The professional development for strategic

Running Head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS
Name of the Student:
Name of University:
Author Note:

1PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Methods to evaluate personal skills...........................................................................................2
1.1.1 Big five test.........................................................................................................................2
Advantages..............................................................................................................................3
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................4
1.1.2 Personality and key skills Self-assessment.........................................................................4
Advantages..............................................................................................................................5
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................5
1.2 Techniques to assess professional skills....................................................................................5
1.2.1 360 degree feedback...........................................................................................................5
Advantage................................................................................................................................6
Disadvantage............................................................................................................................7
1.2.2 Competency self-assessment survey...................................................................................7
Advantages..............................................................................................................................8
Disadvantages..........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10

2PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS
Introduction
Professional development is considered to be one of the important aspect in occupation as it helps the
professionals to enhance their skills and abilities. The enhancement of skills abilities will help the
employee to get long term benefits and achieve high success in career. According to the research of
Desimone and Pak (2017) the professional development depends on both the reviews and the feedbacks
from the colleagues, supervisors and the subordinates and at the same time it is also pertinent to go
through a self-assessment (Bush et al. 2018). Therefore, the professional development practice is a very
dynamic and complex process to follow. I am a Director at the Land Transport Directorate within
Transport Malta which is the Authority for Transport in Malta and my career goal is to become the Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of the Authority. The role of CEO entails personal and professional skills as
highlighted in the job description of the designation. Such skills are immensely important for guiding the
entire workforce to the right direction.
This report will highlight the methods and techniques that can assist me to analyse my personal
and professional skills to achieve my career goal. Moreover, the pros and cons of each of the techniques
used are also considered.
1.1 Methods to evaluate personal skills
1.1.1 Big five test
The big five personality tests provide the opportunity to an individual to explore
personality with a highly respected five factor model. It is a 60-question inventory that is based
on the questionnaires used in the professional researches (Stajkovic et al. 2018). Moreover, a
linear scale is also used in the big five personality tests that helps the professionals to understand
the score in every aspects. There are five dimensions that the big five personality test is consisted

3PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR STRATEGIC MANAGERS
of in the form of openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism
(Nieto, Abad and Olea 2018). Those five dimensions are called OCEAN. This free career self-
assessment tool is responsible to provide enough insights into the personality of an individual
and each of the dimensions are working in such a manner that facilitates different types of
characteristics of a person. For instance, the openness the eagerness or curiosity of a person to
learn new things. The low score in openness is identified as resistance to change or new ideas
(Mezquita et al. 2019). Moreover, the conscientiousness is associated with the practice of level
of thoughtfulness where the professional can control his impulse. It is important to note that the
direction towards achieving the goals and pay attention to every details is identified as one of the
major understanding of conscientiousness. Extraversion deals with the sociability and
excitability, agreeableness connotes kindness, trust and affection and Neuroticism focuses on the
stability of emotion.
There are both advantages and disadvantages of the concepts that are discussed below.
Advantages
The advantage of the big five test are associated with formulating an effective measure to
understand self. From the research of Mezquita et al. (2019) it can be stated that the big five
personality test focuses on the personality of a person in an in-depth fashion. It is important to
note that each of the dynamics provides a core understanding of the personality ability of a
person so that it will be effective to take adequate measures and abilities to proceed further.
Moreover, Stajkovic et al. (2018) opined that the Big five personality test is able to shape the
self-awareness of an individual because he or she can get enough understanding of the situation
and take necessary actions that can help to set better self-awareness. In fact, it is highly pertinent