In today’s world, every person who wants to occupy his niche in the world of professions, to build a career, needs leadership skills. They must learn communication skills, self management skills, team management skills, agile project management skills, etc. How to do it? Taking into account the needs of the time and the fact that management is an integral part of any field, it is necessary to develop one’s self-management skills and use them effectively at work.
Read more about the specifics of developing leadership skills and the ability to self-organize.
Self-management and its role in the formation of a leader
The ability to manage one’s fear and insecurity and turn them into a means of achieving one’s goals – perhaps this is how the concept of self-management can be characterized. Only constant education of character adds confidence, teaches orientation in situations, and increases intelligence and the desire to constantly improve.
According to experts’ analyses, those people who constantly develop their activity, position, and organizational skills, and communicate effectively with society are better able to achieve professional heights in life. Participation in public events, public organizations, associations, etc., develops such opportunities.
Why is it important for a person to become a participant in these social processes? In practice, they will learn how to organize events and cooperate with the audience, convincing them to implement the necessary actions.
What the participant gains during this work:
- The right to make mistakes. A person consciously understands that not everything always ends successfully and will already have experience with this.
- Time to correct them. By gaining experience, it is possible to correct mistakes more easily and constructively each time.
How participation in public events, their planning, and implementation affect the formation of a leader’s personality:
- The ability to solve non-standard problems is formed;
- Readiness to take an active position in life is developed;
- Developing independence;
- Self-awareness increases;
- The ability to defend one’s own and collective interests appears.
Participation in any management system should be based on the principles of democracy, within clearly defined frameworks. That is, the social ties of rights and responsibilities in this structure must be preserved. And the slogan of the participants should be the following theses:
- Decided by themselves;
- Performed on their own;
- Ready to take responsibility for the consequences;
- Accept constructive criticism and comments.
To ensure an effective process of acquiring new skills, it is necessary to constantly improve one’s knowledge. To ensure convenient training, it is worth using the achievements of new technologies which are represented on the Studocu.com platform. This will allow you to store, use, and share notes and other study materials.
Self-management plan: features and benefits
The greatest advantage of self-management is that it teaches people of all ages to develop their mindset, persevere through failure, and work hard to achieve the desired goal. However, like professional management, self-management cannot operate without a pre-thought-out plan. What is it for?
Many years of experience have already proven that people engaged in self-management have effective self-control skills, high productivity at work, solve tasks faster, and, accordingly, systematically achieve success. The goal of the leadership of each structure should be to involve colleagues in self-management activities as much as possible, to develop self-management skills.
What is a self-management plan? It is formed from tools and means to increase self-confidence, motivation, and independence. It is these skills that are crucial when working on important projects.
How to create an effective plan: 5 development strategies
To be successful, a person must have a clear plan. Managers should create such a plan while simultaneously accepting proposals from colleagues. The main theses of a competent and successful plan, which will allow to actively attract a large number of interested parties to self-government:
- The ability to set a goal: Form small achievable goals, thus the employee acquires self-control and responsibility. Goals can start with the smallest and simplest.
- Self-control: By controlling their own actions, people learn self-control and practice self-awareness skills. In the course of work, they can already determine their strengths and weaknesses and direct their efforts in a certain direction.
- Self-rewarding: The reward for a completed project is a plus to karma, a desired purchase or action, and an implicit thank you for the work done. This will increase efficiency and motivate you to work harder in the future. In the psychological context, the ability to reward oneself for achieving a goal will allow one to avoid a complex of inferiority, self-doubt, etc.
- Self-assessment process: Analysis of the management’s work is, without a doubt, important. But the specialist must analyze his work himself, objectively look at its shortcomings and evaluate his successes.
To do this, he must honestly answer the following questions:
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- What was difficult in the work;
- What could have been done better;
- Whether others correctly assessed his efforts;
- What was done successfully, and what still needs to be worked on?
Why exactly is this point very important in terms of self-management? Because only by being able to evaluate oneself, a person will correctly and critically evaluate others. They will develop an understanding that not everything works out the first time, but thanks to perseverance and stability, you can achieve the desired result.
- Planning: Having achieved one goal, and having analyzed its pros and cons, the employee must be able to plan the next one. Armed with the experience gained, he can work with tasks more efficiently and confidently. And also over time, tasks can become more difficult as he gains experience, knowledge, and skills.
The main tools of the self-management plan
As already mentioned, the plan for the development of self-management skills consists of a certain number of tools. Let’s try to figure out which of them are the most important and should be mandatory points of this plan.
1. Time management
For this, you need to keep a special time management notebook. Tasks in it can be of different duration – from daily to quarterly and annual. This is an excellent way of self-control and the ability to form work habits.
