Unit 7 The Developing Manager Assignment Solution

Programme	Diploma in Hospitality Management
Unit Number and Title	Unit 7 The Developing Manager
QFC Level	Level 5
Credit value	15 credits

Task B: Potential as a Prospective Manager

Introduction

Having discussed the observed skills and characteristics of the managers in the hospitality business and the way they are extremely useful and beneficial for creating a strong and favourable working environment for the employees, the report here presents a personal evaluation report. The report presented below is a self-evaluation report, which can be helpful for my career development, as it would help me analyse my existing skill sets and characteristics and then identify the gaps that I need to fulfil in order to make a career in the hospitality industry.

Ref 2.1- Assessment of Own Management Skills Performance

There are several skills that a manager must possess in order to carry out all the required managerial tasks and roles in an effective manner. It is important to evaluate of personal skills because it helps in understanding the needs and requirements of one’s own self in a better manner (OSterman, 1990). An assessment of my skills in context to the required and important managerial and management skills is presented below.
Leadership Skills: I personally believe that I have good leadership skills but I have never been in a situation where I have to necessarily lead people. Hence, this is one aspect of managerial skill where I am unsure of my own performance. There have been times where I have been a part of team projects and have led my teams but that is not a clear indication of whether I can handle other major responsibilities well or not (Mumford et al. 2000).
Personal Skills: The personal skills required for managers include interpersonal, motivation and communication skills. My interpersonal skills are very strong because I am closely connected to all the people around me. Not only do my friends share their thoughts and feelings with me easily but I can also connect and talk to strangers. This is an important art for managers and I think I possess that art in me and can use it well for my role as a manager. Even my communication skills are strong enough, except for my non-verbal abilities. I can communicate well with my verbal and written skills but am not good at using signs and body language for communicating and hence that is something I need to work on.
Organisation and Planning skills: I plan my tasks well in advance and I also make sure that I develop schedules and follow them appropriately in order to make sure that the tasks are getting done completed in an adequate and timely manner. I also make use of planners for managing my tasks and I rarely face the problem of not being able to complete my activities because of poor planning (Mumford et al. 2000).
Qualifications and Technical Abilities: The learning that I am receiving from this course is also an added advantage to my capabilities and abilities. I am currently in the process of obtaining qualification and aim at studying further for refinement of my knowledge and abilities.
Creative Skills: My creative abilities are very moderate in nature. I can think quick but thinking out of the box and finding new and innovative ways of doing things or solving problems is not something that I am very good at. This is one of the biggest challenges that I need to overcome because a manager needs to be extremely creative in order to manage all problems and resolve all issues adequately.
Thus, overall I feel that I have some management skills while I still need to work on the others because the skills that have been discussed above are extremely crucial for all managers.

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Ref 2.2- Personal Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats

Strengths

One of my biggest strengths is my ability communicate with others. Being good at communication, I can easily send across messages and my thoughts to others and vice versa, I can even understand their thoughts and emotions in the best possible way. This strength or characteristic has helped me in overcoming several challenges. Confidence and the ability to learn quickly are also added strengths of mine. I am a quick learner and hence can deal with any given situation by understanding the situation and acting accordingly in a quick manner. Some other strengths that I possess include strong willpower, fast, self-controlled and ability to think strategically (Ganellen, 2007).

Weaknesses

My desire to find perfection in everything is a characteristic that becomes my weakness. Irrespective of good a job somebody has done, I always try to find perfection in everything and hence that leads to extra pressure and unwanted struggle. I am also not very aggressive in nature. I tend to get aggressive when I am not happy with situations around me. Some other weaknesses I feel I have are my hesitant nature, impatience and intolerance levels.

Opportunities

One opportunity that I have from my career perspective is to hone and enhance my technical and knowledge skills and abilities. My further education can help me learn these new skills and abilities. In addition, I also have the opportunity to learn and developing manager skills that I don’t currently possess to incorporate everything required in a manager, which can help me in becoming more successful in my career (Ganellen, 2007).

