Abstract
Personal and Professional Development is very central to anybody aspiring to be a professional expert in any field. For the last one year, I have had both difficulties in my professional journey, but my personal and professional development has been tremendous. My ability to socialize, negotiate with others, evaluate situations and offer necessary guidance and ability to work in a team has proved to be very important in my development personally and processional. The ability to socialize freely and provide solution where disagreements arise has helped me to smoothly advance my leaning at the university, bring together the dissenting voices and create more friendship. A creation of friendship from across race, culture, and economic divide has helped me to establish potential business partners in foreign countries, a fact that adds more weight to my quest to establish a multinational company in future. In the business world development of personal and professional skill is important in my growth vis-à-vis my plans is extremely vital. In need to find a way of conquering my dreams, hopes and destiny, thus centrality of my personal and professional development in readiness to conquer my aspirations.
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Introduction
The concept personal and professional development refers to individual progress with regard to personal skills and career skills. Personal skills entails all striking personal abilities that one develops without undergoing formal training, they may be natural nurtured or acquired through life experience (Hildebrand, 2009). On the other hand, professional development refers to the progress on makes in life with regard to his of her career. Professional development is mainly acquired through formal training or career choice. I am personally a very social female character, who loves socializing with the people from across cultural divide, gender, race, and social-economic stratus. I have managed to establish cordial relationship with people from various professions and age brackets.
The social aspect of my life emanates from my cultural background, the southern Nigeria region, a place whose people are general social and welcoming. My business in Nigeria has been running on smoothly courtesy of my ability to socialize and intermingle with people from across cultural backgrounds, age, social-economic and political status in the society’s this has helped me to establish an impeccable client base that has been helpful in the success of my business. In exploit, this natural virtue in making my business plans work. Being social has helped me to link up with leading business moguls in our country as well as link up with heavy consumers, a fact that has seen my business grow speedily (Silhanek, 2006). In this paper, I will be exploring my personal and professional development with reference to the past one year journey I made to pursue my University studies in Business management.
Personality
At the university, I have had the opportunity to work in groups under Business and communication, where we were tasked with the assignment of coming up with a business plan. Under this group, I come across people from difference social, culture shock upon arriving in the United States. These students must understand the cultural, and economic backgrounds. This proved to be quite challenging especially because some demonstrated very low self-esteem, and others showed a highs personality development, thus making the working of the group difficulty. Planning for our group’s meetings proved to be difficulty due to misperception that reigned among group members. This was the time when I had to explore my ability to cope with people from across cultural divide, egos, enlightenment, and economic background. My ability to socialize freely with everybody regardless of his or her status was very instrumental in putting the group together and helping members to understand each other well in the context of the task that was at hand.
I become the bonding factor in the group, an agent of communication for all the group members when problems could emerge among the group members; I took the initiative of helping them reach an amicable solution. This was made easy due to the trust I had gained from the group members, mainly coming from my capability to socialize with members cordially. Creating a conducive environment for our meeting was always my task; I could deliver messages for the meeting on time, and make every player to understand the importance of playing a leading role in our engagement. My prowess to use modern technologies made my work easier. I exploited the use of Skype in organizing our meetings, which proved to be, more effective and convenient to our group members. In the process members have to learn more about each other, thus bringing about gelling in the group.
My negotiation skills have been very helpful in the past one year; I remember negotiating for my colleague during her purchase of a new refrigeration machine. I negotiated for her discount on the purchase, and helped her to secure the best quality machine that meets her needs in the business world one needs to have exemplary negotiation skills in order to fair on well. This is very important especially when one is engaged in negotiations talks with his or her business partners over important business deals. My ability to negotiate did not only emerge during my stay at the university but has been demonstrated in my private business engagements. I have been able to secure tenders with various organizations and government agencies in Nigeria due to my ability to relate well and negotiate for favorable business engagements. As an accomplished negotiator, I intend to use my negotiation skills to advance the interests of my company as well as maintain good working relations with various business players that I will have to work with in making my dream come true.
