Assignment Brief

Qualification Unit number and title

Pearson BTEC Level 7 Diploma in Strategic Unit 2: Professional Development for Strategic Managers
Management and Leadership

Student name Assessor name

Zanib batool Amar Ali
Date issued Completion date Submitted on Validity
Contents:

Time Management: ..................................................................................................................... 4

Recognize you can’t do it all: ...................................................................................................... 4
Prioritize: ..................................................................................................................................... 5
Unplug: ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Motivational Skills: ..................................................................................................................... 7
Communication Skills: ................................................................................................................ 7
SWOT Analysis: ....................................................................................................................... 10
Make sense out of experience: .................................................................................................. 13
Standing back: ........................................................................................................................... 13
Repetition: ................................................................................................................................. 13
Weighing up: ............................................................................................................................. 13
Clarity: ....................................................................................................................................... 14
Understanding: .......................................................................................................................... 14
Making judgment: ..................................................................................................................... 14
Making it Measurable: .............................................................................................................. 15
Self-measurement: ..................................................................................................................... 15
Measurement by others: ............................................................................................................ 16
Making it Achievable: ............................................................................................................... 16
Making it Realistic: ................................................................................................................... 16
Making it Timed: ....................................................................................................................... 16
REFERENCES:......................................................................................................................... 18
This assignment will help me to examine my personal and professional skills through my own
evaluation and assessment of my colleagues. The purpose of the assessment is to identify my
weaknesses and strengths. And it will also help to identify some techniques to improve my skills.

Section I:
Understanding needs and evaluating skills.

Task # 1.1:
Use appropriate methods to evaluate your personal skills required to achieve
strategic goals you will set in PDP.

Personal skills:
following are the methods given below to evaluate my personal skills;

Stress Management:
In my personal experience, I have faced many challenges at home and in the workplace, and
developed strategies to cope up with stress and other difficulties. When I am stressed out, I
always think of some activities which help to release the tension. Regular physical activity such
as exercise is very effective in fighting stress. There are a lot of activities that will help in
distressing. I just choose a particular activity that suits my personality for stress management e.g.
Jogging, brisk walking, cycling and other enjoyable activities. My other ways of fighting stress is
to be in the company of happy and positive people.

According to Hargreaves, (1998) stress is expensive. Stress related illness leads towards the
increase of financial cost, and it always damages ones personality.

Time Management:
Manktelow (2006) writes that the starting point for effective time management is to set priorities.
When I am faced with a variety of choices competing for my time I always prioritize things
because it will help me decide which path to take like, which work is important so I will do it
first and which is least important I will do it later. My strategy is that I don’t burden myself with
loads of work I always do work on time. Setting my goals help me identify and focus on my
priorities. By doing this, I can do things easily and manages time effectively.

Susan Ward (2011) has pointed out five (5) time management techniques which I have
practiced. These are:

Recognize you can’t do it all:

I decide what roles and activities are important. I do not burden myself with lot of work which I
cannot handle .The important thing is that, I am happy and healthy the way I am spending my
time effectively. I don’t force myself to do the things which I don’t want to do just to please
others or to make them happy.

Prioritize:
I plan things and make a list review my list of what to do on a particular day and what things that
must be done. I give attention on the most important activity on hand.

Learn to say “Yes” and “No”: When I am ask to commit on something, I would say “no” if I
really can’t and “yes” if it’s equally important to me.

Unplug:
There are times when it’s important or useful not to “be connected” all the time. I always make
time for myself to relax and release all the stress.

Take time off:

Weekend is the time when I can relax and give my all time to myself and my family members. If
I need to be with my family, I set time for them. I also allow myself to take some refreshing
time alone with my friends. (rodrigo, December 6, 2012)

Self-Actualization:
Maslow (1970) suggests that all individuals have an in-built need for personal development
which occurs through a process called self-actualization.
The extent to which people are able to develop depends on certain needs being met and these
needs form a hierarchy. Only when one level of need is satisfied can a higher one be developed.

Following are the steps given below;

At the bottom of the hierarchy are the basic needs which are food, drink, shelter and clothes etc
which are very important for survival.

Second one is the security or safety need which includes security of health, work; money etc

Third level includes the satisfaction for the need of love and belonging.

The fourth level refers to meeting the need for self-esteem or self respect from others. This is the
level most closely related to ‘self-empowerment’.

The fifth level relates to the need to understand. This level includes more abstract ideas such as
curiosity and the search for meaning or purpose and a deeper understanding.

The sixth relates to aesthetic needs of beauty, symmetry and order.

Finally, at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy is the need for self-actualization. This is the level where
you have reached all the goals and objectives. (Maslow, 1970)
Task # 1.2:
Apply techniques to assess the professional skills required to support the
strategic direction you aim to achieve in future.