Threats

Getting entry into the corporate world has become extremely difficult and challenging. As competition increases, it is becoming more and more difficult and troublesome and hence that is a biggest threat to my career as a manager in the hospitality industry. However, it is on me to leverage on my strengths and opportunities to eliminate and remove my weaknesses and threats (Ganellen, 2007).

Ref 2.3- Prioritisation of Objectives and Targets

In order to develop my potential and turn my weaknesses into strengths and make sure that I learn and develop the skills I lack. It is important for me to learn and work on the managerial skills that I lack to make sure that I don’t face any problem in my professional life in the future. In order to achieve this, there are few goals that I need to achieve. The objectives that I have set and developed for myself all are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and also time-bound. It is important to include these characteristics in the objectives because only can they be achieved in the best possible way and can be measured to evaluate if they have been achieved in the specified time or not (Brunstein, 1993). Some of the major objectives that I wish to achieve in order to develop my own potential are listed below.

• My first objective is to ensure that I complete this course within the stipulated time with excellent grades and with complete understanding and learning of the subject.
• By end of year 2014, I will attend a training course for enhancing my leadership abilities.
• By end of year 2015, I will do an additional vocational course for increasing my learning on the hospitality industry and for increasing my competence in the market.
• I would learn how to use all the tools and software used in the hospitality business by December, 2014.

Ref 4.1- Importance of Managerial and Personal Skills for Career Development

The managerial and personal skills are not only important from the education point of view but can also help in significantly contributing towards my career development. Some of the key areas where these skills can help in my career development are discussed below.

• Entry into the Career Path: the managerial and personal skills are important while entering into the industry. In order to get employed, I need to demonstrate confidence, good communication skills and the ability to learn in addition to the existing knowledge and learning I already possess. Hence, the skills are extremely important to cross the first barrier, i.e. the entry into the path of career development and progression (Le Comu, 2009).
• Better adaptability: Career opportunities require an individual to survive under different situations and conditions and hence my managerial and personal professional development skills can help me in being more adaptive to the environment around me (Van Manen, 1977). I can use my skills to adapt better into the given environment. These skills are important for my career development because they will make me more adaptable to the situation around me.
• The managerial and personal skills are also crucial in order to create more awareness in an individual. As these skills would make me more aware of the situations and their requirements aware me, I think I would be able to take my career more seriously and work towards its development and betterment (Moon, 2004).
• Fulfilling roles and responsibilities: Career development comes with the fulfilment of a large number of roles and responsibilities. The roles and responsibilities may vary from organisation to organisation and in fact may even vary from one situation to another. The responsibilities like managing subordinates, delegating them work, handling inter departmental communications and even stakeholder management, all are important and require various skills in order to achieve them in the most effective manner. Hence, this is where the managerial and personal skills of mine can help in achieving higher development in my career.
• Better Self Learning Management: Self learning is an integral part of career development because unless and until I don’t enhance my learning and facilitate my abilities, I will not be able to progress in my carrier path and hence in order to manage my learning, I need to possess certain skills. My skills of fast learning, time management, confidence, communication skills etc. can help me in managing the process of self-learning in a better manner and hence these skills are important for career development (Bolton, 2001).

Hence, it is evident that there are several managerial and personal skills that a person must possess and these skills are not only required because the theories say so but are also important because they significantly contribute towards the career development of an individual.