My capability to evaluate the situation and make an informed move is another aspect that is important in my professional growth as well as attainment of my ultimate goals in the business world. The evaluation skills helped me in reading the minds of my colleagues when conflicts arose in our group works, thus helping me to provide an appropriate remedy to the situation. This was very important in avoiding more trouble that could have jeopardized our learning. In the business world, one needs to demonstrate high capability to evaluate present and expected business forces in order to put in place necessary measures to stir forward the business operations of his or her firm. Evaluation skills are central in deciding when to expand or shrink the operation of the business firm. My private business has been successful due to the timely evaluation I have been doing in regard to the customers and suppliers fluctuations in terms of supply and consumption. When one can read the expected supply fluctuation, he or she takes the precautionary measures necessary in cushioning the business from supply shortage. It is important for the business to meet the client’s demands throughout the season. I reacted to expected supply fluctuation buy purchasing large stocks, which were to cushion the business from suffering acute supply shortages. Moreover, looking for alternative sources of supply during such period was very important in order to retain my clients. Evaluation skills have therefore been very important in helping me get on well in my private business engagements as well as social life encounters.
My early studies at the university were majorly anchored on business communication, where I acquire the relevant knowledge and skills in business communication. I leaned on how communication aspect is very important in business development and smooth running of business (Moon, 2010). The communication skills in business help one to gain an effective management of the business. Information flow is very central in helping the business management communicate various commands to the employees in the lower ranks. Moreover, communication skills help the management in getting the feedbacks from the employees over various issues affecting their areas of operation. This skills and knowledge are very important in my life as an expert in business management and aspiring business heavyweight. It will be vital in my expansion on my business as I aim at running a mega business company n my home country, Nigeria, and eventual become a leading businessperson on the globe.
I had also an opportunity to do a several units of finance, which have helped me to gain more grasp on the financial aspect in business management. Business activities mainly revolve around making profits, which means financial matters are the heart of any business empire. The business ought to be alive to the prevailing financial climate both in and outside the business in order for the management to make informed decisions. The financial aspect of the business is key in deciding on what staff to employee, the number, and their remuneration. The financial units have helped me to gain more knowledge on the complex forces that drive the business organization’s financial sector, the need to pay more attention to the organization’s financial wellbeing. The financial knowledge I have gained in those units has added more impetus to my desire to pursue further studies in finance.
At the end of my studies, I hope to be an all round business management and financial expert with impeccable knowledge and experience on how various economic and financial systems are run. It is my desire to run a multinational business company in future. This dream can only be made possible when I have all the knowledge and experience needed in business and financial sector, thus my quest to study business management and finance. I expect my education in these field to aid me secure god employment in leading companies in Nigeria an outside Nigeria in order to give me the first hand experience I need I order to expand on my business. The success of my medium level business in my home country Nigeria is the greatest motivation to my quest to run a mega business in future. I have been successful in managing it albeit various challenges here and there. It is my hope that I will be able to use my experience of success in managing it to expand on my business in order to attain my ultimate dream of being a global leading businessperson. When I look back to the humble beginning of my private business, I feel more elated and motivated to do more towards expanding my business empire.
Furthermore, my experience at the university has been very encouraging, my teachers and fellow students have shared with me their successes of the business world, which gives me more motivation in my journey towards becoming a business heavyweight. My social nature has helped me to get to know about the leading business personality’s sin America and Europe, some of whom I can collaborate with in my business. This has given me an overwhelming motivation towards engaging in international trade. I can secure suppliers and customers outside Nigeria. The association with people from across the world and the subsequent rapport that I have established with them gives me a chance to acts as a conduit for exporting some product from Nigeria to the outside world as well as importing products from the outside countries into Nigeria. This is a great motivation, having friends who can be important business players in different countries.
Although I have my own business enterprise in Nigeria, the business is relatively small to give me the experience in need in running a mega business company. I need to gain a wide experience on how large companies manage their financial aspects as well as manage their vast business in the world of stiff competition. This is the key weakness that I have to deal with s before rolling out the plan to establish a giant business company. I need to have sufficient on how well I can maneuver in the murky business environment without losing the business compass direction. I have enough theoretical knowledge about hoe businesses are managed, but the first hand experience on how mega businesses are managed is what is lacking.
