Self Management

Self Management

Introduction

            Many characteristics may make up a person’s management skills. In this paper, we shall discuss certain aspects of managerial skills a person may acquire.

Discussion

            A career is described as lifelong sequences of role-related experiences. Against this highly subjective standard, careers are viewed as individual representations of personal experiences within the job sequences. A career is also tied with profession and advancement ( 1991).

            People are usually influenced about their career decisions. These start as early as childhood. But an ideal time to present career information is when students are in middle school. At this time of their lives they are looking at their interests and skills and determining what they might like to do “when they grow up.” Organizations, parents, peer group or other factors could present many professions as a viable career choice to middle school students ( 2006). These kinds of presentations show the students that there are a variety of options available to them.

Career choice and development are profoundly affected by broad, cross-national differences in the structure of education and work and the connections between these institutions. Educational systems can be characterized by the extent to which they (1) are differentiated by the distinct occupational futures of students and (2) offer vocation-specific credentials (2002).

University career professionals frequently lament their inability to get undergraduate students to take seriously the importance of designing a career plan during their initial college experience and then refining that plan throughout their college and subsequent careers. Four roadblocks stand between many students and career success: procrastination; rationalization; unrealistic expectations; and lack of understanding of how their academics, extracurricular activities, and work experience relate to their ability to compete successfully for a job that meets their professional and business needs (2005).

To prepare for the business world’s challenges, every professional does well to formulate a career plan that clearly relates actual performance to his or her desired personal and career success. For the informed and well prepared professional, there are many strategies available to expand the frontiers of personal and career success (1993).

            The increase in the attention provided the concept of career management at the level of the organization over the last few years has been impressive. Until most recently, writings and guidelines on career programs have been for the most part tailored to individual planning and decision making. The reason for this internally focused, somewhat personal emphasis seems to be associated with an apparent lack of concern for a number of “external” or “environmental context” factors that now are seen as affecting an organization’s career management system (1991).

            Sometimes, there are instances when one has to decide about his or her career. These are turning point and career decisions are not simple. There are many different types, and they happen throughout our careers. Career decisions occur within the context of a complex life space influenced by individual characteristics, organizational circumstances, and conditions outside the organization (1991).

            There are many strategies and techniques available for expanding the frontiers of one’s personal and/or career success (1993). However, these are usually specific to the kind of career one is in. Say for example, business managers can benefit from one group of strategies while health care professionals can benefit from another group of strategies. What is usually common and works well for any profession and career path is continuing education in the form of graduate studies or training and development programs and courses. Such programs are excellent sources for use in an organization’s or individual’s career development. Strategies and techniques can help expand the frontiers of one’s personal and career success. When these strategies are combined with the recommendations of a good mentor, support group, and/or career counselor, the possibilities for enhancing one’s career success improve.

            In the area of management, certain skills are required in order to be successful. Not anyone can be a manager. Managers, by inclination and necessity, are people of action. While they may experience periods of vision and contemplation, the urgencies of the jobs they perform continually keep their attention focused on the practical and on the demand for results (2000).

Six fundamental skills are needed to become a manager: writing, public speaking, interviewing, relating to others, personal computing, and information searching. These are tied together with an emphasis on learning as a lifetime endeavor. However, these skills are also requisites in other career paths. Unfortunately, the tendency to ignore these basic skills is commonplace. They may seem so fundamental that they are taken for granted and no attention is given to them or no special effort is made to improve them (1991).

            One of the most critical requirements of successful managers is they possess the skill of being insightful. “Insight” means the ability to see into both persons and situations. In this sense, insight is synonymous with understanding and discernment. Yet, astute persons frequently have blurred understanding or fail to use insights available to them. Some mediocre managers, on the other hand, have sharp or intuitive discernments (2000).

            It is an exciting time to be in the management career, if only your heart is really into it. The opportunities open for a management career are limitless. But this is actually true for any other profession. In any profession and career, dedication to that chosen path is the most important determinant for one to be successful.

Leadership

            Leadership is the capability of the person to move one’s followers to doing one common goal of the group. It may even be the ability to modify and revise how other people perceive and view a certain issue.

As professionals, it is important to acquire the necessary knowledge and competencies that ultimately allow people to practice their profession. Regardless of the type of setting that these professionals work within the organization, each individual professional is responsible for using organizational resources, participating in organizational routine while providing care to other members, using time productively, collaborating with all members, and using certain leadership characteristics to manage others.

            Leadership in the organizational context may refer to shifts in the leadership role and the subordinates may also take part as the leader. Shared leadership helps the subordinates act independently but is still able to maintain and accomplish he common goal. Shared leadership may also mean that the subordinates’ leadership skills can also be honed and sharpened so that in the times to come, they may also exhibit good and quality leadership.

            Aside from shared leadership, the transformational leadership theory can be employed within organizations. A charismatic can do more than expect good results from followers. In the organizational context, the leader can practically inspire all the leader’s followers to meet and do higher and better than was planned. Charismatic leaders can be certain that one’s followers would do their part properly since they are really emotionally linked with the leader. It’s a strong moral bond that can ensure the success of the undertaking.

