Msc Leadership and hange Management - Example

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: Msc Leadership and change management Introduction A personal development plan is a crucial tool for the expansion of a state officer, the development plan assists a police officer plan on the fundamental strategies to apply when evaluating and enhancing his policing capabilities. Personal capability evaluation involves reviewing personal traits such as strengths and weaknesses in various areas of practice and learning. The police officers should ensure that these areas are well comprehended after which the persons provide action plans complete with effectiveness measures and deadline1. The deadline aids the police officers to attain their individual as well as national goals by a specified date at which the police officer evaluates the effectiveness of the strategy applied. If the strategies used are ineffective, the police officers ought to formulate other strategies that support his/her development. The personal development plan (PDP) is reviewed at various stages of the personal development2. The person may enlist the assistance from colleagues and bosses to determine his/her level of performance or undertake some tests to confirm on his development. Reflective practice and experiential learning Reflection gravitates around the notion of creative thinking and learning. I reflect so as to learn something, or take lessons as a consequence of reflecting. Expressions through reflective writing are depicted on screen/ paper reflecting some mental processes. Other aspects of expressing reflection are through film, speech, music, and graphic portrayal. Gibbs' propositions are always cited as Gibbs' model of reflection (1988) or Gibbs' reflective cycle, and classified into stages following six distinct parts as description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusions, and action plan3. Dewey and Piaget influenced Kolb through research conducted in the 1970s. The reflective model places interest on the experiential learning concepts and is centered on the reconstruction of information into knowledge4. Practice of reflecting gives a immense development opportunity for those in positions of leadership. Managing teams of people demands a delicate balance between technical expertise, and people skills, and accomplishment in this type of task is not easy. Reflective Practice gives leaders the opportunity to review past successes in the and wherever improvement can be edged5. Supporting reflective learning organizations will be through investing in coaching programs for established and emerging leaders. According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching is essentially partnering with clients in a provoking, thoughtful and creative process that inspires maximization of professional and personal potential. Frequently, Leaders engage in behaviors that are self-limiting owing to their over reliance on their favorite ways of responding and reacting. Johns outlines the significance of experienced knowledge and practitioners’ ability to access, comprehend and apply practical information that has been obtained through empirical means6. Attaining such levels of reflection occurs by discovering ones emotions and thoughts ‘looking out’ at the experienced situation7. Johns draws on the excerpts of Carper (1978) to develop on the conception of ‘looking out’ at an experience. Incorporated are five patterns of knowing the guided reflection, getting practitioners’ analysis such as the aesthetic, individual, ethical, reflexive elements, and empirical experiences of the circumstance. The model is all-inclusive and permits for reflection that touches on many significant elements. Initial personal development plan My initial personal development plan was meant to resolve some of the challenges bump into in the previous career levels. In the previous practice, personal development was unplanned hence some of the critical areas suffered a reduction in the knowledge levels8. In the past years, personal development was random and skills attained were forgotten easily due to inadequate practice and application of the knowledge in the real world. The personal development plan was meant to underscore the areas of weakness encountered in the learning process. It ensured personal strengths were maintained at high levels while taking advantage of opportunities to grow academically. The initial development plan was intended at improve personal creative skills by fifty percent. I lacked confidence to make presentations in court and public functions; thus these mediocre skills were not convincing to the audience. At times, the presentations were longer than anticipated; this was due to misunderstanding topics and compromising the ability to summarize police work. Confidence is also caused by fear of other police officers and bosses, being new to the station may have caused as majority of police officers were not familiar9. To increase the confidence levels, interaction with the police officers through work and social groups was encouraged. The creative skills were allocated a period of three months of which several aspects of crime life and conflict resolution situations were practiced. Personal development planning-Learning agreement In the course of working in the investigation and inquiries unit, I desired to increase time management, reading and writing skills which were missing before linking the information read and adopting the personal development plan10. The desire to appreciate