2. Rating
With the help of a special scale with marks for successes and failures, you can demonstrate to team members where they have achieved success and what still needs to be worked on. Such a rating can be formed both based on the results of one project and during the year, for example.
3. List of cases
Having a compiled list of tasks and noting already completed ones, employees get an additional portion of motivation to work further. The more marks that signify the completed stage of a certain matter, the more energy there is to move forward.
4. Cooperation agreements
It can be a conditional list of cases, rules, or prohibitions that cooperation participants must follow when performing tasks. After receiving the result, they will be able to see how responsible, punctual and attentive they were. In order for employees to be more interested in complying with the established norms, it is worth involving them in the formation of this list. As practice shows, people often set stricter and stricter rules and frameworks for themselves.
Self-management is a basic challenge in society
Today’s society cannot exist and develop without democracy and conscious citizens. These concepts must be identical. However, self-management requires acquiring the necessary skills in practice. After all, it is impossible to learn management theoretically. What can lead to a lack of self-management skills:
- Lack of self-awareness as full-fledged citizens;
- Inability to make decisions;
- Inability to defend one’s own opinion;
- Passivity in collective work.
Therefore, it is extremely important to learn the peculiarities of self-management and become an active member of society, and your team, and take responsibility.
The main tasks of self-management
The main tasks of self-management systems can be summarized based on their importance and priorities:
- Formation of motivation in people to be an active member of society;
- Distribute responsibilities, rights, and duties among all members of the work process;
- Formation of the ability to recognize one’s mistakes and correct them.
One way or another, each person eventually becomes involved in social processes. But even if they do not become a successful manager or leader, they should at least be an active citizen who cares about what is happening around them. For this, they must be able to:
- Build relations on the basis of democracy and socially important principles;
- Be critical of yourself and others;
- Defend own and collective interests;
- Organize effective work at your place.
How to deal with unplanned situations?
Often at work, even in highly organized people, situations arise when something gets out of control. Then people react differently. Some give up halfway in frustration. Others stop at the goal. And the third – stubbornly continues to go further. These are leaders who always deal with difficulties quickly and efficiently.
So, how to deal with stress in such circumstances:
Determine the priority. If you have overdue projects, a lot of new things are planned and current ones are ongoing – it’s time to figure out what’s most important here. And instead of working overtime, getting exhausted, and still missing something, it is better to calmly plan your schedule. This is one of the most important self-management skills.
Cope with emotions. Especially if you are a leader and there is a team behind you waiting for a signal, managing your behavior is a duty. Success in business requires balance, endurance, and perseverance a person.
Do not back down in the face of difficulties. There is no guarantee that force majeure will not occur again even after revising the work plan. However, it is worth organizing yourself and remembering the ultimate goal for which all this was organized.
Motivate colleagues. A true leader not only keeps his own emotions under control but also motivates the team. Encouraging remarks only add motivation and desire to complete the project successfully.
Meta-skills and their role in the self-management system
Meta skills can be easily explained in a few words – a system of skills and abilities that help people quickly adapt to any environment and adapt to new conditions. That is, the classical model of education, which everyone is used to acquiring on the school walls, is being replaced by another one – according to the requirements of the times. And precisely such concepts are developed in a person during self-management training:
Ability to learn. A person must be ready to learn constantly. And also – to pump already acquired knowledge through the prism of modern technologies. As a result – to perceive the world from a professional point of view.
The ability to see the perspective. Being able to see the outcome of a case before it’s even started is a cool meta-skill. This is an important skill for managers who must look at their services and products through the eyes of the end consumer and anticipate their questions.
A propensity for social intelligence. People who know how to think socially find solutions to various situations more easily, they know how to unite a team and improve its work. They do not need mental and time costs to solve elementary issues.
Non-standard thinking. Such abilities are manifested during situations when it is necessary not to look for solutions, but to create them based on the circumstances. In other words, to show the client what he did not expect. Such skills are usually possessed by successful anti-crisis managers who save companies from bankruptcy.
Ability to experiment. Sometimes the way to success lies through experimentation. And only the ability to sustain stressful situations, and to see the light at the end of the tunnel helps to overcome circumstances and reach a result. Such qualities belong to a true leader.
Summing up
It can be said that effective self-management skills are a necessity for anyone who wants to improve managerial and leadership skills and learn to work in a team and independently. The better these skills are developed, the more likely you are to achieve results in every project you have to work on.
And, In the modern interactive world with computer technologies and unusual approaches does not tolerate people who are not ready to learn and teach others in their chosen fields. Therefore, only daily work on yourself is guaranteed to lead to success.
