at handling stress)?
 Do you have personality traits that hold you
back in your field? For instance, if you have to
conduct meetings on a regular basis, a fear of
public speaking would be a major weakness.
Opportunities Threats
 What new technology can help you? Or can
you get help from others or from people via
the internet?
 Is your industry growing? If so, how can you
take advantage of the current market?
 Do you have a network of strategic contacts
to help you, or offer good advice?
 What trends (management or otherwise) do
you see in your company, and how can you
take advantage of them?
 Are any of your competitors failing to do
something important? If so, can you take
advantage of their mistakes?
 Is there a need in your company or industry
that no one is filling?
 What obstacles do you currently face at work?
 Are any of your colleagues competing with you
for projects or roles?
 Is your job (or the demand for the things you do)
changing?
 Does changing technology threaten your
position?
 Could any of your weaknesses lead to threats?

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The leader should uses this type of analyses as a technique to choose the most effective person who
can achieve goals in a perfect way, and that come from evaluating the strength points in his
personality and Study of the impact of the weakness points of the required implementation of the
strategy.
In my company I lead three employees and I always use SWOT analysis to evaluate every personality
of them and to decide which person can achieve a specific goal in the department.
Task 2: Be able to conduct a skills audit to identify learning style
Ac 2.1: Carry out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet current and future
leadership requirements
What is skills audit?
A key piece of information an organization needs to know is what skills and knowledge its
people have. This information is essential for a number of reasons:
 It determines whether the organization can meet its goals.
 Without this information the organization doesn’t know where to improve.
 Training and development will be better targeted.
 Recruiting needs are better defined and more likely to result in the most appropriate candidate.
Skills audit is a process that can be used to identify the skill gaps in an organisation. The
outcome is a training needs analysis that identifies where training is needed.

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The result of the skills audit method is a “skills gap analysis”. This material will facilitate the
individual to develop by getting the suitable training and development to an individual to provide for
the recognized skill gaps.
Skills audit “provides a snapshot of an individual skills base” that permits identifying the precise
training requirements, prioritizing the training and consultation of an individual’s needs and
ambitions. It is evident that application of a skills audit process is imperative.
And to carry out a skill audit to evaluate any employee to meet the current and future leadership
requirements we can compare with the required skills and acquired skills to know the gaps which
need to be improved with any kind of training and coaching to achieve the requested goals as follows:
Professional Skills
Current
Level
5 = Strong
1 = weak
Best Current Example Ways to Improve
Communication Skills 5
Took a session on Business
strategy and received Grade A
Will try to take more
sessions and attend
seminars
Listening Skills 4
Good listener, Attended seminar
on personal development
planning
Listening to content in
videos online and
writing articles based
on that
Leadership Skills 4 Leading Cultural team in college
Will involve more
people in team
Planning and
Organizing
2 Can organize, no valid example
Have to organize
technical festival
Problem Solving 4
Developed strategy for an
organization
Presentation Skills 5
Took a presentation on Business
strategy and received Grad A
Will try taking more
sessions and attending
seminars
Self-Management 3 Can manage tasks effectively
Have focus more on
personal ambition

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Ac 2.2 Apply appropriate techniques to identify preferred learning style
Learning style is the “manner in which individuals choose to or inclined to approach a learning
situation” (Cassidy, 2004, p.420). However, Evans et al., (2010) recognized that learning styles as the
“individuals preferred way of responding to learning tasks which change depending on the
environment or context” (p.468). Moreover, it has been emphasized that preferred learning styles of
individuals would differ based on range of factors such as personality traits of the individuals,
learning environment etc. On the contrary the importance of this concept has been emphasized with
the range of learning style literature available. Indeed, this has given to a range of learning style
models and inventories which may lead to confusion. However, to assess the preferred learning style
of the individuals the author has used Grasha and Reichmann (1974) model to evaluate her personal
learning style preference.
Different techniques that can be used for identifying the preferred leadership styles are as follows:
This process defines the learning processes which are based on four stages of the learning cycle, viz.,
Diverging: The people of this category learns by observation and prefer watching things rather than
finding solution to a problem by collecting information. They are referred as 'diverging' because they
are capable of performing brainstorming whenever there is a need of idea generation.
Assimilating: These people acquire knowledge from concepts and ideas. They prefer learning
through lectures, analytical models and readings. These people are usually less focused.
Converging: Such people learn from experimentation. They practically implement the new ideas and
gain knowledge from its outcomes (Johns, 2012). In this, people consider the technical tasks as the
most essential aspect and give less importance to the interpersonal factors.
Accommodating: In this, people acquire knowledge from analyzing other people and from their own
experiences as well. These people depend upon the information collected by the top management for
conducting their analysis and they prefer technical tasks. Also, they do not show any interest in the
interpersonal and social issues.

