The Generalized Self Efficacy

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Leadership Development Plan

Kristian McAdams

Contents

Section I: Self Assessment

Generalized self-efficacy

My score for the generalized self-efficacy assessment was 5.58. This means that I almost have a strong sense of self-efficacy. It mainly means that I have self-confidence in most circumstances but there are situations where I do not believe in my ability to influence the outcome of success within various situations. This influences my interactions with others by keeping me quiet in situations where I am very uncomfortable. Therefore if I do not feel I am competent when a situation arises, I will revert to my standard operating mode of watching the situation, researching the problem, and quiet reasoning before I will speak up, even if I may have a viable solution. In a leadership capacity this means that I will defer to experts, but can exasperate the expert asking questions to better understand the situation and to build up my confidence in a decision. Due to this need for information to build up my confidence, it may make some people assume I am being indecisive or that I do not trust their expertise, when in fact I do not trust myself. In situations that require a hasty decision, I know this infuriates many people because I prefer to reason the solution out, not trust my (or anyone else's) gut reaction. In situations that need to be handled with care and caution, this works to my advantage since even if it ends up being a bad decision I have the evidence to back up why the decision was made to show that a failure was not due to a flippant attitude toward the outcome.

The key take away from this exercise is that I should probably try to trust and believe in myself more than I should. The assessment claims that high self-confidence is directly correlated to strong self-efficacy which is needed to be a strong and effective leader.

I believe my instinct to better understand a situation fits in with my values. I do not like to be hasty and prefer to have all the information possible to make a decision. While it does come across as a lack of self-efficacy in some situations, I would rather be known for failing with a well thought out plan, since you can reassess the plan to see what information was incorrect, than succeeding and not being able to recreate the situation.

Self Monitoring

My score for self-monitoring was 14. This means that I am probably average in my self-monitoring skills. According to the assessment packet, Snyder describes self-monitoring as "someone who is sensitive to the expression and self-presentation of others in social situations" (Snyder, 1974). The problem with me, based off this test, is that I would appear to be bi-polar to some people. My average score indicates that I have the ability to remake myself when I deem it is appropriate or necessary but that I also sometimes show who I am outside of the business setting. This influences my interactions with others by appearing at times to be socially awkward. I am by nature socially awkward, so that is not necessarily a false showing to people. However, what this assessment also shows is that I sometimes present different personalities to different people depending on the situation. This affects my ability to lead successfully by sometimes portraying myself as less committed to an organization since I can adjust depending on to whom I am speaking. This can also lead to some people thinking I am hiding information from them or that I am partaking in office politics. On the other side of the coin, because I may also sometimes let my private persona slip into situations where I have been holding myself differently. In specific situations this can be a hindrance, such as when I show that I can make a sailor blush when I have been able to hold myself out as more dignified. It can be helpful when I am trying to see more than one side of the picture because it has helped me work with both the technical and manufacturing side of a business as well as speak to those who are in positions of power.

The key take away from this exercise is hard to figure out. I believe the exercise is meant to either explain that leaders have high self-monitoring behaviors; however, I can read into the assessment that it is not always conducive to business to exude sociopathic behaviors. I remember learning in undergrad that sociopathic and psychopathic indictors are almost four times more likely to arise in business-minded individuals and even higher within executive board members within business than within the general population of society. While I did not major or minor in psychology I would hope that this aim of this assessment was not to have the test taker to try become more like a disorder.

My strengths in this area are that I can mould my behavior when the situation calls for it, especially when I am in a new situation I may start by observing the tradition behavior required. This can be leveraged by helping me gain access and confidents within a new area, making it easier to acquire information and get to know the people working in the situation and get a better grasp of what is expected in the new scene be it a new job, a new position, or customer expectations.

My weakness in this area is that I occasionally slip from the persona that is required in certain situations. This is especially true when I am around people that I have grown to trust or when I have I gotten to know the people I am working with and I do not believe it will impact their overall opinion of me. This is a weakness I am aware appears when I am extremely tried and when I am angered or extremely frustrated.

