Analysis of Professional Development for Strategic Managers Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of professional development for strategic managers. It begins with an introduction to the importance of professional development in enhancing career prospects and maintaining competitiveness. The report then delves into the evaluation of personal skills required to achieve strategic goals, including communication, leadership, problem-solving, and planning skills. It also covers techniques for assessing professional skills to support organizational strategic directions, such as mentoring and coaching. A significant portion of the report is dedicated to conducting a skills audit to evaluate strategic skills, including communication, listening, self-management, independent learning, flexibility, and computing skills, and the application of SWOT analysis. The report also explores techniques for identifying preferred learning styles, referencing the Honey and Mumford learning style questionnaire. Finally, it outlines the construction of a personal development plan, assesses its outcomes against personal work objectives, and evaluates the impact of learning on achieving strategic goals. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the importance of continuous professional development for strategic managers.

Table of contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................................
.........3
Task 1
T1.1: Appropriate methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve strategic
goals...............3-4
T1.2: Techniques required to assess the professional skills to support the strategic
directions..............4
Task 2
T2.1: Carrying out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic
skills....................................................4-6
T2.2: The appropriate techniques to identify the preferred learning
style......................................6
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Task 3
T3.1: Construct a personal development plan that meets leadership development
requirements.....6-7
T3.2: Assessing the outcomes of a personal development plan against personal work
objectives......7-8
T3.3: Evaluating the impact of own learning against the achievement of strategic
goals.................8
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................
9
Reference....................................................................................................................................1
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Professional Development for Strategic Managers
Introduction
Professional development can provide the drive to progress your career, keeps managers
across the industry more competitive. Mostly, professional development is something you
will do every day of your life without even thinking about it; however, being aware of the
development you tackle, will allow you to record this and develop in a practical way. In order
to maximise your prospective for lifetime employability, it is important to maintain high
levels of professional competence by continually improving your skills and knowledge.
It is essential to take ownership of your career and its continuing professional development,
because of this ever changing market environment as you may no longer be able to depend on
your employers to identify and satisfy your development necessity. The impact of such
changes has increased the demands on professionals to maintain documentary evidence of
their continued competence; because of the swift technology advancement in organisations. It
is very important developing a personal portfolio of your professional activities and their
relevance to your current job and your continued career as well as future ambitions.
Task 1
T1.1: Using appropriate methods to evaluate personal skills required to achieve
strategic goals
Professional skills are those skills obtained by an individual and necessary for use in a
particular assignment or profession. These skills are developed over a period of time and are
endlessly sharpen by working in the particular professional area.
The skills are mostly used in businesses and professional organisations to expand the skills
and knowledge of their employees. These professional skills that are required to achieve
strategic goals involves; leadership, communication skills, problem solving and planning
skills and are explained in details below;
Communication skill:

-Able to express views written or verbally- Taking part in seminars and be able to associate
with different people is another way to improve in communication skills.
-Confident speaking in front of a group- Speaking fluently in front of people like heads or
managers will help in improving relationship with such level people and can make
communication skills better.
-Preparation, planning and delivering a presentation- To make this skill excellent, it is
essential to practice more and more on how to give a presentation in front of audience.
-Accurate and Clear- Its always good to read different books and speak out of it which makes
confidence more stronger.
Such kind of skills are important in attaining strategic objectives of attaining business success
by means of communicating accurate information in the organisation.
Leadership Skills:
This is the ability to hold the team together and leading them to achieve the goals being set. It
is always important to have personality to control the people over the situation and set an
example of motivation and inspiration. Leadership is all but showing the way to for the team
by giving the decision on the issues and agree the right strategy to achieve the task.
Problem Solving:
Problem is the part of our daily life, so it is important to find the cause of the problem and the
ability to find the solution to the problem. Most of the times working together in the
organisations makes problem solving very easy at times.
Through such skills individual can offer oppotunity towards meeting the individual learning
needs.
Planning Skills:
Planning skills are the elements that allow individuals to set up a course of action for
themselves and others to reach specific outcomes. It involves the following;
-Examining and clarifying data and situations
-Identifying problems and establishing the relevant causing factor
-Forecasting and predicting
-Setting goals and pinpoint possible courses of action
-Comparing and assessing main courses of action
-Communicating
-Executing actions and monitoring them
With the strategic objective related with improving the flexibility as well adaptability in
situation of change can be attained.
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T1.2: Applying techniques to assess the professional skills required to support the
strategic direction of the organisation
The techniques required to assess the professional skills to support the strategic directions of
the organisation are very important. These techniques are very crucial to assess the
professional skills.
Leadership:
Leadership is the important skill, and it's one that can make a big difference to people’s
careers. In the organisations, problems are many people’s day to day work. As a manager,
solving problems internally or externally, motivating those who are solving problems, or
finding new leadership skills is always important when it comes to leading.
The problems we come across can either be large or small, easy or difficult to solve.
Nevertheless the nature of the problems, the important part of every manager's role is finding
ways to solve and lead them. So, being a confident leader is really necessary for the success
of the organisation. Self confidence and term management is important because it can help
solve problems effectively and very quickly. Without working together as a term, finding
solutions to the problem may be ineffective, and can lead to failure in the organisation.
Mentoring:
Mentoring also contributes in the achieving goal or objectives of an organisation. It is a
process of dealing with many problems successfully. Good mentors needs to able to
 advise and guide the term,
 support the term,
 communicate with the term.
 coaching skills
 thinking skills

