Personal & Professional Development Report

This report documents a personal and professional development journey undertaken by the author. It details three key activities: a group presentation focusing on leadership and communication; a skills development workshop concentrating on problem-solving, decision-making, and conflict management; and voluntary work involving data handling and training. Each activity includes objectives, background, process, analysis of learning, and future development plans. The author uses various learning style models (VARK, Honey Mumford) to assess their learning preferences and identify areas for improvement. The report concludes with a reflective account of the overall learning journey, highlighting the development of skills such as decision-making, leadership, time management, teamwork, and adaptability. An appendix provides a detailed CPD plan outlining specific objectives, actions, success criteria, and target dates for review and completion.

Personal and Professional
Development

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................3
ACTIVITY 2....................................................................................................................................5
ACTIVITY 3....................................................................................................................................7
REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE LEARNING JOURNEY......................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
In the existing volatile market and dynamic economic conditions, the competition among
the business unit has been escalated to the great extent. Each organization may it commercial
market, service industry or finance, faces the fierce competition. To establish prominent position
in the market place, the organizations and individuals come up with optimum level of efficiency.
For an individual, developing skills and talent as per the professional standards became the
prerequisite for commencing career in particular field. The systematic and analytic approach
helps in developing potential and assists in imbibing the required attributes and knowledge in the
related field. Since the beginning from formal education in the school to the professional course
till now, every stage helps in building personality and imbibes many qualities and improves
quality of life. Education which I have gained in my school life has created strong foundation of
knowledge and skills in me which is helping me to pursue my desirable professional life in
significant way. I have good technical knowledge of my field, proficiency in communication
skills and I also possess the interpersonal skills like decision making and leadership skills that
helps in various arenas of life. I would like to pursue my career as an accountant manager. I
possess certain qualities which are required for career progression in finance but evaluating my
personal skill I have identified that I need to develop and improve certain traits in me like
practical application of leadership models, time management, team work and other related. For
that purpose, I have undergone the self managed learning which helped me in realizing my
strengths and development needs and with the help of expertise and specialist I have identified
my learning style and developed opportunities for that and also prepared a development plan
which enabled be to enhance my skills and talents.
ACTIVITY 1
GROUP PRESENTATION
Objectives
The objective of the group presentation was to develop proficiency in communication and
leadership skills that is to gain interpersonal verbal communication. It also aims to develop the
effective delegation of content for the better understanding of audiences.
Background
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Communication is the fundamental requirement in any field to build better relational
constructs and consolidate larger stream of customers. A module was prepared to develop the
communication and leadership skills. I had assisted the leader of my group in giving the
presentation on the topic leadership. While processing the presentation I have encountered
various problems such as delegating tasks to team members, communication and preparing the
precise and accurate content.
Process
As a group member, the leader endowed me with the duties to perform the number of
tasks:
 Realizing the learning style: Under the supervision of leader I had assigned task to all the
team member hence for the purpose I have used the VARK (Malm, 2009)learning style to
identify their strengths and then allotted them the work.
 Content preparation: The content is prepared that is with respect to the leadership and
different models adopted to lead their team in an efficient and productive way.
 The effective presentation is prepared by using different ways to communicate the
content to the target audiences.
 I have assisted my leader to communicated the members about their individual tasks and
duties. This was the unfamiliar task for me to process and I had faced some problems in
identifying their strengths and capabilities. Every member has the different way to
process the information and acquire knowledge hence I have adopted different ways of
communication.
 Further by assigning them the roles and duties, the plan was processed into the
implementation.
 In the midst of series of activities, our team faced different issues and had dealt with it
efficiently. One such issue was the sudden breakdown of health of my partner in the
presentation. Our leader considered that genuine issue and replaced him with the skilled
person. I had explained him the topic in brief and he had accompanied me in the
presentation in a very effective manner. The execution was done in the effective manner.
Analysis of learning
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Performing the above activity brought significant change in me. This has also helped me
to identify my current personality traits and also assisted in identifying development needs. As a
leader, I was entitled to perform it feasibly and in effective manner. While undergoing the
process, I have realized the significance of identifying the learning styles. Realization of the
learning styles helps significantly such as in identification of the sensory modalities used by an
individual to gain knowledge and information and implement it. It also helps in enhancing the
speed of processing in the information and perform the task assigned to them in the effective
manner. The use of tuchman's leadership model (Leite, Svinicki and Shi, 2010.)and the Beilbin
team model have helped me in allotting tasks as per their strengths and drove better performance
from them.