My average score does in fact align with my values, and I have worked hard over the years to become closer to the average rather than be so extremely self-monitoring. I found that when I tried to maintain my separate selves I could be seen as a leader but it affected the ability to work in teams as well as impacted the ability to get complete information that you need to complete a project. As one of the readings suggested in order to be an effective leader you must at some point so a weakness. In order to share a weakness with the group, you must lower your monitoring ability otherwise it sounds insincere and mocking.

Big Five Personality Dimensions

Below I have discussed my scores within the Personality Dimension assessment much more thoroughly, giving an analysis of each dimension. I have also discussed how each aspect of my personality can be a strength and weakness in the context of leadership.

The key take away from this exercise is to understand that while certain traits are considered necessary for leadership, a person's core personality has long been set by the time they are able to enter into a leadership position. By understanding how I operate, I will be able to better assess situations where I may not be able to see a problem objectively. This will also help give me a good understanding of what I need to work with, since it is almost impossible to work around your personality, when I approach a situation. This assessment shows me where I need to make sure reassess how I am interacting with people and gives me a better understanding of how they perceive what I say and do versus what I actual mean.

I believe most of my traits align with my values. I do prefer to associate with smaller groups as they tend to be less likely to have irresolvable infighting. My issue with the assessment comes in the form of the agreeableness component as I have and still do give part of my time and resources to charitable organizations.

Extraversion

My extraversion score, despite what some people believe, is actually relatively low as I received a twenty-two. This means that I am introverted, reserved, and quiet by nature, but more importantly, I tend to prefer socializing in small group not large ones. My highest ranking traits within my extraversion score are assertiveness and activity level, which shows that despite the introvert mentality, I still believe in speaking my mind and prefer to lead more often than to follow. This also indicates that I tend to be involved in numerous activities. This influences my interactions with others in that I can be perceived as short or brusque. Due to the fact that I do sometimes have many events or projects going on at once, I do not like to draw out every meeting and there are times I can be short in that I will ask for just the answers and simple explanations, not drawn out stories. This can affect my leadership ability since I score low on the cheerfulness scale so I am not always happy and upbeat in my request so it is interpreted as a demand for information rather than a hurried request.

On the other hand, I scored very low on the friendliness and the gregariousness scales. This indicates, truthfully, that I do not make friends easily, though I make acquaintances all the time. This influences my interactions with others in that I come across as reserved and distant since I do not automatically connect with people. This affects my ability to lead because I may seem a bit more unapproachable than I should to those I am leading and even to my peers. This worked well when I have been in situations, such as consulting, where it is importantly to remain emotionally disconnected. However, it can hinder situations where team and group work is expected.

My strengths and weaknesses when it comes to my extroversion are consistent with my values since I prefer to get to know someone to trust them, not just accept people on face value since I have been burned one too many times. These strengths and weakness are relevant to trying to achieve my goal of finding a place to fit in and one day work for myself because my introversion allows me to form a network of acquaintances for help but also gives me the opportunity to know who I can rely on if I need assistance.

Agreeableness

My agreeableness score is extremely low, in fact it cannot get any lower as I score a zero, which I was unaware was possible in a personality assessment. I feel the need to defend my zero more than anything else by stating that I do not understand exactly how this test result is calculated since I received a zero within the trait subset only when it comes to sympathy. This assessment is pretty much alerting the world that I must be a selfish person, which I do not believe is completely accurate. My high scores within agreeableness are morality and modesty. This means that I do not like to play office politics and prefer to be candid with people when approaching a problem. This influences my interactions with others in that I will typically not beat around the bush and prefer to lay the problem on the table outright. This affects my ability to lead successfully because it is sometimes perceived as being tactless. This works well for situations where the issue needs to be clear in order to obtain a decent solution, but can be a problem when trying to handle a task with kid gloves or with more sympathy. As I mentioned my lowest score was sympathy. This means that, as I stated earlier, I prefer to make judgments based on the facts before me. Based on reading for this class, this means that I can fire someone when the need calls for it and unlike some people in our case studies I am more willing to confront people who are not living up to the standards of their job when necessary. This affects my interactions with people in that when I try to be sympathetic to other people's problems, even when I am genuinely concerned, I sound sarcastic or fake. Knowing that I come across as hard and critical, I try to work on making sure that I understand more of how what I am saying is perceived, though I still need to work on this.