Professional skills:
Professional skills are those skills which everyone needs in their life to be successful, efficient
and more effective in their professional life. These skills help us over how to manage team and
organizational responsibilities.

Effective Management:
Every professional working person must need to have good and effective management and
leadership skills, every individual differs in many thing like the way they work, they talk, they
think, they tackles with situations moreover how they use their skills.

Management skills basically help us to manage people working in the organization efficiently
and effectively. These skills teach us that how we can handle every tough situation in the
organization professionally.
Motivational Skills:
in my opinion this is the most important skill for professional life if the person is not motivated
he or she will never achieve its goals or objectives.
This skill helps a lot to motivate employees towards organizational goals and targets and to
achieve them efficiently and effectively. Motivational skills help a lot in dealing stressed
situations and problems. If a person or a leader of the organization is motivated then he or she
can deal with any tough situation.

Communication Skills:
A manger must be good at communication skills as this skill helps a lot in every situation of life
whether the situation a person is facing good or bad. A good communicator faces fewer
difficulties comparatively to a person who is no good at communicational skills. One should
convey a message or implementation of tasks in such a way that everyone can understand your
message clearly and get the right scenario of your message. If it's not effective or is not conveyed
in a proper way then the manager should face difficulties. So if one don't want to face this kind
of situations you must have to understand the importance of communication skills.

Effective Leadership Skills:

An effective leadership helps a lot at different stages of life. A person with effective leadership
skills has many qualities like he has a positive attitude toward the employees, an effective leader
can support his or her team members and can help them out in difficult situations. He encourages
team spirit, allocate the tasks, plans, do scheduling, and give his feedback. He is responsible for
developing plans and to achieve the planned task. Moreover he can give training to the followers
to achieve the tasks, goals or targets efficiently and effectively. (UKEssays, November 2013)
As Aristotle said;
“He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander”

A GOOD LEADER IS A BORN LEADER therefore leadership skills are one of the very
important skills. A good leader is responsible towards the work and always has a good command
over the situations he faces and he is responsible for leading people under him whether in
organization or in normal routine . A good leader believes to do the task no matter what the
circumstances and what kind of situation he is facing; he is the one who can solve problems
according to the situation. A good leader can lead the company in a good way and in the right
direction.

Task # 1.3:
Carry out a skills audit to evaluate the strategic skills needed to meet current
and future leadership requirements you need to develop to help your current
or future organisation successful.

I have shared my professional and personal success and failures in life with my group and family
and they gave their opinion and suggestions on how to develop and enhance my skills based on
their personal assessment.
My friends and family have their own personal suggestions on how I would be able to enhance
my strengths and develop my weaknesses. Following are the suggestions given below;

They want me to build more confidence in tough situations to handle stress and to enhance my
skill in time management they have suggested that I should continue to focus on each important
planned activity. In this way I will be able to accomplish what is needed to be done and will still
have time to do other important matters.

We have also discussed on lack of confidence to assert to get the things I want or to achieve.
They have suggested that:

I should build my confidence;

I should learn to exercise my rights;
I should be firm; and
I should not be intimidated;
 PERSONAL AUDIT QUESTIONNAIRE

Name: __________________ Date: _________________

Please tick the appropriate option on the following rating scale.

1) Have confidence in expressing my needs.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

2) Good to manage time effectively.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

3) Good in participate during teamwork.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

4) I cope with stress well.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

5) Good to complete tasks in time.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

6) Good to present in front of people.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

7) Have good communication skills.

1___ 2 ___ 3___ 4___ 5___

8) I am patient when imparting knowledge and skills to others.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

9) Good in thinking the strategy out with creatively.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

10) Good in think wisely to solve problems.

1___ 2___ 3___ 4___ 5___

Guidance:
1 2 3 4 5
Bad Not Bad Average Good Very Good
Personal Audit Questionnaire Bad Not Bad Average Good Very
Good

Have confidence in expressing my || |||

needs?

Good to manage time effectively? |||| |

Good in participate during teamwork? || || |

I cope with stress well? | ||| |

Good to complete tasks in time? || |||

Good to present in front of people? || |||

Have good communication skills? |||||

I am patient when imparting || |||

knowledge and skills to others?

Good in thinking the strategy out with || |||

creatively?

Good in think wisely to solve | ||| |

problems?

NOTE: This questionnaire is filled by 5 people.

SWOT Analysis:

Everyone should be aware of their Strengths, Weakness, opportunities and threats because it is
very important to know about real self.
Strengths:
I'm very creative; I observe things and issues very deeply.
I have good communication skills and I know how to convince others through different tactics in
professional life.
I have the ability to help others and to cooperate with them in professional life as well as
personal life.
I have the ability to do different things in same time.