Coaching:
Many people become successful either personally or in the organisation because of having
good coaches. Achieving a goal doesn’t come that easy and thus there is a need for a
correct and clear path for the easy achieving of goals, which is the help of a coach and
coaching. Coaching is the procedure of giving adequate instructions, training and
direction to a group people or a person, so that they can develop specific skills and
achieve some goals. Although coaching is a network of providing training, the
technique of coaching is different from person to person, goals or aims to be achieved,
and the areas required. Still there are some ordinary methods in coaching. They are
important area of an effective coaching.
Task 2
T2.1: Carrying out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet current
and future leadership requirements
Personal audit is an important move when developing a career change.
If people are keen about improving careers, then their is a need to establish a detailed outlook
of personal talents and strengths which can easily evaluate career goals with individual skills
and strength physically.
Whenever personal skills are been improved, at the same time professional skills are getting
developed when working in an organisation. And more over that leads to improvement of
people’s knowledge as well as achieving strategic goals.
There are a scale of skills that are not only important to learning in higher education and
academic achievement but also employability and personal development.
The skills audit has been designed to help people to establish strengths, weaknesses and room
for development within different skills areas.
Personal skills Audit Chart is a basic rating of the skills. It involves the following important
aspects;
Communication skill:
 Able to express views written or verbally- Taking part in seminars and be able to
associate with different people is another way to improve in communication skills.
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 Confident speaking in front of a group- Speaking fluently in front of people like heads
or managers will help in improving relationship with such level people and can make
communication skills better.
 Preparation, planning and delivering a presentation- To make this skill excellent, it is
essential to practice more and more on how to give a presentation in front of audience.
 Accurate and Clear- Its always good to read different books and speak out of it which
makes confidence more stronger.
Listening Skills:
 Always able to show the patience to listen the people in the organisation- To make
communication skills excellent it is always necessary to make regular practice of
listening which will polish skills on high level.
 Be able to understand the messages from the manager or your work colleagues.
 Be able to assess the conclusion of the communication through many sources like
Audios. It is important to take the points out of the communication and assess the
same so that it helps to remember it after long time as well.
Self-Management:
It includes elements strongly under different circumstances like controlling the situation,
maintaining the emotions, efficiency of the work, monitoring people’s punctuality etc.
However it’s more over attached to the behaviour in to the organisation. As for personal
development, it helps to
 Be able to identify personal goals
 Be able to plan personal development
 And be able to understand the strengths and areas of development
Independent Learning:
This is the ability for the individual to work or achieve the goals without required any support
from anyone to learn new things. For example vocational courses, professional courses, etc.
Flexibility:
 Ability to work flexible time
 Be able to adapt and adjust to any conditions and situations
 Be able to show willingness regarding team to be flexible with their work
Computing:
 Be able to use different computer software, for example; Excel, Access, Word,
PowerPoint