My agreeableness lines up with my beliefs in that I do believe in truth and justice. It is why I wanted to study law and the lack of the impartiality in instances I felt were the problems within the system. I disagree in that I give time and resources that I have to charitable organizations, yet I only scored a one for altruism. I enjoy volunteering with non-profits whose causes align with my values - I am a sucker for helping the Humane Society - but having seen the inner-working of non-profits understand why some people get burned out working for them. I understand that being disagreeable on this scale can make leading a bit more difficult since in order to lead people one needs to trust those around them and in return need to show that they care about the people, but I when I have tried to be more of a touchy feely person than I actually am, I felt more like a snake oil saleswoman than myself.

Conscientiousness

My conscientiousness score was high at seventy-five. This means that I prefer to set clear goals, and I am determined to meet them. My highest scores were in achievement-striving, cautiousness, and self-discipline. These influence my interactions with others by constantly pushing for a team I am in or a group I am leading to do better and go farther. This also affects my interactions in that I like to have all the information, under my belief that knowledge is power. These affect my ability to lead successfully in that I expect everyone to be as dedicated as I am toward the common purpose. However, my social awkwardness and apparent inability to do a better job at relating to everyone on the team has been known to make others feel like I was unappreciative of their work or that I was pushing for goals that were unachievable. My weakest subset trait was an average score in orderliness, which does not always help everyone. I try to compensate for this by making myself notes and checklists to make sure I have done everything that needed to be done and informed all the people who needed to be informed about projects.

I believe that my conscientiousness aligns to my values because I believe you should be able to leave a project behind better than it was when it started. I do not particularly care for outright failure which I see as a failure due to a lack of planning, motivation, and action. I was also raised to believe you can only reap what you sow and there are no such things as handouts; therefore, I have a strong work-ethic and expect the same out of everyone around me.

This score is relevant to achieving my goals, though it does not appear to be on the surface. During our meeting, when asked where I would be in three to five years, I responded with an "I do not know," which is still accurate. While highly conscientious people tend to have set goals, I am in the process of revamping my plan. By completing the MBA program I will have completed at least part of my twenty-year plan that I put together when I was fifteen. As I have gotten closer to the end of that plan, I have realized that while it was a little more ambitious than feasible given recent economic and political conditions, not to mention realizing that I prefer law in theory, not in outright practice, I have started to reassess the plan to determine the best way to get to the goals I have in life.

Neuroticism

My neuroticism score is an average forty-five. This means that I can be upset by stress and frustrating situations but am still able to cope and work around these feelings. I had a very high score of eighty-two for self-consciousness which is a bit contradictory to a few of my other traits (assertiveness), though compatible with others (friendliness). This influences my interactions in that I am typically hyper-aware within large social situations and will sometimes feel claustrophobic when I am surrounded by too many people. I believe that this trait is selective when it wishes to appear and over the years I have worked hard to overcome the anxiety it may trigger. However, this does affect my ability to lead in a negative way since if I know that if I have been a large group of people for an extended amount of time, I need to be able to take some time to myself in order to restore mental balance. In certain situations this is not possible and if I have not had the time to myself I can become a bit on edge. This can lead to mental exhaustion and the possibility that I inadvertently offend someone since one of my first slips is usually any tact I actually have. My lowest score, or my strength, is immoderation. This means I am better able to look at the long-term goals rather than simply short-term rewards. This influences my interactions with others in that my decisions when working with people who are short-goal oriented have to be explained and my rationale must be strong. This affects my leadership by forcing me to make sure when working with other people that I incorporate short measureable mini-goals or steps within a long-term plan.

Openness to Experience

My openness to experience score was an average fifty-two. This means that I am willing to try new things but am also able to appreciate traditions. My highest score was a ninety-two in intellect, followed by imagination (seventy-five) and artistic interests (seventy-one). This means that I prefer to debate intellectual issues and work with idea and puzzles. This influences my interactions with others in that I rarely know what anyone is talking when it comes to reality television but am more active and forthcoming when discussing ideas and art, for example I have never seen Duck Dynasty or Myrtle Manor but my friends and I have been discussing the SpaceX and Mars Mission colonization ideas. This affects my leadership ability in that I prefer to debate the pros and cons of an idea which can lead to some people thinking I am rejecting their idea outright. I also like to play devil's advocate with an idea if I can in order to better understand all sides. I have found that I need to preface this with some group members with a, "I like your idea, but I am trying to understand it better" before I starting a debate.