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 The four learning styles under this technique are as follows:
Activist:
 Gains experience by doing the task.
 Participate in practical activities.
 Active participation in those games which require involvement and energy.
 Do not like to listen other's opinions
 Learns from trial and error method
Reflector:
 People review their experiences
 Takes decision after thinking and observing on a particular aspect
 Do not prefer to disclose the information
 They brief the situation in detail before starting any work (Inouye, 2007).
Theorist:
 People learn from concepts and theories
 Analyze things logically
 Require structure and time-table to conclude the gained experience.
Pragmatist:
 People learn from practical problems
 Implements learning on practical situations
 People prefer to be acknowledged from professionals before starting a task.
Task 03: Be able to implement a personal development plan
3.1 Construct a personal development plan that meets leadership development requirements
identified in the skills audit
In assessing the SWOT analysis it has being identified that there is a range of factors that need
improvement in ensuring personal development. For instance, it is important for the leader to
develop personal development plans against developing skills such as decision making skills,
delegation, and conflict management. Accordingly, the personal development plan for the leader
can be identified as follows:

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Personal development plan
Skill
requirement
Objectives Measurements for success
Decision
making skills
 Evaluate the reasons behind past
failures of decisions made by the leader
 Gaining coaching opportunities from the
senior management on areas to improve
 Performance appraisal of
year 2018
Delegation  Consult the subordinates to identify
the skills
 Developing time plans to allocate
responsibility to the individuals
 The assessment of level of
employee motivation
through performance
appraisal mechanism as a
consequence of delegation of
responsibilities
Self confidence  Need to take initiatives
 Need to be aware of the potential
and available skills of the leader
 The ability to develop her
charisma
 The feedback could be
obtained through
performance appraisals or
through communicating
to the management
Conflict
management
 Need to identify the reasons behind
failure of the past situations of
conflict management.
 Need to identify effective methods of
conflict resolution and also need to
evaluate the conflict avoidance methods
 Minimise the conflicts
between the team
members
3.2 Use suitable methods to assess the outcomes of a personal development plan against
personal work objectives
The leadership skills assessment conducted in appendix 01 as well as the SWOT analysis has
enabled the leader to evaluate the skills required for personal objectives and organisational
development. For example through developing skills with relation to delegation of responsibilities
the leader will be able to reduce the pressure on work. Further, the leader will be also able to
provide the organisational goals achievement effectively as well. Importantly, this will enable the
leader to manage the work load effectively (Mayer and Solvey, 1995).
On the other hand, the delegation has a positive implication on the overall motivation level of staff

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members as well. Indeed, when considering the development of conflict management it could be
recognized that this will also positively influence the organizational operations. For instance,
conflict avoidance strategy would mean the conflicts within the organization will be minimal which
will result in a situation where the leader’s department’s effectiveness will be significantly
increased.
Also SMART goals, which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely, are
used in employee evaluations as a way to measure performance towards goals. SMART goals are
used to effectively formulate and achieve goals and can be used in conjunction with evaluations
and reviews.
Specific Employee Review Goals for The Performance Appraisal
A goal should have clearly defined output expectations. This can be in terms of what is to be
delivered, how much is to be delivered, and what the standards are for the deliverables that are to be
measured. Let’s take the example of a goal where an employee is expected to update an existing
report on emerging trends in e-commerce.
The above goal lacks specificity, since there is no clear definition of what is meant by “update”. A
better way to write the goal is “Update the report on emerging trends in e-commerce with at least two
new trends that aren’t listed in the current report.” You can take it a step further by identifying a trend
as something that has a tangible outcome on your business objectives, for instance, trends that impact
the way shopping habits are changing. Since the goal is more specific now, it makes measuring
performance more objective.
Measurable
The performance goal should also include how the completion of the goal will be measured. Two
common ways that a business output can be measured are quality and cost-effectiveness.
Achievable
The outcome of a performance goal should be under employees’ control. External factors should not
play a role in whether a goal is considered successfully achieved or not. For instance, in our example
of report update as a goal, it will be unfair to not consider unavailability of substantial data to
evaluate trends. A fair performance goal would be “Update the report on emerging trends in e-
commerce with at least two new trends that aren’t listed in the report, and try to come up with new
research methods aimed at saving time. If statistically significant data is not found for compiling
trends, give sources referenced for research. Sources should be reputable.”