Motivation

Herzberg developed this theory from his research in the 1950’s when he and his associates conducted interviews on the problem of attitudes with two hundred engineers and accountants who worked for eleven different companies in the Pittsburg area. Herzberg asked his subjects to tell about the times when they especially liked their jobs and listed the incidents that they mentioned. Then he asked the same people to tell him about the times when they strongly disliked their jobs and, again, he listed the circumstances they mentioned.

            After the data gathered from the interviews were analyzed, Herzberg concluded that people have different categories of needs that were essentially independent of each other and which affect them in different ways. He classified these into two groups; the first group he termed Motivation Factors. These factors were found to be important in motivating employees to superior performance and in improving productivity. The findings indicated that when the employees felt good about their jobs they were motivated to work because they found the job challenging and satisfying with the expectation of accomplishment and rewards (1991).

            The following factors were found to motivate employees to do superior performance:

1.    Achievement – a feeling of personal accomplishment or the feeling of having done a job well.

2.    Recognition – being recognized for doing a job well such as being complimented by the boss or receiving a company reward, promotion, or salary increase.

3.    Participation – being personally involved in one’s work; having some responsibility for making decisions about one’s job.

4.    Growth – challenge of the job itself; and the chance to learn skills, acquire knowledge, and achieve development and advancement. As more varied tasks are included in the job under the job enrichment program, the work is made more interesting and challenging, the job becomes more satisfying and the employees more productive.

With the second question which asked about the times that the subjects felt they were dissatisfied with their jobs, Herzberg arrived at a second list of factors which he termed hygiene or maintenance factors because the presence of these conditions only maintained current levels of efficiency and production or to better job performance. Said conditions concern the environment in which they were working such as company policy, supervision, salary, interpersonal relations, and working conditions.

Since people feel dissatisfied with these conditions or factors were not satisfactory, they are also called dissatisfiers. Thus, if the employee’s salary, fringe benefits, and working conditions, and the company policies are inadequate, the workers will feel dissatisfied.

In other words, when the hygiene or maintenance factors were not satisfactory, productivity decreased. Examples would be when people felt they weren’t paid enough, didn’t like their supervisors, were not happy about their working conditions or were insecure in their jobs. However, if they felt that the maintenance factors were satisfactory, that is, their pay and other working conditions were good, they only maintained current levels of production and efficiency.

The best form of motivation is self-motivation with proper attitudes toward his or her work, co-workers and the management because this comes from within the individual. An individual’s own motivators and rewards are his or her own personal drives to achieve his ambition and goals. An individual could reward himself or herself with a vacation for a job well done as an intrinsic motivator. The company may provide the necessary motivations such as good pay, excellent benefits, and good environment but if he or she lacks personal drive, or the will to forge ahead, no amount of motivation will make him strive to great achievement. The employee needs personal initiative and motivation to achieve superior performance. Management should develop in the employees good work attitudes and proper behavior through seminars, conferences, workshops, and consultations.

There are many positive factors in motivating people, among them is the utilization of extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic rewards can come in many forms like monetary incentives, job security, praise and recognition, sense of belonging, employee participation, and competition among many others (2002). It is up to the management to carefully balance their application because overdoing the use of any can also bring bad results.

            The most commonly used incentive to stimulate the worker to greater production and efficiency is monetary renumeration. Money is unquestionably the single most powerful extrinsic motivator for most people (1992). Unions usually ask for increased pay as a part of their bargaining demand knowing this is what the employees want. While money is important for providing what people need in everyday life, its effect upon work does not last long.

            Several research studies showed that workers do not work harder just for the purpose of making more money alone, but are motivated also by intrinsic rewards such as the desire for accomplishment and success in their job. In other studies, majority of workers feel that they will be most motivated to do their best by monetary rewards.

            Another extrinsic reward as motivator is praise and recognition. Whenever an employee accomplishes a good job, it is good that management recognizes such accomplishment by praising or rewarding the employee so that he or she would be motivated to always do a good job.

            If an employee feels that he or she does not belong to the group, he or she will get dissatisfied and disappointed instead of being motivated. Thus the importance of the sense of belonging within an organization so as an employee will feel motivated. The induction or orientation of a new employee in an organization will make the new employee welcome and make him feel that he is part of the group and that the group accepts him as a member of the team. Any employee who works in an environment where he or she doesn’t feel welcomed will definitely not have the motivation to do their job.

            Making employees participate in meetings, conferences, and work in committees are forms of employee development and can be a string motivator. Participation in decision making stimulates the interest of the employee for greater production, provides job satisfaction, and creates in him or her the feeling of importance.

Competition, although it sounds like a monster, is also a good extrinsic motivator. When done properly, competition can be a good motivator for the employees because it encourages them to use creativity, initiative, better performance, and improved production. With the use of records and charts, management can encourage their employees to work harder to beat their previous records of performance.

 

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