Within my personal values intellect rates high. I do not believe everyone should be a genius, nor do I think I am one, but I believe everyone should be keen on continuing to learn new ideas and should be willing to discuss them. I love wandering around historical sites with my other half, as well as spending time in museums or simply walking in nature. I play video games which require strategy and problem solving which probably explains why I also scored so high on imagination.

This trait is relevant to achieving my one of goals because I eventually would like to finish two fiction books I have started but have yet to finally finish mainly due to a lack of time and a bit of writers block. Since both of these books are fiction they require an predilection for fantasy and imagination. My penchant for imagination and intellect also tie in nicely to the fact that I enjoy discussing with a few other people new processes and ideas. I hope that one day, I will be able to put forth a prototype of any number of projects we've worked on in theory.

Transformational Leadership

My scores were: articulate vision - 4.8; role model - 6; foster goal acceptance - 6; performance expectations - 5.33; individual support 5.25; intellectual stimulation - 5.25; transactional leader behavior - 6. These scores mean that I am more likely to engage in fostering goal acceptance and leading by example when it comes to transformational leadership. However, since none of my scores are below a four this assessments show that there are times when I will engage in the other behaviors also associated with being a transformational leader. On the assessment I also scored high enough to show tendencies to be a transactional leader when the time calls for it. This means that while I may prefer to lead by example and work to have my employees believe in the goal of the project as much as I do, I can also use a reward or exchange system to have my followers do what is needed. My strengths can be leverage to get my followers to buy in the goal enough to be self-motivated and my ability to lead by example means that my followers can read what I expect of them without me having to spell it out. My weakness in this area is mainly articulating my vision to those I am leading.

The key take away from this exercise is that transformational leadership is what is desired, but I still need to work on areas within such a method.

The classes so far have focused on a transformational rather than a transactional leadership style in order to retain loyalty. I will need to improve my ability to inspire others to see the vision I have or the plan I have in order to raise my ability to articulate the vision.

Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire

Per the Blake Mouton model in the assessment packet, my scores were 3.5 for initiating structure and 3.7 for consideration. This means that I have started to exude the behavior of a team leader, though I am still close to being a middle of the road leader. A team leader stress production needs and the needs of the people equally. The team leader has moved past the middle of the road method of compromising, which unnecessarily leads to a win-lose/win-lose decision, and has embraced collaboration and the win/win situations. This means that I prefer to collaborate when making decisions when possible, but will still fall back on making compromises when collaboration fails.

This influences my interactions with others through the ability to keep my ideas to myself until I get other opinions on the issue so that I can determine what everyone else is thinking. This affects my ability to lead successfully by being extremely time consuming. This can be helpful in situations where there is time and creativity involved. However, it can be a hindrance when there are very specific criteria or a deadline that needs to be met.

The key take away from this exercise is to understand what is needed to have a participative and democratic management style, while still understanding the situations in which to use the other methods of leadership such as those discussed in the reading and in class.

This is relevant to achieving my goals because in order to pay for some of my hobbies, such as writing, traveling, and video games, I hope to work within an organization and collaboration is a key to innovation and good leadership.

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Organizational Justice

My scores were for organizational justice broke down with a strong sense of distributive justice (4.75), followed by informational justice (3.4), interpersonal justice (3) and procedural justice (2). Since I did the original assessment packet at the beginning of the semester, I can no longer tell you which project or class grade I used. However, I will extrapolate this into how I would appraise a leadership situation the best I can. This means that I more closely assess and critique the fairness of procedures than I probably do anything in order to determine if an outcome was just. This influences my interactions with others in that I prefer to have a procedure in place to make decisions. This affects my ability to lead successfully by having a rubric to follow so all my followers have a guideline to determine what is fair. However, it negatively impacts my ability to lead by not accounting for special circumstances.

This will help me achieve my goals by giving me a way to assess how a team I am leading feels about what is going on.

Leadership Style

My scores indicate that I am a free-rein and a participative leader. This means I prefer to share control with employees who have the needed knowledge and skills to work in a situation. This influences my interactions with others in that I tend to assume that employees can self-motivate and have a good understanding of the field they are in. This affects my ability to lead successfully since that is not always the case and I get irritated when someone requires me to hold their hand all the way through a project. I do not like to be micromanaged nor do I like micromanaging.

