Personal Development Options
As a manager, you are responsible for your own growth and development. Many programs and people can help, both within and outside the organization, but you are the one who must ultimately manage these resources.
This folder lists 25 such options. Use the margin beside our list to make notes as to how these options can be put to best use in meeting your own developmental needs.
On the Job Coaching and Counseling. This is provided by your immediate leader and can be initiated by either of you. Coaching should be a planned, structured, ongoing process that provides for the improvement of knowledge and skills specific to your responsibilities. Relevancy is high and feedback is immediate.
Job Enrichment. This occurs when you take on more responsibility, performing higher level tasks that were previously done by your manager or someone with more experience or skill. Sometimes this takes the form of “vertical loading”: each level of management takes on some responsibilities from above, and delegates some current responsibilities.
Individual Assignments. Whether you or your manager initiates this action, it’s a useful way to gain special, in-depth expertise in certain competencies that are important to your work and the organization. Examples include: the development of judgment, analytical ability, decision-making skill, people-handling skill, and so on.
Team Assignments. Examples include serving on a task force, committee, advisory panel, or project team. Here you can develop skills in working with others and in learning the competencies that other members of the team bring to the task. You can also broaden your network of useful contacts with others throughout the organization.
Temporary Replacement. By overlapping others so as to relieve them during vacations, illness, or leave of absence, you can develop a broader vision of the organization and its varied functions. It’s also useful in testing and applying your competencies in different settings in a low-risk, short-term situation. Helps to develop flexibility and to “temper” your steel.
Job Rotation. This occurs when you spend a predetermined length of time on each of a variety of functions (e.g., six weeks each in marketing, production, administration, etc.). For some managers it has meant swapping jobs for awhile, with each preparing the other in advance and being “on call” to help with unexpected situations.
Lateral Transfer. Since this is a permanent change of job, it provides experience that is deeper and more complete than that provided by job rotation. This is especially useful in organizations where vertical mobility (promotion) is restricted. Also, you can learn more and faster by moving sideways than by moving upward into your manager’s job.
Academic Courses. Non-credit and credit courses for managers are available from local community colleges, state university extension programs, private colleges and technical institutes. These are especially good at providing breadth (as opposed to depth) of understanding, and in enlarging your network of contacts with other managers in the area.
Executive Development Programs. Business schools and professional societies (e.g., American Management Association) offer intensive learning experiences from 3-13 weeks. Exposes you to ideas, experience and values of peers from other organizations where you can experiment with new ideas and develop programs (marketing, production, etc.) in a risk-free environment.
Internal Management Development Workshops. You probably have a variety of training programs available within the organization to help you improve in leadership skills, communication effectiveness, problem solving and technical competencies. Advantages here are obvious: team building, organization development, strengthening your network, peers helping peers, etc.
External Structured Self-Development Programs. These include such things as Toastmasters, Dale Carnegie, Outward Bound (survival) programs, Sunrise Semester (TV and PBS), University without Walls, etc. Most of these provide a supportive environment for developing self-assurance and interpersonal skills of communication, team building, etc.
Making Presentations and Running Meetings. Opportunities for doing this within the organization, the community, your church or club can help greatly in developing skills at planning, organizing, appraising people and situations, giving and getting information, delegating, setting goals, persuading and developing flexibility of management style.
Attendance at Higher-Level Staff Meetings. By arranging this with your manager, you will have access to models of successful leadership in action and will become more comfortable in communicating with senior people. This can also broaden your awareness of corporate style and values, and of the competencies that have helped your senior managers to be successful.
Conducting Training. What can you teach? Many options exist: within the organization, in an evening adult education program, at your church or club, in the local Boy Scouts (Senior Citizens, hospital volunteer, etc.). Teaching develops planning and analytical skills, communication effectiveness, sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others, self-confidence, etc.
6.9
Transitioning Into Technical Leadership • Helping Technical Experts Become Leaders
Counsel from Experts. Who has knowledge and experience that you respect and can benefit from? Are they willing to give you advice, spend time with you, and serve as a personal consultant and mentor? Such people exist within the organization and outside it; either as friends or as paid professionals. Have you got two or three people who fill this role in your development?
Study of Manuals and Internal Documents. Are there memos, letters, proposals, mission statements and other documents that will help you to understand the goals, standards, strategies, and tactics of the organization and its divisions? This one must be planned so as to avoid information overload or the reading of a wealth of irrelevant, boring information.
Structured Discussions with Peers or Subordinates. Some managers meet regularly (e.g. breakfast once a month, lunch every other Tuesday) to exchange information and expertise that would otherwise not be shared. Sometimes an expert from outside the group is invited to share new knowledge or skills. The National Management Association can help with such in-company groups.
Direct Reading. This is probably the most open-ended and flexible option, since it can be done at your own time, pace and place (at home, in airports, or motels, etc.). Your manager or members of the HRD staff or local librarian can be helpful in making recommendations or providing an annotated list of recommended readings.
DVD/Online Resources. These are available on a variety of self-improvement topics. You can find them on websites and catalogs that your HRD staff might have. Useful to play in the car on the way to work or at other items when you are “captive” but your mind is available.
Online Study Courses. Many self-study courses are available on a variety of leadership and managerial topics. Electronic and printed resources are available with exercises, etc. These require quiet time (uninterrupted, full concentration), but the acquisition of knowledge and new behavior is more effective than the “reading only” or “listening only” of the prior options.
Behavior Modification. This involves the creation of a “reinforcement schedule” of rewards and self-imposed disciplines when one achieves certain goals (e.g., weight loss program, learning a foreign language, every 100 new words, etc.) It’s helpful to have someone else who cares (spouse, boss, close friend) to help you with your self-managed “contract.”
Volunteer Work. Consider your college, club, church or community action group. Do they recruit or have membership drives? Such an activity will develop your recruitment and interviewing and evaluation skills. Do they have projects to be managed? Sharpen your skills in project management: goal setting, negotiation, planning and scheduling, delegating, etc.
Technical/Professional Association. Participation will keep you up to date on the technical side of your job, and involvement in committee work and in leadership roles will provide valuable experience in developing your managerial competencies. Associations are of two types: specific to your specialty (accounting, engineering), and generic to management (AMA).
Conferences, Workshops, Seminars, Conventions. Public meetings are held in major cities throughout the country on every conceivable topic. If you’re not on the mailing lists to receive brochures describing offerings in your areas of interest, talk with the HRD staff. Many weeks worth of experience can be gained by attending a 3-4 day conference.
Assessments in Style/Skill. These provide information that is useful in evaluating your developmental needs, in checking your progress, and in helping you target specific actions to be taken. Check with fellow managers, the HRD staff and local colleges or adult education programs to find out what is available.
Source: Training House, Princeton, NJ
Copyright© 1993, 1998, 2007, 2013. The workbook Transitioning into Technical Leadership: Helping Technical Experts Become Effective Leaders, is for use only by clients participating in workshops led by Dr. Donald Shandler or his designate. No part of this document may be copied, photocopied, reproduced, translated or reduced to any electronic medium without the express written consent of Dr. Donald Shandler.