information of English Language learning arose from diverse sources. Reading is made easy if information is understood. The understanding of words was also missing. Failure to understand the English words and familiarizing with them causes was a considerable challenge. The brain demands sufficient word bank to allow learners to read effectively. Resolving this problem requires reading from diverse recommended sources so as to ensure that an ordinary police officer understands and communicates with more words11. Increasing the amount of words aids individuals to improve personal skill confidence for learning to be made easy. I also listened to debates and discussions to increase individual knowledge and assist the police officers to build on the ideas that may be already with the learner but not ingrained in theory and concepts. I needed to follow up the debates or the discussions by individual learning thus improving on reading skills. Reading, leadership and management skills are intertwined and acquired over a period of time. To succeed I allocated a series of development levels determined by the grade. The levels in the previous job group rose with the development and equipping of learning materials12. In the reading process, time and emotional management is vital for the police officer. Planning is essential to ensuring that the all learning aspects are well managed and integrated to fit the public officer’s time frame. The police officer besides running security schedules should allocate all daily activities sufficient time. The critical activities like stress management and strategic policing plans should be accorded more time. The areas of weakness in the police force ought to get more resources and time to pave way for improvement. Time allocation in the prior levels was improving with the police force by according more time for research and investigation, leadership and management, excellence and innovation in strategic planning, and total quality management. Time management ensures that all the available time to a police officer is well utilized and managed. Time management addresses many areas of weakness. It was set to a time frame of five months since time tables were drawn for policing activities undertaken and strict deadlines were anticipated. Indeed, time management improved since less time was wasted in the past levels. The projection of these progress levels reduced time wastage and enabled the police officer to use this resource efficiently. PDP Learning and career goals In my continuing masters program of about two years at the University of Abu Dhabi, I have specific objectives to create and adhere to book of time frames for the semester. I desire to be recognized as a better student by my peers and teachers. I will make a resolution to complete all the work by its due dates. Group skill will be essential to students learning skills; group work presents students with diverse abilities and understanding. These group traits permit group members to develop one another with the weak students benefiting from the bright ones. Communication skills are improved in these groups as those students with slow learning capabilities in class have the probability to consult their fellow classmates. The type of student determines the qualities of the group, since students contributing a lot to the group are better learners than the recipients of knowledge. In the past levels this efforts of group contribution was initiated and noted. Additional contribution resulted in the thematic understanding and increase of the overall class performance13. The group skills were also given four months to improve. Again, I needed social skills in the learning process, to socialize with the right individuals in the university and after college play a significant part in enhancing confidence of the person. Students with more friends owing to their social skills are predominantly confident that those associating with few friends. Social skills aid learners in gaining greater confidence useful for understanding and relating with other students14. Social skills were missing prior to the personal development plan through more friends have been acquired after its initiation. The kind of acquired friends determines the character of the student. Friends that are valuable to the student will facilitate academic growth In my prior personal development plan, I had made a range of initiatives through which I hoped to achieve certain goals both in academics and in work life. I undertook a bachelor's degree in Social Work from the University of United Arab Emirates in 2003. I also enrolled for a diploma in widget Police Sciences in 2004 and a Certificate International Computer Driving (ICDL). I had undertaken more on the process that I believed would help improve my own learning, achievements and performance as well as to plan my work, social, educational, and career path. Since making the plan within the PDP ten years ago, there are particular changes that I have saw happening in my policing career, social and learning areas. For instance, I noted that for the last one year I have had splendid experience after working in the General Command of Abu Dhabi Police in the United Arab Emirates management of community policing. In police centers I took nearly five years before moving to the Department of geographical partnerships which I held for another five years. I currently hold the rank of captain. In social life, I have attained a lot, I obtained a cycle in the development of leadership skills, problem-solving