The key take away from this exercise is to know how I like to handle control of a situation. Which for me, I like to have a group control and expect knowledge from the employees.

Communication Skills

My communication skills show more of a reflection cognition or a modeling cognition with a lower score in presence and consequence conditions. This means that I evaluate a conversation after I have it in order to determine how I should improve for the next conversation. I also tend to listen for clues from whomever I am speaking in order to determine how to handle a conversation and will change what I am saying if I perceive that something is going badly. My weakness is thinking about how others may interpret what I say. This affects my ability to lead because I have a tendency to say something without ensuring that it does not have the ability to be taken the wrong way by the party receiving it. Luckily, I can at least realize I said something that was either not understood or was offensive and try to clarify what I meant though that does not always turn out as well as I had planned either.

The key takeaway from this exercise is to know what areas of communication I need to improve on, most notably fixing my brain to mouth filter.

This is a goal for me to try and fix that I have been working on for some time since I do not always realize I have insulted someone or spoken over the heads and this causes people to have a not so favorable impression of me.

Conflict Management Style

My predominant conflict management styles are collaborating and compromising. I am least likely to be accommodating. This means I prefer to work with other people to come up with the closest win/win situation.

The key take away from this exercise is understanding what type of conflict resolution I prefer to use and understanding how others may work as well.

This goes back to the fact that I prefer to work in small groups that can bounce ideas off of each other to find better solutions than can be found by individuals.

Implicit Association Test

My scores were ridiculous and ambiguous. This means this test is inherently flawed. I feel it is wrong to begin with, as rather than testing stereotype biases, it tests your abilities to hit certain keys on a keyboard in a timely manner. Those of us that play computer games will have a much better reaction time on the left side of the keyboard than we will on the right side due to training. While I know I have biases since everyone does, I believe knowing these biases influences my interactions with people only because it forces me to make sure I am not using the biases in my decisions.

Section II: External Feedback

According to the Skillscope self-analysis I thought my weaknesses were being not being a good public speaker mainly due to fact that despite practice I still get nervous before having to speak in front of groups of people. The second weakness I said I had was that I am abrasive, mainly because I have been told many times that since I do not like to sugar coat information I come across as either tactless or curt. My third weakness for the self assessment was a lack of competence when dealing with other people's feelings. As the personality assessments above show I am not exactly in touch with how to react or measure other people's emotions. I also thought I had a lack of understanding of politics, though I credit it more with a disdain for office politics. In previous work environments I have found myself hating the job simply because politics played more of a role is success than skill. I believe I need to work on the ability to delegate work to others, and force them to do their share of the work rather than simply doing it myself when it appears they are not motivated to succeed. I blame this on the fact that within an academic setting there are too many individuals who rely on procrastinating long enough to force someone else to do their share of the work and then complain that they were getting to it but were not given a chance. In a work environment on the other hand my experience has shown that the boss tends to realize why something that was delegated to a different individual was done by someone else and everyone in the need to keep their job is more motivated to get the work done. My final weakness, and to me the most important to be worked on is the fact that in this semester seems to have overrun me and I have found that I have spread myself to thin.

I thought my strengths were being articulate, seeking information, creating order out of information, being a keen observer of people, spotting problems and trends early, having vision, introducing change, working as a team builder, being resourceful, being motivated, and being able and willing to listen to ideas that are not my own.

My Skillscope feedback came from mainly my peers within my MBA 611 project and MBA classmates. This means that while the feedback is good for this semester this Skillscope assessment is not necessarily an accurate representation of my strengths and weaknesses outside of this specific environment. I tried to get a few more of my past co-workers and bosses to respond but many were either unable or did not wish to undertake the task. Based on these responses my strengths pretty much align with what I thought my strengths were. The surprises were that my peers think I am good with financial data and numbers and that my peers believe I am a good public speaker. The Skillscope feedback did not surprise me with any unknown weaknesses. When I did my self-assessment I judged based on current performance not past performance. Therefore, my weaknesses according to my peers are that I have far too much going on at once and have spread myself too thin. I had a few outliers that also show I need to improve my ability to articulate my point to resistant audiences, that I need to delegate more effectively, and need to learn how to deal with and account for the emotions of the people around me.