I know how to cope up with stress and also have problem solve solving skills.
My communication skills helped me a lot as it really make my things good for me and I can deal
with worst situations in a very normal manner means without getting panic, whether it's related
to my personal life, or my professional. I have the ability to deal with depressing situations in a
positive manner.

Weaknesses:
I have a strong, compulsive need to do things quickly and remove them from my "to do" list, and
sometimes the quality of my work suffers as a result.
This same need to get things done also causes me stress when I have too many tasks.
Sometimes I get nervous when presenting ideas in front of others otherwise I am much confident.

My major weakness is that I don't have control over my emotions, sometimes I get very
emotional and lose hope and get disappointed. I am not a much stronger person and I want to be
one.

Opportunities:
I always look forward to good and competitive opportunities like training sessions etc. They
bring new learning and new experience in life to deal with new and different situations. These
new opportunities can brings great new and unique ideas from which one can improve many
skills. These opportunities help a lot in overcoming your weaknesses, and can make you more
efficient and effective towards the goals, objectives and tasks. This helps a lot to become a
successful in future.

Threats:
The main threat in my life is me myself as I believe to take myself into control then nobody can
challenge my plans and cannot ruin them for me as people always pinpoint the negative aspects
in one's work that majority times leads to disappointment and demotivated us so therefore I
always work on myself that the area I am working on I am an expert of it and no criticism can
effects on my performance. (Team)

Task # 1.4:
You should apply appropriate techniques to identify preferred learning styles.

To aid me in achieving this, I had to adapt the Activist Style of Learning, one of the learning
styles identified by Honey and Mumford (2008). This type of learning suits my personality.

Following are e qualities of activists are given below;

brainstorming
problem solving
group discussion
puzzles
competitions
role-play

Activists are those who involve themselves fully and without bias in new experiences. They
enjoy the here and now, and are happy to be dominated by immediate experiences. They are
open-minded, and this tends to make them enthusiastic about anything new. Their philosophy is:
"I'll try anything once". They tend to act first and consider the consequences afterwards. Their
days are filled with activity. They tackle problems by brainstorming. As soon as the excitement
from one activity has died down they are busy looking for the next. They tend to thrive on the
challenge of new experiences but are bored with implementation and longer term consolidation.
(Honey, 1982)

This type of learning style helps me a lot in my personal life as well as in my professional life.
As I have told above about my strength and weakness. This learning style helps me to change my
weaknesses into strength. Through this I can improve myself and can help others and participate
more in teamwork and group discussion.
Section II:
Personal Development Plan.

Task # 2.1:
You have to develop a comprehensive Personal Development Plan (PDP)
based on development requirements identified in skills audit (1.3).

As part of my personal development plan I have to make a structured process of reflection in

order to develop my understanding that what are my choices, what I want to achieve, how to plan
and how to improve my work.

Trough reflection I will be able to:

Make sense out of experience: this will help me to learn and to develop my skills in
leadership and management.

Standing back: being observant and not in the midst of the activity to see the level of
confidence of the people around

Repetition: practice to assert on small things first to gradually develop confidence

Deeper honesty: admitting my flaws and work to rectify them

Weighing up: help me evaluate the advantages of being assertive and disadvantages of being
submissive.
Clarity: review activities done will help me see things clearly not only on my success but on
my failed plans because of being non-assertive.

Understanding: I will be able learn things in a deeper level like gaining insights through
reflector style of learning

Making judgment: reflection aids me in deciding things whether to assert or not. (rodrigo,
Study of Professional development for strategic managers, December 6, 2012)

This plan will be carried out by me as a guide to develop my personal and professional skills.

To become a good leader, in the skill audit the first thing I have to go with is TRUST, trust is the
base of everything; it helps a lot in achieving goals. For example, when one throw a baby in air
he smiles and trust on you that you will catch him, just like that trust helps a lot in winning one's
heart, making up decision, therefore if I have trust myself and have believe that I can do anything
and achieve any goal then definitely I can achieve that goal or objective. Then the next important
point is building up relationships that should be very friendly and positive therefore which can
lead to healthy and trust worthy relationships. As I told above about my weaknesses that is I am
not emotionally very strong which leads me sometimes messing up the whole scenario for me, so
therefore my target is to build up good and healthy relationships in my personal and professional
life's. I have notice that my responsible behavior helps me in maintaining good and strong
relationships with others and also in achieving my goals. When people trust me, which motivate
me and make me more loyal towards my work and responsibilities. To improve my skills I also
have to consider which way I am heading towards and moreover I have to review my tasks and
the procedure so I cannot act bias to my team members.