In order to attain my dream of being a successful businesswoman on the globe with a multinational business company, I intend to advance my studies in finance and work a little with in some of the leading business corporation in order to gain a vast experience in business and financial management of mega business companies in readiness to running my own giant company. I treat experience and knowledge as very central in successful managing of big business corporations, thus the need to amass a convincing knowledge and experience in business and financial management of business companies. Gaining this knowledge and experience demands that I advance on my studies in finance and business management as well as gain firsthand experience in the management of mega business companies.
I will also need a financial back up in order to make my dreams a success, which means I will have to seek for a well paying job, maintain my private business in position and if possible expand it in order to raise the needed financial back up in making my dream of running a multinational corporation achievable. I intend to gradual transform my medium level business in Nigeria into a big company that is international in scope. I hope to exploit the links I have developed at the university with students from different countries who are and those who intend to engage in business as a springboard to joining international trade. I can organize for loans from our local banks in Nigeria in order to boost my financial muscle. There exists more opportunities, which I can exploit in order to succeed. It is all about how smart I will be in executing my strategies in order to reap the positives that come with these opportunities.
My weaknesses
Although I have many positive character traits, I too have my personal flaws that may prove to be an obstacle on the journey to realizing my ultimate dream of becoming. One of my weaknesses is that I have little exposure to different financial systems and business management frameworks that operate across the international borders. I have been use to the local business and financial system that operates in Nigeria. I need to gain more exposure to how foreign business and financial systems operate. Most importantly, the American and European business and financial systems are what I need to gain more experience in their operability.
In addition, my financial capability does not allow me to operate a big business s company despite the prevailing opportunities to expand my business empire. I need a convincingly large financial back up in order to expand my business to the level of a multinational corporation. The cost of operating a multinational corporation is very high for starters, which call for patience and strategy in order to gain the required financial and managerial strength necessary for the running of the business firm that is multinational in scope. No institution of person will be ready to lend me the required financial support when I have relatively little capacity to run a multinational corporation, thus the need to build my financial and managerial capacity gradually from my already established business in Nigeria.
I have also realized that learning more than one international language may be of a great importance given the fact that some of my targeted business links are in countries that do not speak English. This is one of the weaknesses that I have experienced while trying to socialize with some of my colleagues who best understand French and Spanish than English. This is reinforced by the fact that a good number of West African countries speak French as the official language. In future, I intend to concentrate my business company in the West Factors influencing job satisfaction among public sector employees: an empirical exploration. South African states of Senegal, Algeria, Niger, Cameroon, Mali and Ghana. This has exposed my weakness in developing mastery in more than one language.
Conclusion
Personal and professional development is a very important aspect of human development. Personal development must be in tandem with the professional development in order for one to attain a balanced development. There need to be a mutual relationship between the two in order for an individual to enjoy his career and personal life. My social prowess helps me to easily socialize with anybody regardless of social, political, economic and cultural status, which plays a vital role in my development as a business manager as aspiring business mogul. My evaluation skill adds a plus to my personal and professional life, in am able to make necessary business evaluations and come up with decisive response to various situations.
This is also by extent in my personal grow the, it has been useful in helping me develop relationships with different people and help differing parties to find an amicable solution to their problems. I have a childhood desire to run a multinational business corporation, a dream that has taken me into the struggle to expand my knowledge in business management and finance. The greatest motivation towards achieving this noble dream has been the success I have registered in running my middle level business in Nigeria and the motivation I have received from my teachers and colleagues at the university. Their success stories and the opportunities to establish trade links with me have been very encouraging.
References
Hildebrand, J. (2009). Bridging the Gap: A Training Module in Personal and Professional Development. London: Karnac Books.
Moon, J. (2010). Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.
Silhanek, D. (2006). Study guide for Human Relations: Personal and Professional Development. New York: Cram101 Incorporated.