While delegating the tasks to the other team members I faced some problems. At the time
of speech as well I was becoming conscious that was affecting the quality and effectiveness. So I
have figured that I need to develop this skill in me.
At the time of the activity I had assisted my leader to make certain crucial decisions for
the problem for which the group was not prepared. Encountering with all these problems and
experiencing the time has developed interpersonal skills such as decision making in me. But I
evaluated that I am required to develop communication skill to establish prominent position in
the market place and to match the professional standards. There were some obstacles while
connecting to my team members and delegating the tasks in the effective manner.
Our presentation was on the topic leadership (Hunter, Laursen and Seymour, 2007). The
sound technical knowledge possessed by me in the related field helped me to create precise and
impactful content. Further, it helped to endow myself with the advancement of technology by
using different methods of presentations and using impact-full tools in that presentation.
Future Development
The activity performed in the form of group presentation as a team member has enabled
me to identify my current traits and future needs. Through this I have figured out that I need to
develop the proficiency in the communication skills so that I can relate with larger number of
people. For that that purpose with the help of expertise and specialists in the field I'll develop the
skills in the considerable manner by joining the professional course, engaging more in the group
discussions and interacting more with the people. Also, it will be useful in my career to
consolidate larger stream of customers with the organization I'll be working. The better
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communication will enable me to have effective engagement with the subordinates and senior
management in my organization (Hawk and Shah, 2007).
ACTIVITY 2
SKILL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP
Objective
Objective of this activity is to enhance my leadership skills and gain further knowledge
and experience in areas such as Solving problems, decision making, conflict management,
leadership, confidence building and assertiveness. It also aims to inculcate the values and attitude
in me to comply with the different culture.
Background
I am the worker in balloon inflating company. Outcome of the persons working in the
organization is below the professional benchmark set. A training program was conducted to
increase the efficiency of the employees in a country with the different culture. I was supposed to
lead my team and increase their productivity. The members of my team were not familiar with
culture of the country where that training program held I was endowed with the duty to bring
adaptability in them. The skill training program aims to introduce balloon inflating techniques,
bring finishing in the products and encourage full attention among the members. But after
training it was inferred that skills are needed to be improve to the great extent by removing and
rectifying all the faults.
Process
The skill's development program was organized by the university was executed in
number of steps. The skill training was organized for the enhancement of the technical
knowledge of the students.
Planning and organizing of any event includes many components (Moon, 2013). Initial
step includes detailing the various components and elements included in the event. Begore the
trainers from Richlanders came I have taken one to one session from employees to figure to
problems and obstacles. Undergoing that process, it can be inferred that there were many un-
addrressed issues such as low grasping power of employee, de-motivation and lack of dedication
in their work and absence of team work attitude in them. Adopting the pragmatic appraoch I
have analyzed problems and resolved them.
Analysis of learning
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Attending the workshop for the skills' development enabled me to develop many skills
and talent for the career progression in the accounts field. It has helped me to learn the various
components of the leadership and also imbibe methods to resolve issues arising in a team. It has
also widened the horizons of my knowledge with respect to the applicability of the team building
models.
I have developed the skills to use leadership models in different ways. My earlier
thoughts with respect to the use of strategies was limited to the use of conventional methods by
after attending the workshop I have gained the knowledge of applicability of innovative and
impact-full methods.
Workshop was organized to look at what gives assertiveness and self confidence and
develop the skills employees are possessing. I have developed the ways to address the disputes
and issues in efficient manner. One course in training was to give an insight into different aspects
of managing team and issues. Organizing the workshop has enabled me to learn efficient team
building skills. It was very good opportunity to enhance my leadership qualities by analyzing
their problems and resolving them by adopting effectual method.