session and a cycle of community policing. This is primarily because I was developed clear SWOT analysis, which recognized my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in my work life, academics, social life, extra-mural activities and any other activity I undertook15. From this plan, I struggled hard to hone my strengths, improve on my weaknesses and translate them to be my strong points. I utilized the opportunities surrounding my abilities and finally identified and averted any negative effect posed by SWOT analysis threats (Bolton 2010). Considering these circumstances, I acknowledged that some of my strengths were the capability to communicate with all strata of society, time commitment, being a personal organizer at work, carrying out extensive research, attending classes, and undertaking personal studies. I will ensure that I submit all the papers and assignments at the right time16. Nonetheless, I recognize that I indeed have some weaknesses that may cause my performance to soar in some areas. For instance, I realize that I did not posses broad experience in problem solving, lacked self-confidence, especially in how to guide individuals. I do not have experience in the preparation of the plans at work. Before, I could not attend group work and discussion, so this seems to disregard the strength of teamwork. I appreciate that I did not extensively consult my academic tutors; rather I endeavored to undertake my own research. In co-curricular activities, I noted that I did a lot in clubs and games within the university, though being with a lean number of athletic teams, training personnel and other facilities were insufficient. I was unable to attend any of these activities prior to making the last PDP. I now spend a lot of time on my personal computer playing games rather than being involved in real athletics which I am versed17. In this plan, I set tools to help solve problems, I attended a number of meetings with leaders’ specialists in the field developing plans and strategy for Abu Dhabi Police and with time I gained experience in how to deal with individuals and PVC. Within this reflection, I had also appreciated a number of opportunities that I should have used to perfect my skills in work life and education. For instance, the university hosts variety of games, clubs and societies, all staffed and equipped to assist the students achieve their academics goals and other activities crucial in personal and social life. In addition, teamwork is encouraged in the university, from which students realize their strengths and weaknesses, and perfect their strengths while improving on their weak areas. These are opportunities that I needed to have used before, despite being given priority in the last personal reflection plan. I further noted that there were particular threats that tested my performance. Several key changes have resulted from the prior personal reflection plan. For instance, I am now married for nine years with three children; family life man learned how to take responsibility like raising children, and organizing times in general and the distribution of income and other financial. This has contributed to the acquisition of my personality many organizational life skills and family directly. Besides increased academic grades, I have gained a trend of relating with colleagues in the university, and specifically my department. In addition, I have been occupied in a range of discussion groups while contributing to the general classroom discussion group development. Students produce their findings to the entire class during discussion time. However, others try hard to challenge the presenter. Indeed I am a pragmatist with a reputation for saying what I simply think, and directly. The issues are whether some things apply in practice. When I get to know of a new approach or idea I immediately begin working out how to use it in practice. In meetings I have learned to use practical realistic ideas, I always see better, more realistic ways get tasks done. I believe written reports should be short and to the point. My confidence in academics has increased, since I am capable of expressing myself than I could some few months ago prior to embarking on a self-reflection journey. Moreover, I often find time to review my experiences I am the sort of person who volunteers to do things. A few days after a meeting, I find I can recall in considerable detail what happened and who said what to whom. I like playing both tennis and football since I have allocated sufficient time for these activities, and in reality, I have joined these teams in the university. Moreover, I joined and got welcomed to the rangers association, a university society pre-occupied in environmental issues. It came to my knowledge that I am good in keeping and sustaining a habitable environment within our localities. In the course of the last semester, I took part in workshops and seminars hosted by the national environmental programs, in which I realized the significance of maintaining a good environment. In addition, I helped organize a number of workshops for the community, where high school and elementary students were taught on the merits of a good environment. In these terms, I noted that I had already perfected my presentation, social and organizational management skills. I hope to be certain of solving a problem or handling a situation, by exploring alternatives and weighing up the pros and cons of each before deciding what to do. I will need discussions kits with peers and puzzle