Importance of Self Awareness, Networking, Mentoring and Personal Development Programs in Business Communication

This article discusses the importance of self awareness, networking, mentoring and personal development programs in business communication. It covers the significance of building a network, having a mentor, and undergoing personal development programs to improve skills and attain more knowledge.

Running head: BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
BUSINESS COMMUNICATION
Name of student
Name of University
Author’s Note

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i. Self awareness: self awareness is a term that can be defined to describe self
actualization. In this process an individual focuses his attention on themselves; he
evaluates and compares his present behavior to his internal standards as well as
values. This awareness makes a person more self conscious. My level of self
awareness is level 3 (Csikszentmihalyi 2014). At this level I have manifested
recognition, the fact that what comprise of self awareness is me and no other
individual. I am self aware and this helps me to understand different people as
well as detect the ways they perceive me in return. Some questions that have
helped me to self reflect are who am I as a leader?, who am I as a business
person?, what am I not doing? What am I missing? What do I do to help others?
Could I do more? Is helping others important to me? (Düppe and Weintraub
2018) And many more.
This awareness is helping me to identify my strengths and weaknesses. I
am using my strengths more often and working hard in improving my weaknesses (Leshem
2014). Self awareness has been helping me in improving my performances and encouraging me
for progressing in my professional life.
ii. Building a network is the most important thing that an employee can do in order
to advance his career. Most of the people do not have an idea of ways to go
forward regarding it. Professional network can be defined as a group of people
who are connected to each other for business or career related reasons. Members
that are called connections or contacts might share data that may include but
might not be limited to job leads (Wallin and Adawi 2018). Members might help
each other to solve various problems that are related to work, recommend

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vendors, suppliers and provide data regarding prospective employees, employees
as well as clients.
Mentoring can be defined as an informal or formal relationship between
knowledgeable employees and an inexperienced or new employee. a mentor helps
employees to grow in their present position as well as become knowledgeable for
new career and jobs (Fu, Flood and Bosak 2017). A mentor can serve as a
particular sounding board as new employee is assimilated to a specific company.
Mentors can help continuing employees to become even more knowledgeable as
well as effective in their present job. They help continuing people to reach to new
levels of knowledge, career development and sophistication. Mentoring
relationship might also be evaluative in nature for accessing the assimilation of
new employees in their new role.
I have a mentor who guides me through every difficult situation and helps
me to choose the better option that would be beneficial for me. My mentor has
helped me in numerous ways. The ways are as follows
 During a specific job that I had just joined, my mentor
recommended me to attend trainings in organization and tie
management, this training has helped me to be more effective and
precise in my job.
 Identify what works: my mentor had shared stories of what has
worked for him in his career and what did not work (Ashburn,
Kerner and Ojamuge 2017). After sharing his experience, I have

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learned a lot regarding the things that would actually work and the
one that would not work.
 Create a vision: my mentor has helped me in thinking about where
I can go in the long run and the ways by which I can get there.
 Look for resonance: my mentor has helped me in accessing if my
current environment fits my values, interests and skills.
 Solve problems: I have turned to my mentor for any kind of
feedback on any kind of challenges that I have experienced. He has
offered with offering various possible solutions to my problems,
and general strategies which have worked for him in same
situation.
 Get noticed: I have taken various suggestions from my mentor on
ways that have helped to get promoted (Tolbert 2015). For this
purpose I was told to dedicate into my work and my mentor has
also helped me to get ways to raise my visibility in an authentic
manner.
iii. Personal development program: personal development programs are the programs
that I can undergo in order to improve my skills and attain more skills that would
be helpful for me in order to gain the skills that I do not have. Some personal
development program are as follows
 Work life balance: I should maintain a healthy balance between my life
and work.

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 Time management: I should prioritize, delegate as well as use resources in
order to manage time properly.
 Active listening: I must improve my listening skills in order to understand
what people are saying and provide necessary response.
 Self confidence: I should learn to manage my emotions as well as fears
and learn to deal with negative behavior of people in a positive way.
 Communication skills: I should learn to utilize the appropriate tone and
voice in order to communicate confidently and clearly (Smith and Lewis
2015). I should also learn some languages so that I do not face problems
or any kind of communication barrier between me and international
clients.
 Emotional intelligence: I should learn to stay aware of mine as well as
others’ emotions in order to built healthy work relationships with people
around me.
 Ability to solve problems: I should know to recognize problems, consider
various options and take the best decision.
 Organizing: I should learn and possess the ability of organizing tasks,
materials and time.
 Body language: I should learn to use appropriate body language while
communicating with others in a suitable manner.
 Training on IT language courses: I would like to undergo a training o
various IT languages like Java, Advanced Java, C++ and many more. This

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would help me to gain knowledge in various languages and apply it in my
next job.

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