The Skillscope assessment aligns with the assessments within section one in that both assessments show that I am always involved in many projects and that I do tend to have issues reading emotions. One of my favorite cards to give my friends relates directly to my lack of ability to read people, on the front it says "You look like you could you a hug." The inside reads, "That or a spatula, I've never been very good at reading people." This card had two variations one for "Get Well" and one for birthdays. The reason I bring this up is that I am well aware that I have development area of learning other people's emotions and have been working to be better at it for quite a while. As my assessments show above, I will probably need to find a work around since it is more ingrained in my personality than it is in my ability.

The insights given in the Skillscope are that I need to find less busy bosses and co-workers to get a better assessment of my strengths and weaknesses outside of the MBA program. It also shows that I had gotten involved in too many projects this semester, and not only did I feel overwhelmed at times but it was showing to the outside world as well.

Section III: Summary and Choice of Areas of Improvement

Section one shows that I am an introvert with some extroverted qualities. I have a high standard of success that I believe that not only I but those around me should be willing and able to aim toward. I prefer to work in small skilled teams to deliver new and unique solutions to problems. I prefer to study the new environments I have entered in order to get a base understanding of how things operate before assessing changes that I believe should be implemented. I like to have all the fact possible at my disposal and prefer to working in environments that are fast paced and ever changing so that there are new puzzles to solve. I enjoy envisioning what can be, not just understanding what current is.

Section two shows that I have been able to be critical of myself in most situations as there were no bad surprises within my Skillscope results. This also shows that I may be more critical of abilities than my peers are. This aligns with the fact that I have a reflective cognition so that I tend to analyze every conversation after I have to determine where I need to make improvements. This means that I remember more of what I did incorrectly than I do of what I did correctly.

From these two assessment packets I believe I have three key areas that I need to improve on that can result in actual measurable results. They are time management, communication specifically related to the ability to make my point more effectively to more resistant audiences, and being able to be either more sympathetic or at least determine a way to be better able to read the people I am communicating with in order to not offend them or upset them.

Section IV: Action Plan

Objective One - Time Management

Development Objective

Before starting the MBA program, I had a pretty good handle on my time management skills, they were never prefect and could use some help but while I might get frustrated with what I was doing, I did not feel overwhelmed by simply the amount of work to do. I found that this semester, my time management skills seemed to fall apart. Therefore, I believe the first thing I would like to do is to work on my time management to bring this ability back to where I was before I started the MBA program, if not to an improved state. I plan to graduate in August so there is not much time to have everything back up to par by then, though you apparently need at least sixty-six of forcing yourself to do something before it becomes a habit (Sood, 2012). I hope to be better able to prioritize work I am doing and to not feel like there is too much in front of me.

In order to be specific and measurable, I specifically want to set aside an hour each day to reassess the work that needs to be done and to build a plan of action each morning. This is measurable because I can easily determine whether or not I set aside the time to prioritize and make an action plan, and I can assess whether or not I actually used the time for what I purposed it. I would like to also add a goal to at least spend thirty minutes each night unplugged. I believe this will help my time management skills since part of burn out and feeling overwhelmed can stem from a lack of time taken for mental health. I will define success if I can I achieve the first goal again since that is how I started my morning before I felt like I no longer had any time. The second goal will be measured to be successful if I can remember to do it for sixty-six days straight.

Development Activities

To become better at time management I plan to read a few articles on the best way to determine priority of assignments and projects. There are a few online journal articles that discuss the various benefits of a deadline approach versus a smaller to larger project approach and more. I am planning to devote part of the time I spend each morning in the beginning reading and analyzing the articles. I plan to practice each of the prioritization types for a week each in order to determine which way works best for me.

In order to unwind and unplug I have read a few articles on the best ways to center yourself to keep from getting burnt out. I plan to practice some of the skills within the readings (meditation, yoga, reading, taking nightly walks on the beach) in order to have a better mental health which should lead to effectiveness of the implementation of time management skills. The specific knowledge, skill or ability you identified as a development objective.