Task # 2.2:
Use suitable methods to assess the outcomes of a personal development plan
against personal work objectives.
To fulfill these strategic planning objectives, I have to first Schedule myself, to be a good time
manager I have to manage tasks according to the schedule to meet my goals. I have to divide my
work so that I would be able to give equal time to each of the task and a dead line this will help
me to manage my time effectively. Planning is the most important factor; I have to be an
effective planner so my schedule tasks don't get disturbed from other things on which I’m
working. I face difficulties in planning things as when I’m working on two different projects at
same time; sometimes it becomes very difficult for me to manage things. I have to give my best
and to work hard to complete all those task which are allocated to me so I have to develop good
strategies to work on them more over I have to be consistent so that I can fulfill my task with my
schedule as I have planned it, so consistency is one of the important factor and I have to work
with my problems so that I don't mess up my planned targets. To achieve all these goals training
and development will help me a lot as if I will take some sessions regarding it I will develop
skills to overcome my problems and I have to work hard to achieve all these abilities, knowledge
and skills.

SMART Analysis:
I have to be smart in my daily routine whether it’s my personal or professional life; this is how I
will implement these strategies to achieve my goals and objectives.

“The trouble with not having a goal is that you can spend your life running up
and down the field and never score”
– Bill Copeland
(team)

Being more specific – a SMART goal:

What specifically do I want to achieve?
When speaking in meetings or a gathering where the majority of people are more senior to me I
want to be able to put my point of view across clearly and confidently. When I am confident
about what I am saying to others then I will definitely convince them.

Making it Measurable:
How will I measure it?

Self-measurement:
First is self measurement that how I will measure myself? I will review my performance after
each meeting that how many mistakes I have made during meeting sessions? How many times
and how well did I do the things I said I was going to do?
Measurement by others:
The second one is measurement by others it includes feedback that how was my behavior during
meeting, and how confident (on a scale of 1-10?) I appear. I could ask people before each
meeting to observe me and give me feedback afterwards.

Making it Achievable:
yet challenging – Am I, and anyone else involved, truly agreed and committed to this? How
strong is my reason for wanting to achieve this? To what extent will this help me develop myself
and improve my performance?

It is important for my future career that people know who I am and what I stand for and what I
want. It will challenge me as when I get very nervous this will motivate me to achieve my
targets.

Making it Realistic:
Do I believe there is at least an 80% probability of me succeeding?
Yes I believe I will achieve this and the timing is right as I need to get some decisions about the
key elements of the project soon.

Making it Timed:
What do I want to achieve by when?
I should be more confident that which thing or task is more important and when. (SMART
Objectives, 2018)

Task # 2.3:
Evaluate the impact of own learning against the achievement of strategic
goals.

While working on these strategic goals I achieve a lot benefits as I felt that I am getting
responsible and I really learn how to manage my time as now I am good at time management, I
felt I have improve my knowledge, skills and abilities moreover I used the S.M.A.R.T technique
very smartly which really help me as to how to be Specific with me things like I gave importance
to those tasks which very more important, and measureable the planned and scheduled things
were, and I really achieved my targets and goals within the required time period. Moreover to be
related with relevant things help me to give good and positive output, to be related with things
helps me a lot to be more efficient as I realize the reality that only less knowledge and less
believe on ourselves leads us to difficulties after it I really can solve difficult tasks without panic
as I learnt how to be a good problem solver. It is really easy to overcome the things which are
making us weak and it's easier to hear appreciation comparatively to criticism I really felt it after
I implement these strategic goals on myself I learnt how to fulfill my objectives, how I can win
trusts of the people around me, how can I became more responsible, scheduled and planned, and
how I mange my time which was one of the biggest issue I faced. I learnt how to communicate
with people who really not interested in talking, how to reduce down my work stress by
following all these strategic goals. (Professional Development For Strategic Managers Education
Essay, 23rd March, 2015)
REFERENCES:

Honey, P. &. (1982). Manual of Learning Styles London .

Maslow. (1970). Motivation and Personality (2nd Edition ed.). newyork.

(23rd March, 2015). Professional Development For Strategic Managers Education Essay. UK
essays.

rodrigo. (December 6, 2012). Study of Professional development for strategic managers. The
write pass journal .

rodrigo. (December 6, 2012). Study of Professional development for strategic managers. The
write pass journal .

(2018). SMART Objectives. learn marketing.

team, M. t. SMART goals. mind tools.

Team, T. M. (n.d.). Personal SWOT Analysis.

UKEssays. (November 2013). Professional Development For Strategic Managers Education

Essay.