diagrams. I will rate myself if I feel okay about sitting and thinking rather than being active and doing. I will recommend feedback from my colleagues after every fortnight. I will start immediately when enroll in my masters program. When things keep changing, my feelings of apprehension will not be out-weighed by my feelings of excitement. In the last semester I created a personal development plan, which pointed out three principal learning areas that needed greater attention, and which have been particularly central in the incline of grades. First, I have noticed that apprenticeship and education is not entirely about comprehending of what has been taught in class, but being part of the skilled expertise in the workforce. It is a fact that education is not all about passing exams, but it is an issue of being knowledgeable on the courses offered, and how the knowledge gained from the lecture rooms can be applied in the real life (Bolton 2010). As a result, I learned that one needs to do extensive research and experiments in police sciences and criminal justice gain sufficient knowledge in the related fields. It attempts to source information from books regarding the real world. Secondly, I have known that time management is the most crucial tool towards attaining individual goals not limited in education field, but also in the other instances of human existence. From this reflection, I witnessed an improvement in my overall academic grades, alongside extracurricular activities. This is evidently the results of ability to work on a strict time and schedules proper time management. Lastly, I have learned that education needs activity coordination in the form of teamwork and personal efforts. I observed that students perform well through participating in class activities, working in groups and challenging one another (Jasper 2007). Again, it makes one become conversant in conducting research on crucial topics, with the pride to presenting before others in the lecture hall. This is significant for prospective strategic planners and investigators like me since, I can express ideas and values to a number of people, and to counter the challenges they meet (Jasper 2007). Analysis of the Current Situation I am a team player since I work well with a exceptionally wide range of people. If I have a potential shortcoming in teamwork, it may be that I find it hard to lead from the front, perhaps owing to over responsive group atmosphere. When involved in a project with other people I am always ready to back a good suggestion in the common interest. My essential approach to group work is to have quite an intriguing set up in getting to understand colleagues better. I gain satisfaction in a job because I like to feel I am fostering good working relationships. If I am suddenly given a difficult task with limited time and unfamiliar people I will be ready to work with individuals who showed greater positive approach, however hard he/she might be. With reference to the challenges to which I am subject in group working as I am reluctant to get my points over when I run up to a real opposition. Currently, there are a number of issues requiring improvement in academics and other activities. In general, I have attained a lot in education, social activities and sports. Additionally, I have improved my communicative skills though I still have to aim at my crucial goal of obtaining distinctions in all the courses taken in all semesters. At the same time I will fulfill other goals and activities besides education. At present, there are some internal factors that affect me in various ways, both negatively and positively. For instance, when I came up with a personal SWOT analysis, I noticed that I had internal strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats to my career as a police officer and my education among other activities. At present, my strengths are poised in formulation of strategic and annual plans. They define my abilities to get right of my past mistakes and reduce weaknesses. I never ignore instances of investigation and inquiries, though it is usual for a number of my colleagues to have an oversight. In addition, I have learned from day to day life experiences, especially after my attachment with Abu Dhabi police station where I specialized in investigations and inquiries. Besides these strengths, I have also noticed that I can identify opportunities within my learning cycle, and utilize them to improve my skills and knowledge in education and policing career. However, I have some inferior points, which are presently affecting my career and academic performance. For example, I lack basic skills of leading other people in the groups, class, and the teams, meaning that I may not be a good organizational leader if I do not I perfect my leadership skills. I also lack the courage to communicate with my bosses in the police force. I have one more weak area where I believe that I can hone and perfect my skills on my own, or with the assistance of small groups of colleagues. This is not quite good for my career development, as I require help from my seniors in order to attain the best results. The principal reason of my inferior points is that I began employing reflecting plans and personal development only two years ago. Before, I did not regard such plans to be of high significance. But currently, as I see a massive progress in my personal development, and considering that the masters education I am undertaking to double my creative thinking abilities, become a fast learner and