 Have confident in researching topics of either for personal or professional by using
the internet
 Be able to understand the health and safety procedures for the use of the computer.
Another important thing to consider on personal skills audit is SWOT analysis. SWOT
analysis has been widely used as a project planning and analytical tool. And this analysis
helps people to focus on important issues of significance to the task available. Furthermore,
the SWOT procedure can also be used in a personal point of view. When used in this
direction it can help individuals how to take full advantage of their potential and talent. It can
help to reveal new learning opportunities and remove perceived threats in the organisation.
 Strengths- Self motivation and self confidence are influential to have as an individual
in the organisation because it helps to cross several critical stages. For example
having enough skills to perform a task in organisation and that leads to good
designation and feedback.
 Weakness- It is always important to admit your weaknesses as it is the only way to
learn and be able to improve in different activities.
 Opportunities- Dreams, goals and wishes are been considered as opportunities. So it
important to utilise opportunities when they come along in the organisations. For
example, training opportunities and seminars, etc.
 Threats- In an organisation, it is always necessary to keep yourself up to date due to
technology advances. Its always important to seek new training opportunities,
seminars as the way of learning new skills. Keeping yourself up to date is activities
that strengthen new styles.
People learns in different essential because your position in the organisation is never under
threat and this gives a person confidence to succeed in this ever challenging business world
T2.2: Applying appropriate techniques to identify the preferred learning style
The appropriate techniques to identify the preferred learning style is of Honey and Mumford.
Honey and Mumford, Honey and Mumford (Peter and Alan) are best known for
their knowledge style questionnaire. The self-administered questionnaire helps to shape
individuals favourable learning style. As a result of significant learning style, people can
also be able to prevent repeating mistakes by enterprising ways. Other people wish to study in
depth before attempting a task; others moderately to get trapped into the job and learn as they
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go along the way. Some are satisfied when the techniques used would get the job done, while
others are more worried with why a specific approach proved successful. Nevertheless others
spend time thinking from beginning to the end on how the job could be done more
successfully next time.
Honey and Mumford gave specifically four learning techniques. For example;
 Activists- These are the people who do not like to be at one place and do some messy
work for many hours. They normally find themselves to be more active and doing
creative tasks more which includes discussion and changing to new things.
 Theorists- These are the people who have the clear purpose or intensions in their mind
and they usually seen in to be well structured. They normally like to read and interpret the
data and apply their logic on the task. They are more likely to assess the things in any
situation.
 Reflectors- Respectably, Reflectors are the people who avoid to do the things or tasks by
force. They usually take their own time before taking any conclusions. They more
excessively like to view the situation and assess the result before doing any commitments.
 Pragmatist- Most of the people can be seen like Pragmatist. These people always want to
be directed before going in to the depth of the task. They are best in their learning when
someone can guide them and lead them for whatever work they are given in any section.
They normally depend on the feedback and always in need of practical knowledge.
Personally or professionally these styles can be used by combination of each other.
There is another learning style theory of Fleming VAK/VARK model which can be
used by organisation to improve the learning styles of the employees.
 Audiotory learners (Hear) – This theory as refers to the discussion, seminars, debate
are done by the people and through that they can improve their communication skills
and increase their knowledge also.
 Visual learners – This concept of learning styles is based on visual mediams which
are used by the people. Diagrams, charts, images are using by the entity and the
people can visual the things which aids to guide the process.
 Kinaesthetic learners – There are many different things in the organisation which can
be learn by people with the using of guestures, hand shakes and many more. This
concept is used by higher authories to make the diagrams which help the middle and
lower level management of people to understand the things properly.

 Reading/writing – This concept use to define the essays, taking notes etc.. In
organisation the people are using the different learning style. The employees have to
write the information in a easy way that they can understand properly.
Kolb's learning style
It is the theory that reflects four learning preferences which can be based upon the four stage
learning cycle. It is being presented that varied people possess different style of learning. It
offers four definition related with learning that includes diverging, assimilating, converging
as well as accomodating. Such are enumerated as under: Diverging: The individual in this category attain knowledge by means of observation.
They prefer to watch things instead of information collection in order to find out the
solution to specific issue. Assimilating: Such people attain knowledge by the means of ideas as well as concept
instead of practical acceptability. They are being attracted towards theories intead of
approaches. Converging: These people are best can determining the solutions to issue by the
means of theories as well as ideas in practical form. Such individual learn through
experimentation.
 Accomodating: Within Kolb's learning style people attain knowledge from their
experiences and other people's analysis. The individual under accomodating style of
learning is dependent on information collected by higher management in order to
conduct own analysis.
The learning style preferred by me is Kolb's learning style. This is due to the reason
that mostly i learn by means of observing things.
Task 3
T3.1: Constructing a personal development plan that meets leadership development
requirements identified in the skills Audit
S.
N
o.
Learning
objectives/
goals
Current
proficienc
y
Target
proficienc
y
Developm
ent
opportuniti
es
Criteria for
judging
success
Tim
e
scale
Evidence
1. Communic Ineffective Developin Developm This can be 2-3 Viewing
11

ation skills skills of
communic
ation that
requires
greater
improvem
ent
g suitable
communic
ation at
each level
within the
firm
ent can be
made by
means of
reading
magazines,
articles
and
attaining
workshops
and group
discussion
determined
through
keep check
of varied
level and
evaluation
of what is
being
communic
ated to
them.
mont
hs
online
communic
ation
articles,
taking part
in the
varied
workshops
2. Conflict
manageme
nt skills
Required
to bring
improvem
ent mutual
understand
ing in
order to
manage
personal
conflict in
the firm.
Manageme
nt of
effective
association
with other
in order to
manage
conflict
Such can
be done by
means of
assisting
others and
gaining
insight to
their
personal
issues.
Learning
by means
of practical
examples
3
mont
hs
Gaining
insight to
the
perception
of other in
relation to
work as
well as
personal
life
3. Time
manageme
nt skills
This needs
to be
enhanced
as these
skills
possess
absence of
proficienc
y
All the
targets as
well as
goals are
required to
be attained
in time
Enhancem
ent needs
to be made
by
manageme
nt of time
and asking
for other's
help
Evaluation
of number
of deadline
met
1
mont
h
Use of
varied time
manageme
nt
techniques
with
effectivene
ss
4. Stress
manageme
It is
difficult in
With
manageme
Developm
ent of
Tracking
the
2
mont
Reading of
online