The module was about team working and leadership skills. While performing this activity
I have identified that the realization of the learning style plays crucial role in processing the
information and performing the tasks in the effective manner. Employee's grasping abilities and
concentration power was the major issue figured out during conversation with them. Hence, to
know their learning techniques and skills I have used the VARK and Honey Mumford learning
style method (Stenfors-Hayes and et.al., 2010). In VARK method through the help of
questionnaire, it is realized that which sensory modality is used more often to gain the
knowledge by analyzing the score card. In honey and Mumford method, the most impact-full and
resourceful methods for the acquisition of skills is discovered. With the help of VARK (Glazer
and Hannafin, 2006) score card it is discovered that I process the information through visuals and
the read and write methods that is I develop the skills through proper understanding of the
concepts and theories and through the results of Honey and Mumford learning style
questionnaire it is inferred that I have the pragmatic and the activist approach towards learning
and understanding concepts. Activists approach refers to the understanding of concepts through
the trail and error method and the pragmatist approach refer to the application of theories in
different situation and making inferences.
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In the process adopted I have learned to use the pragmatic approach towards leadership
styles. Endowed with so much of work and handling them has enabled me learn stress
management. Handling pressuring and overcoming with them is the crucial task for a leader.
Further, employees were not attentive in their work, hence I have adopted different ways to
motivate them such as by implementing Herzberg and Maslow model.
Future Development
Performing the above activity has made me realize my existing learning style. This helps
in various aspects of life. I have also realized that I need to develop the intimate knowledge of
the skills and the precise applicability. In the future, my pragmatic approach will help me in this
in considerable manner. Reinforcing skills helps significantly in the process of career
progression.
ACTIVITY 3
MODULE ON VOLUNTARY WORK
Objective
To develop the attributes such as the time management, data handling, flexibility,
responsibility and decision making.
Background
The module is prepared to elucidate the working and the happening at the voluntary
work. There is an accountant firm which offers its services to the hospitals and NGO's running in
the city. I wished to give voluntary services to the firm. While undergoing the accounts and data
I have figured that there was some technical faults in them so for that purpose I gave training to
the members of accounts department in the firm.
Process
To give services in an accountant firm comes with great responsibilities. The process
inculcates the different aspects such as the arrangements along with the content relevancy. The
training processed in the series of steps such as preparing the content that is to be explained such
as the principal concept used in the accounting and risk management and the ways to input the
data of organization like the use better data base management system as it helps in easy
accessibility. Further, the training was given to increase their productivity and bring preciseness
in accounts. The facilitator gave me the time frame under I had to conduct the pragramme and at
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the end evaluation was made to know the learning of members and to get the feedback about my
skills.
After that, need was felt to continue it for some time that for about 2-3 months. Hence,
decided to give voluntary services to this firm along with my studies.
Analysis of learning
The whole activity I have undergone give me the experience of learning slew of new
things and gain lot of knowledge.
Accountant firm are supposed to handle the data of their clients and organization in
which preciseness and accuracy need to be assured (Day and et.al., 2006). To handle the large
quantum of data, the advanced data management system was used. With the help of this data
base management tool, the details were entered in the systematic and planned manner. The better
user interface enable the easy accessibility.
While undergoing the process, different decisions has to be taken to run the training
smoothly and in the very effective manner. For that purpose I have used the different planning
tool. This has enhanced my skills of planning and organization and the better time management.
The proper time management was the fundamental requirement to execute the whole plan of
organizing the camp.
Implementing various tasks brought the sense of responsibility in me. I have adopted
various methods of the time management to run it effectively. Using the planning tool made my
task easier. I have used the electronic planning tool. Further, I have also learned the different
time management strategies such as the use of proper planning tool, setting the priorities,
avoiding the delaying of task so that at the last moment the clutter of tasks does not create.
Arranging the tasks as per their importance and their priorities helps to figure out the things
properly and the efficient manner.
Organizing the training programme is team work. Working as a volunteer has enabled me
to learn the benefits of team building and the results it accrues to the individual and the team
itself. Team work helps significantly in increasing the efficiency and the productivity of the work
performed by the team. My earlier perception with respect to the team work has changed in the
considerable manner. Earlier I used to think to perform any task is the individual's work but the
work done as a team gives better results. While working as a team we were assigned the tasks as
per our abilities and the strengths. The members of the team were from the diversity of the
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background in the cultural and educational aspects. In brings the variety of opinions and views to
implement any task or work. Further, while doing any work, members have to encounter number
of problems and when the team work collectively, the problem get resolved with the better and
effectual ides and solutions.
Along with I have also faced certain problems while giving voluntary services to the firm
after the training program conducted for the purpose. It became very hectic for me to manage
both training and studies simultaneously. So much burden was on me, as accountants working
there were not technically sound hence, I was performing dual duties, that is an accountant and a
trainer. But gradually learned to manage time, work, stress and burden by using time
management strategies, tools and methods.
REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT OF THE LEARNING JOURNEY
Learning is the continuous process, when an individual undergo the process of
acquisition of skills and knowledge through various mediums at different stages. Knowledge is
acquired through various methods such as gaining the formal education and academic credentials
create the strong foundation of the information and knowledge. The knowledge acquired through
the academic credentials helps in developing the skills and talents in the related field. It also
enhances the potential for the career progression.
Undergoing the process adopted to implement the above mentioned activities have helped
me realize my existing personality traits and identify the development needs. I have identified
my learning style by using the VARK (Drago and Wagner, 2004)and Honey Mumford learning
style. I have realized that I process the information through the practical application of the
theories and the concepts and use it into different situations and check their applicability. The
questionnaire in both the modals enable to learn and realize the sensory modalities through
which the knowledge is gained and is used for the practical use. Realizing the learning style
enabled me to know that I have the pragmatic approach towards the tasks assigned to me that is
with the practical application of different options I figure out the suitable option and use it in my
model. This approach helps to know the different way to resolve the problems and bring out
better results.
Performing the above activities has helped me in the significant way to identify my
strengths and weaknesses. Analyzing the inferences of the above activities help me to undergo
the self managed learning. Self managed learning refers to the planned and the systematic
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method of acquisition of the skills and talents with the help of the expertise and the specialists in
the field. Adopting certain measures and methods I have realized my strengths and weakness and
also the development needs to pursue the career in the finance field. In this the inferences can be
made that I posses the strong decision making and leadership skills due to having the intimate
knowledge of the different modals of team building and the management and motivation of the
members.
It has build strong interpersonal skills in me such as the decision making and the
leadership skills. The effort to adapt in the different situation and handle that in the effectual
manner developed the skills like adaptability and flexibility in me. Further, while performing
various tasks I had to make many decisions and take risk which improved my decision making
skills and also the intensity to adapt in the changing situation. I also empower with the better risk
management and problem solving abilities.
No work is done individually, the work assigned is performed as a team. While working
as teams in all the above activities I have gain the team building and the team management
attributes. I have also learned the benefits of the working in the team such as it results in the
better performance of all the members and drives out the good outcome.
Analyzing the above outcomes and inferences, I have prepared the development plan
which inculcates the status of the current personality traits and the development needs and
opportunities for the process. The plan is prepared with the optimum time frame. Such as the
improvement of the communication and to bring proficiency includes the time frame of 3
months. The development of the leadership and other interpersonal skills under the guidance of
the expertise is to be improved in the time frame of 4 months.
In this way the skills and talents with respect to the personal and professional aspects can
be enhances and improved to match the professional standards in the si8gnificant manner.
CONCLUSION
Personal and professional development is the systematic and the planned manner of the
acquisition of the skills and talents to match with the professional standards (Wilson, 2004).
Undergoing the implementation of the different activities in the different scenarios has enabled
to identify the current personality traits, development needs and the opportunities have enhanced
my potential for the career progression in the finance field.
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APPENDIX
CPD Plan
What is my
learning
objective?
What will I do to achieve this? What will my success criteria
be?
Target date
for review
or
completion
1.Leadership
skills
Leadership skills and their practical applicability
of models can be improved by adopting the
following steps:
 Acquisition of the intimate knowledge of
leadership issues.
 Getting the guidance and supervision of
the expertise and specialists in the field.
 Adaptability of the models by adopting
the pragmatic approach in their
appicability.
I'll be assessing the Improvement
in the accounting principles by
seeking the feedbacks from the
senior management and customers.
The greater consolidation of the
customers evidence the
development.
3 months
2. Time
management.
Time management can be improved by adopting
the following methods.
 Using the electronic planning tool.
 Setting the priorities.
 Avoiding the delays of work and
procrastination.
 Assigning the tasks to different members
to function the work smoothly and
effectively.
I'll be evaluating my performance
it'll be assessed.
4 months
3. Team
work
The team work will be improved by using these
methods
 Adopting different team building models
 Assigning tasks to different team
members.
The team building skills can be
assessed by evaluating the
performance of the members and
the overall productivity of the
team.
2 months
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 Bringing better coordination among
members.
 Solving issues among the members.
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