Essay Instructions: Self-Assessment and Reflection
According to Daniel Goleman, ?Self-awareness includes the competencies of emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment and self-confidence. Skill in knowing about personal strengths and limits and self-worth are related to these competencies.?
The process of looking back and analyzing the events that have shaped my life, was a unique experience which required me to be emotionally comfortable enough to look back at my life. I was able to objectively revisit many events and I was free from the turmoil of emotional fears of failure, anger, regret and loneliness, which often clouded my perception.
I have gained significant self-knowledge because of the professional tests in which I have been able to participate. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has revealed my type as an ISTJ (introverted, sensory, thinking, judging). This is useful information in assessing my personal style and strengths. The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B) test, an assessment tool used for improving working relationships and individual effectiveness, revealed that I placed at the midway point between need for inclusion and need for total control. In other tests, my results demonstrated self-confidence, adaptability, initiative, empathy, service orientation and conflict management abilities.
Discuss your strengths and opportunities for professional and personal growth.
In both my educational endeavors and in work-related professional development programs, I have been able to take advantage of the insights offered by myriad tests, inventories, self-assessment instruments and inventories of characteristics. Each one of these offered me valuable information in formulating life goals that best suited my own strengths and desires, and that would also bring benefit to the society in which I live. Underlying all of this, however, is a goal I plan to work hard to attain, and would have wanted to attain even without the benefit of the assessments: My passion is to follow in the spirit of the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in the United States, Father Patrick F. Healy, S.J. (1834-1910).
Explain why you desire to obtain a terminal degree.
Just as Father Healy inspired those who wanted to learn, I, too, would like to make a significant difference in the lives of those with whom I come into contact in my professional life. Like Father Healy, commonly lauded by being considered the ?second founder? of Georgetown University, I believe I can inspire excitement about education, particularly business education for minorities and women. I would like to do that through service in the federal government?s Senior Executive Service.
At present, it seems paramount that inspiring business employees with a passion for ethics is a goal worthy of Father Healy, and one to which I could bring my business and military experience to good effect. The negative images business has acquired during these past few years of scandal, bankruptcies, accounting fraud and all sorts of unethical behaviors, have cast business and business education in an unfortunate light. I believe that business education today involves not teaching only procedures and processes, but ethics. Business education must deal not only with the bottom line, but also with the morals of how that bottom line is created. Business leaders, too, must incorporate these ideals, and virtually become teachers to those they supervise and manage.
After more than 23 years as a working professional, and as a retired member of the United States Army, I have on several occasions assumed the role of educator for an organization. Even early in my military career, I understood the substantial influence good educators can wield. I have come more and more to realize the magnitude of the power for change a good educator can bring to society at large. I understand that the effect of a business leader willing to educate as he or she leads performs an essential function in the post-Enron era.
An effective educator, one who can engender passion in students and a willingness to act ethically both in academia and beyond, needs both practical experience and theoretical knowledge. Using both these elements, an educator or business leader can bring forth from each student or individual his her own special talents. Once those talents have been defined, the individual can find the niche through which he or she can best contribute to society, and can best have a fulfilling career as well.
I have been fortunate to have been taught by numerous excellent teachers, teachers who can disassemble their subject into its component parts, and then plan the lessons in such a way that all the students can see how the subject fits together, and can succeed at it. This, it has always seemed to me, is a better way to teach than asking students to simply memorize information. If I can be at least half as important to my students as my instructors have been to me then it will be a very satisfying career indeed.
It is common knowledge the individuals who plan their campaigns?whether to find a worthwhile, satisfying job or to purchase the perfect family home?are more likely to succeed than are those who allow the events of life to occur without having planned their part in those event. The most important principle for success in life is planning the best approach to one?s goals. Lessons in this strategy abound. Carolyn Nilson, author of ?How to Start a Training Program? notes that across the United States, ?companies are rediscovering the enormous potential in individual employees.? This suggests that tomorrow?s business graduates will be able to find satisfying niches, if only they are prepared to do so with the best practical and theoretical training possible. It is likely, too, that those new business workers will need to know how to think. Companies are already beginning to invest more time and resources in the most desirable workers, and are laying off the ones who are unable or unwilling to improve their skills and increase their value to the company. The employees who are left are well regarded, it is true, but they are also expected to produce more goods and services of a higher quality than ever before. Only well-educated employees with a passion for ethical business are likely to be able to fill the demands of the workplace, and create a satisfying career for themselves as well. Increasingly, an employee development approach to the workplace is the method of choice for CEOs and human resource departments. However, for employees to fully benefit from this change in attitude in the American workplace, they need to be trained. Training, in fact, plays a pivotal role in creating individual workers who are up to the demanding tasks of a leaner work environment.