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Relevant
For performance goals to be beneficial for employees and the organization, they should be relevant to
employees’ job responsibilities, thus leading to their professional growth, and relevant to the short- or
long-term goals of the organization.
Timely
This is to ensure that a goal is met in a timely manner. Our example performance goal can thus be
updated in the following manner: “Update the report on emerging trends in e-commerce with at least
two new trends that aren’t listed in the report, and try to come up with new research methods aimed at
saving time. If statistically significant data is not found for compiling trends, give sources referenced
for research. Sources should be reputable. The first draft of the report is to be sent to Manager A by
June 15.”
Smart Examples:
Complete one for each of your employee’s functional competency areas:
Do This ___________________________________ How ________________________________
Within What Time __________________________ With what outcome? __________________
a) Sample SMART goals for Customer Service:
• Improve student service satisfaction ratings by (xx)% by the end of the calendar year, as
determined by student satisfaction surveys.
• Increase the number of people who visit our Athletics web site to (xx) by the end of February.
• Respond daily to voice mails or calls concerning the status of ordered supplies or equipment.
There are no more than 2 valid complaints from faculty and staff about lack of supplies during the
performance cycle.
b) Sample SMART goals for Budgeting:
• Submit to the Director by the 15th of each month, a monthly budget report that summarizes for
the previous month the total spent in all budget categories and balances for all categories. This
report should also briefly document any budget concerns and forecasts.
• Review the budgets of the reporting departments on a monthly basis and alert them by the 5th of
each month to possible issues that should be addressed. Accounts are not over-expended or
depleted without the account manager being informed. Accounts are managed efficiently at year-
end with all expenditures managed based on Budget Office guidance.

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3.3 Evaluate the impact of own learning against the achievement of strategic goals
It is very important to evaluate the impact of own learning against the achievement of strategic goals
because Strategic goals are statements of what we wish to achieve over the period of the strategic
plan e.g. over the next year, five years, ten years. They reflect the analysis we do that starts with
creating a vision, a role statement and a mission statement, and then analysis of our environment,
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Leadership Skill:
As a consultant of AB Management leadership skill is very necessary when I play a role of
consultant. When a consultant has not this kind of leadership skill then he or she is not able to control
or handle their employees. So leadership skill is very important in large or small organization. Neil
and Morgan believe that it is a critical management skill, is the ability to motivate a group of people
towards a common goal.
A leader is like a man who handle whole the team or we can say he handle group of people all have
same goal. Guskey T. (2000), It’s not easy task because a leader should so many right to do and he
must have capability to follow whole group for common goal. A leader some time by born or some
time he become leader with experience and with work. According to as a leader in my company I
have to do leadership and lead all my staff for a common goal and it’s a good, excellent customer
service. As a consultant I need to have proper management styles in managing different operations.
My management styles should be autocratic and democratic so I can make my all decisions perfect
and in time which is useful to my organization.
Professional Skill:
Professional skill is as important same like Personal skill. According to Docstoc (2010) in
professional skill counseling and mentoring to support staff with their own learning and development
requirement, coaching skills, multitasking, leadership skills, theories of leadership, management
styles, continuing self-development meet requirements for industry sector professional bodies,
leading and meeting, delivering effective presentations. If a consultant have only personal skill but
not a professional skill then it is very tough to survive in a market. So a consultant must have both
skills personal as well as professional skill. This skill is very important in this assignment because
this assignment is about advanced professional development and if a person plays a role of consultant
in AB Management he or she must have this skill.

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Self-Development:
In self-development If anyone works as a consultant they must have good knowledge of market that
can be helpful to expand my organization because if I have to data of other companies and I do
whatever organization is running it’s not good for me and my organization. As a consultant have
leading and chairing meetings. If as a consultant if I have no leadership power then he can’t achieve
his goal. So he has to arrange monthly meeting and discuss about what we are what we got what we
want to achieve everything he has to manage in this task. Foot and Hook (1999) as a consultant he
must have effective presentation skill because a consultant has to give monthly assignment to their
employee for example as a consultant of AB Management I have to give monthly assignment to my
employee that what they have done last month what are criteria that we have to improve ourselves.
How much the budget provided by our employer and what we have already achieved, So employee
get the knowledge of their performance and next time they don’t made same mistake what they made
before.
CONCLUSION:
This assignment is about the personal and professional skills which is required in personal and
professional life. In this assignment I also mentioned the techniques to assess the professional skills
required to support the organization. I also carry out the skill audit evaluate the strategic skills needed
to meet the current and future requirements using personal SWOT analysis. This assignment I have to
develop myself as a professional consultant so I used many techniques and methods to improve the
personal and professional development plan. personal skill not professional skill or in the other hand
if I have only professional skill and not personal skill then it is not good combination of management
I must have these both skills. Personal and professional skill includes numerous benefits with an
underlying philosophy that emphasizes the achievement of competitive advantage through the efforts
of people. I conclude in this assignment that each and every organization they must have knowledge
of personal and professional skill which is really very useful personally and professionally. Every
organization has some particular goal and the most common goal of any commercial firm or
organization is profit. In this assignment first of all I have to manage myself as a manager because if I
am not manage myself then I cannot manage entire organization, it means I have to find out what are
my strength what are my weaknesses Overcoming weaknesses and turning them into opportunities to
deal with gaps in my personality