Resources/Support

Resources:

10 Time Management Tips that Work (Matthews, Debolt, & Percival, 2011)

11 Solid Way to Improve Your Time Management Skills (Bridge, 2008)

Mind Tools and similar site (www.mindtools.com)

Tips on Effective Time Management (Smith)

Productivity & Prioritization Skills (Hunt)

Advice, like youth, is wasted on the young (Schmich, 1997; Luhrmann, 1999)

Various other online resources

Support:

My significant other will probably be my best support system to make sure I am actually sticking with the plan. However, I am pretty sure I can also count on my friends to help me stick to the plan since time management should give me time to rejoin the hobbies I participate in with them.

Timeline

Based on the research, as I understand it, I will need at least sixty-six days for everything to be ingrained. However, since I would like to try and find a style that best fits with my personality and the projects I am working on, I will give myself at least three extra weeks in order to try different approaches. I cannot anticipate a specific timeline with dates to adhere to any closer than that.

Potential Obstacles

My biggest obstacle is myself. I had time management skills that included coming up with a plan of attack to each day but I fell out of the habit as time seemed to get away from me. Other barriers tend to be problems that "blindside me at four p.m. on a Tuesday" (Schmich, 1997; Luhrmann, 1999). One of the reasons I quit be as good at time management was because I would not find out about something until the last minute which affected everything else within my schedule. I am hoping that by setting better deadlines for myself and adding time within the plans for things to go awry I will be able to work unexpected problems into my schedule without getting off track.

Evidence of Progress

I will know I have achieved my objective when I no longer feel like I have completely lost my mind when trying to get work done.

Objective Two - Communication with Resistant Audiences

Development Objective

By the end of my MBA program, or at least by the end of the year, I would like to be able to articulate my points more clearly when communicating with resistant audiences. My Skillscope assessment listed this as an area that needed development. My self-assessment packet listed my personality and leadership skills as needing improvement with working with people, specifically not getting frustrated. I am also aware that this is a problem of mine as I do not always have the confidence necessary when I am expressing my ideas. When I come upon numerous dissenters, I can second guess my opinions even when I have all the answers which I need to work on.

I want to be able to articulate my ideas with backed up information in order to convert some of a resistant audience to my point of view. Specifically, I want to be able to have my information backed up by facts. In academia this means that when I go into classes, I want to have with me the facts I believe are relevant and be able to cite the sources these facts come from. I noticed my memory became riddle with holes (this relates back to time management) and I was unable to remember where I read certain facts and statistics which lead to me trying to find this information when I was making a statement. In order to measure these goals, I want to have a typed or printed list with the key facts prior to each class this maymester/summer that define what I felt were key facts and where I found them in the readings. I will consider myself successful if I can remember to do this while I read for the classes and remember to take the information with me to class. This has a very specific end date of August graduation, but I hope to carry this skill over to projects within the work environment in order to motivate my employees, my peers, and my bosses to implement new ideas they may not be as keen to accept.

Development Activities

In part one I plan to work on this by taking better notes when doing readings. Currently I do not take notes when reading simply because I do not seem to retain the information I am writing down when doing so. I plan to overcome this by reading an article, case study, or chapter thoroughly then going back through the article to take notes. I have never been very good with taking notes while reading, though I can do when in meetings, so I plan to try to apply my note taking skills elsewhere. I also plan to restart partaking in mind games and challenges to help improve my memory.

In part two of my plan, I plan to research some of the better methods that exist to deliver communication - through speech or written word - to resistant audiences. I hope to put these ideas into practice during classes I have in order to determine which speaking styles I feel most comfortable employing.

Resources/Support

Resources:

Textbooks, class assigned materials

Brain Age or other mentally stimulating game that works to encourage memory retention.

Fish oil, since it is supposed to help improve mental abilities.

Research - I have not done as much research into this skill as I have for time management and I hope to rectify that.

Support:

I hope to rely on my friends in order to practice my communication skills outside of the classroom, as well as to receive honest feedback about how I approached the conversation.

Timeline

I plan to do some research during the week, I will be scheduling time for that, but most of my activities will take place between 14 May and 10 August when summer classes are in session. By August I plan to have determined what style I should implement when talking to a resistant audience.

Throughout the summer, and long after as well, I plan to spend a bit of time each day doing some form of memory stimulation activity in order to build a better brain.