Create an improvement strategy based on this assessment and your understanding of critical thinking processes and concepts (note ? this portion of the assignment assumes that the learner has read the study materials for the Critical Thinking Proficiency Assessment)
In adult education, the concept of central learning theory is self-directed learning.
I have spent a good deal of time investing in my own development, in order to take advantage of market changes. As an aspiring member of the federal government?s Senior Executive Service (SES), I have been involved in the VA SES Candidate Development Programs (CDPs). The Office of Personnel Management has defined the Senior Executive Service (SES) Candidate Development Programs (CDPs) as ?competitive programs designed to create pools of qualified candidates for SES positions.? At the end of a two-year course, those who have completed it share values that enable them to become leaders in their fields. A common statement within the SES corps is ?To lead a Government that delivers great service, senior executive service (SES) members must have broad experience, professional integrity, and a commitment to the highest ideals of public service. They must continuously push themselves to learn more, and they must be equipped with the best tools. Finally, they must be held accountable for results and outcomes set by the President and Congress and expected by the American people.?
There are 27 core competencies within the five SES Executive Core Qualifications (ECQ); these same competencies are also stressed in the University of Phoenix? doctoral programs. During the next five years, I will pursue developmental education, experiences and opportunities for each of those 27 job competencies.
Among the most important objectives encompassed by the core competencies is that of developing critical thinking abilities. Within that discipline, three characteristics?clarity, strategy, and accuracy are paramount. It is not by chance that those same characteristics are the ones that allow successful people to define a goal and reach it.
My chosen career field is public administration. I would like to become a member of the federal government?s Senior Executive Service (SES). My career goals are based on a projected work life of 20 more years, which will allow me to retire after 43 years of federal service in the year 2026. I have two career goals, one short-term and one long-term. My long-term goal is to become, within the next five years, a career member of the federal Senior Executive Service. My short-term goal is to obtain the work experience, training, education and personal development that will lead me to my long term-term goal.
I have gained significant self-knowledge because of the testing in which I have been able to participate. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has revealed my type as an ISTJ (introverted, sensory, thinking, judging). This is useful information in assessing my personal style and strengths. The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B) test, an assessment tool used for improving working relationships and individual effectiveness, revealed that I placed at the midway point between need for inclusion and need for total control. In other tests, my results demonstrated self-confidence, adaptability, initiative, empathy, service orientation and conflict management abilities. All of these, I believe, accord well with the demands of SES. Other descriptive terms that emerged from a variety of tests used in business today revealed that I possess other characteristics I believe will help me to excel as an SES member. These terms include avoiding accommodator, integrator, clarifier, developer and implementer, again, terms that seem to accord very well with the requirements of SES.
The Senior Executive Service has as its mandate leadership of the continuing transformation of government. Members of the service occupy key positions just below the level of Presidential appointees. They operate and oversee nearly every government activity in approximately 75 Federal agencies.
As we enter the 21st century, senior executives face tremendous leadership challenges. The Government needs to make sure that the way we select, develop, and manage the senior executive cadre produces executives who are equipped to meet these challenges. I would be honored to be selected as a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) for the United States of America.
Reference
Bush, George W. , www.whitehouse.gov.
Greenhaus, Jeffrey, Career Management , Hinsdale, Ill.: Dryden, Press, pp. 6-7, 1987.
Nilson, Carolyn, ?How to Start A Training Program?, Chapter 6, The Business of Employee Development, 1998.
Office of Personnel Management. http://www.opm.gov/ses/intro.html
Zeller, Shawn, ?Retirement Wave falls short of OPM projections?. Government Exec Magazine. March 1, 2005.
http://www.opm.gov/ses/intro.html (archived copy)
(7-9-03) http://www2.opm.gov/ses/narrative.html
(10-29-02) http://opm.gov/ses/candevprg.html
http://www.eiconsortium.org/research/ECI_Tech_Manual.pdf (archived copy)
http://www1.skillsone.com/images/smp248148.pdf (archived copy)
http://prosites-urbanbizads.homestead.com/JOB_SEARCH_CENTER_pg1.html (archived copy)
http://www.jostan-group.com/disc.htm (archived copy)