a hard worker, enhance my communication skills and provides a lot of resources for time management. I will endeavor to always plan myself development. Some external factors affect me in many ways, and which I treat threats and opportunities as evidenced in number of opportunities are evident in my current circumstance. Other colleagues in my station and the department have increased their desire to have personal reflection sessions, and are in fact taking a comparative study on their performances with the others in the class. My presentation skills have tremendously improved due to the measures put in place to increase knowledge on topical areas in the presentation process. As opposed to the previous semesters, confident presentation has been sighted where this is evident from the presentation grading. There is a desire to improve in constant growth. Presentation and reading skills will be enhanced by quantifying and familiarizing with new words from various sources. The different application of the words ensures better understanding of words and application by students. Leadership and management skills have increased due to such factors and with more effort research and investigative skills will be nurtured as well. Team skills and quality management aspects have increased though requiring additional abilities that contribute to topics in the discussion. Communication, team work, and creative thinking facilitate increased mastery of topics. It allows for explanation of concepts to other group members. As a student I have been able gain vast knowledge and communication skills. Meanwhile, students socializing with the right people portray significant growth in social skills. Such development in social skills has allowed the students to meet more friends and colleagues thus boosting their confidence levels. Increased number of associates has over time is determined by the strength of their social networks in college and work place. As a student and police officer, time management has reduced the time wastage thus making the fully spent on activities that increase personal development. Time is a crucial resource to the career police officer and students. Allocating enough time to useful activities allows growth and dedication of resources to more fundamental issues. Idle time is allocated to reading and development of strategic plans rather than activity that affect personal growth. Future personal development plan In the next four semesters, I plan to improve my International English Language Testing System (IELTS) from five to two by attending General English language courses. Participation in stress management and prioritization program through preparation and development of strategic plans programs. I will also participate in principle of research and investigation program, effective leadership and management skills program. I would like to develop in strategic planning, development and implementation excellence and innovation in strategic planning. Moreover, I will learn the fundamentals of total quality management in community policing by enrolling for courses in International training institute. I will improve the cycle of the investigation and inquiries. These are areas of weakness requiring improvement by focusing on the current development plan. Surprisingly, my presentation skills have improved significantly thus time dedication and increased practice will be required to maintain this levels. Two weeks of every semester at the masters program will be dedicated to sharpening presentation skills. Reading and communication skills require time resource and adequate material. Reading from books, articles and journals in every two weeks of each semester is spent on reading and writing. I will also read magazines to be up to date with the current global affairs. Group work will help me improve tremendously but my concerns over time wastage demands that I cut back on the hours spent conversing with other students. The time component will be two days a week from the first four days of the week. Time management will be undertaken in an appropriate manner as I find better use of the free time in the coming semesters. Works cited 1. Itin, Curtis. Reasserting the Philosophy of Experiential Education as a Vehicle for Change in the 21st Century. The Journal of Experiential Education 22(2), 91-98.1999. 2.  Bynum, Wayne & Porter, Rene, Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations. Oxford University Press. 21:9. 2005. 3. McCarthy, Peter and McCarthy, Hems. When Case Studies Are Not Enough: Integrating Experiential Learning Into Business Curricula. Journal of Education for Business, 81(4), 201-204.2006. 4. Kraft, Richard, Bike riding and the art of learning. In L. B. Barnes, C. Roland Christensen, & A. J. Hansen (Eds.), Teaching and the case method. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.1994. 5. Loo, Roy. A Meta-Analytic Examination of Kolb's Learning Style Preferences Among Business Majors. Journal of Education for Business, 77:5, 252-256.2002. 6. 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American Journal Of Business Education, 3(2), 115-118.2010. 19.  Loo, Ruth. A Meta-Analytic Examination of Kolb's Learning Style Preferences among Business Majors. Journal of Education for Business, 77:5, 252-256. 2006. 20. Stavenga de Jong, Wierstra, & Hermanussen, Joyce. An exploration of the relationship between academic and experiential learning approaches in vocational education", British Journal of Educational Psychology. 76;1. pp. 155-169.2006. Read More