Potential Obstacles

The biggest obstacle I can see happening to learning more and bettering my ability to speak to a resistant audience will come from the MBA classes. There is a possibility that there will be nights where I will not be speaking to anyone who whole heartedly disagrees with me. The other obstacle will be that a lot of the communication techniques are situation specific and I will not be able to find situation to practice that style.

Evidence of Progress

The best way to determine if I have learned what I need in order to handle resistant audience will be on how well I can convince my classmates, or if that opportunity is not available my friends to support my ideas that are originally not favored. While I worry this may be hard to measure in an MBA program, I hope to be able to mark progress by how much comfortable I am when entering the situation. I stated at the beginning I believe part of this problem stems from a lack of confidence when entering a resistant or hostile situation but if I feel more confident in what I am saying, I believe this will allow me to communicate better.

Objective Three - Reading People/Expressing Sympathy

Development Objective

Once again, I hope that by the end of the MBA program I have started to show improvement, but do not see that as the ultimate end goal since this will be a long and drawn out process. While my Skillscope raters did not have really see me in action enough to know that I struggle with this, my personality and leadership assessment packet did point out that I am not exactly Sherlock when it comes to reading people and knowing how to express sympathy to the people I am working with. I hope that by the end of the MBA program I will have a better understanding on how to read other people a bit better. This will help me be better able to sense what other people need in order to accurately work with them and communicate with them.

Since this is such a hard skill to measure, I plan to use the Emotional Intelligence Test, a free copy I found online to measure my growth in this area (University of California, Berkeley). This is actually probably the most ambitious of my objectives, simply because I must determine the best ways to work with my personality and ingrained traits. I know that my personality works well in certain circumstances and it would be an impossible task to completely change myself, therefore I plan to simple learn to work with my strengths in order to build this weakness into something that is not as bad.

Development Activities

While I realize this is redundant, I prefer to enter a project, even in self-improvement, with facts. First and foremost I plan to more research into how better study people and express sympathy and empathy. I also plan to take the EI quiz at least once a week to determine if I have gotten any better at reading people. My hope is that I can find a few more free EI quizzes in order to differentiate from getting better at reading people and getting better at remembering the answers to the quiz.

As for showing more sympathy, there are journal articles that I plan to research. This will be harder to measure as I cannot ensure that a need will arise for me to show or deal with such emotions before graduating. However the basic research I have done seems to suggest that being better able to read people can help in the situation so if nothing else I will know when I am out of my element and will not make a situation worse.

Resources/Support

Resources:

Emotional Intelligence Quiz (University of California, Berkeley)

Psychological journal articles

Articles relating to the necessity of sympathy and empathy within the workplace

Leadership articles about how to properly use sympathy and empathy without sounding insincere

Lessons on how to apologize for sounding insincere.

Support

I need people who are willing to understand that I have an issue expressing such feelings and are willing to honestly tell me when I am being abrasive or tactless. Thankfully, I have friends who are willing to tell me, but this does not help in most social situations since friends gain tolerance for quirks.

I would appreciate it if I could find University resources that would let me know if there were any good starting points that I may have missed.

Timeline

I plan to take the EI quiz at least once a week over the summer, though it may be different quizzes in order to eliminate biases as my memory gets better. I plan to use Sunday as the day I take the quiz since that can be counted as the end of the week.

I plan to find and read at least one or two articles within the categories I listed in the resources section. I hope to be able to practice reading people while in class.

Potential Obstacles

My biggest obstacle to being better at reading people and expressing and knowing when to express sympathy will be my personality. I have had problems doing this most of my life and have known about it since at least high school when my debate coach pointed it out. This is an ongoing process since most classes in the past have suggested that I simply fake it, which also goes against my values and personality. The other obstacle I will face is that most people will not let me know when I have responded inappropriately or accidently insulted someone. I even had a boss who was afraid to tell me that it bothered him that I was "blunt," I only found out since a co-worker told me that I needed to try to sugar coat what I said to the boss; however, the clientele I was working with also told me they appreciated the fact that I did not give false hope. Since I cannot change people, only myself, I may still step on toes as I become better at trying to read people.

Evidence of Progress

My specific standard for measuring my improvement is the emotional intelligence quiz, though I hope to utilize feedback from friends as well.