Ref 4.1.1- Review of Career and Personal Development Needs

On the evaluation of my current performance, I have realized that my performance is currently average. While it is not completely bad, it is not as good as I expect it to be. I am able to plan everything well but the lack of a few important skills holds me down and creates problems in my expectations and performances (Krumboltz, 1993). Thus, my current performance ultimately becomes average. I am also currently not sure of some areas and skills and I need to hence determine if I need to work in these areas or not. This is because I have never been in a situation where I had to use these skills.
As my current development is quite mediocre and average, it is required that I try to make changes for the future. I need to make several changes to my personal, as well as professional attributes to develop more in the personal as well as professional world. My future needs require me to learn the art of controlling my aggressiveness, managing people by being a good leader and also challenge the hesitance in me by putting myself into compelling and challenging situations. My future needs require me to improve from average to high performing individual.
In order to fulfil my future needs, I need to focus on my career as well as my personal and professional development (Hall and Mirvis, 1995). With respect to the career, I have a long way to go because I have not even finished my education yet. Firstly I need to get an internship during my course because getting an internship would help me get familiar with the practical aspects of what I am learning. This will also put me into real situations where I can judge myself and evaluate myself in a better manner. I would then be able to determine and be sure of the skills that I possess and the ones I need to work on. My personal development needs are more focused on improving my weaknesses and turning them into strengths. Even for my personal needs, I need to work on my aggressiveness and intolerance levels because they are not healthy for individuals. Hence, there are multiple career and personal development needs that I need to work on and achieve them in order to improve my current performance to future expectation levels.

Ref 4.2- Personal and Career Development Plan

MY personal and career development plans are very much correlated to one another. I have already carried out a personal assessment, which included the evaluation of my skills, abilities and capabilities (Raabe et al. 2007). On the basis of this assessment, I have also figured out my personal needs in terms of my personal as well as professional lives. The assessment has cleared different things that I was still confused about and it is important to work according to the assessment in order to achieve highest levels of success. Various short and long term goals that I wish to achieve in my career and personal development are discussed below.
My personal development plan is to basically become a better person. My short term goals are to first understand my weaknesses and understand the reasons behind them. I aim at making sure that I am able to gain control over my weaknesses. Probably as I keep changing with time, my strengths and weaknesses might keep changing but only if I do something to eliminate my current weaknesses, will I be able manage my weaknesses at a later stage. My personal development plan thus requires me to become a better person from an overall perspective.
In addition to my personal development, I also need to focus on my career development plan. My plan is to initially work as an intern in an organisation providing hospitality services, after which I would like to start as a management executive followed by managerial roles in a restaurant or a hotel. My final career development plan is to finally open a restaurant of my own. I am hoping that after gaining some real time work experience in the industry, I would be in a better position to understand the requirements of a restaurant and hence I would be able to do more justice to the products and services I would be offering and I would be able to serve my customers and guests in a better manner. Thus, my personal and career development plans go a long way and are highly interrelated to one another.

CONCLUSION

The study has been an eye opener in terms of making me realize several different aspects of the career that I am about to pursue. I would not have ever thought of doing a self-analysis and would have never found out so much about myself. The assessment made it clear to me that I need to continuously evaluate myself to understand my personal needs and requirements for effective and more reliable outcomes.

REFERENCES

Bolton, G. (2001) Reflective Practice: Writing and Professional Development. London: Paul Chapman Publishing
Brunstein, J.C. (1993), Personal goals and subjective well-being: A longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 65(5), 1061-1070
Ganellen, R.J. (2007), Assessing Normal and Abnormal Personality Functioning: Strengths and Weaknesses of Self-Report, Observer, and Performance-Based Methods, Journal of Personality Assessment, vol.89 (1), 30-40
Hall, D.T. (1995), The New Career Contract: Developing the Whole Person at Midlife and Beyond, Journal of Vocational Behaviour. 47(3), 269-289
Krumboltz, J. D. (1993), Integrating Career and Personal Counselling. The Career Development Quarterly, 42: 143–148
Le Cornu, A. (2009), Meaning, Internalization and Externalization: Towards a fuller understanding of the process of reflection and its role in the construction of the self, Adult Education Quarterly 59 (4): 279–297
Moon, J. (2004) A Handbook of Reflective and Experiential Learning: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge
Mumford, M.D., Zaccaro, S.J., Harding, F.D., Jacobs, T.O. and Fleishman, E.A. (2000), Leadership skills for a changing world: Solving complex social problems, The Leadership Quarterly, 11(1), 11-35
Osterman, K. F. (1990). Reflective practice: A new agenda for education. Education and Urban Society, 22 (2); p 133-152