Professional Growth and Development
Being aware of oneself is essential in personal development. Emotional Intelligence allows individuals to understand their emotions and how they interact. The Emotional Intelligence Test measures individuals on four aspects: self-awareness, self-management, relationship management, and social awareness. Self-awareness is mindful of one’s actions, whether they are strengths, weaknesses, or goals. Self-management is one’s ability to control their behaviors, thoughts, and emotions to be productive. Relationship management is the way one maintains engagement with customers. Finally, social awareness is one’s ability to understand others’ feel (Parvez, 2022).
Strength and weaknesses
My greatest strengths under the relationship management and social awareness categories. I follow through, maintain my integrity, and be dependable. These powers are in line with my moral compass. I am maintaining my integrity and setting a standard for others to follow, which results from being consistent and following through. To be consistent, one must always take the same course of action. Treating everyone equally and holding everyone to the same standards exemplify leadership. While honesty and integrity go hand-in-hand, they are not mutually exclusive.
A person’s integrity prevents them from engaging in wrongdoing, such as stealing. Taking intellectual property and selling or transporting it to a rival is a kind of theft not limited to the physical. Following through on one’s promises is a sign of integrity. A leader’s following through on a promise improves the team’s morale because everyone knows what is expected of them.
I try my best to understand where others are coming from and their viewpoints. However, I am cautious about including all cultures in any processes and ensuring everyone is included and valued. For instance, while implementing employee appreciation events at our nursing home, we developed plans to encompass each culture of our employees. We did this by ensuring the type of food we provided catered to each so all could participate. This also stems from the various shifts we had. Employee appreciation events were the same for the day and night shifts.
Even though all my scores were mainly equal, there were specific areas in that I scored lower. My biggest weakness is the self-management category. Time management and the lack of ability to say no is a struggle of mine. While managing the daily functions of a nursing home, time management becomes challenging due to the need of so many employees, residents, family members, and vendors. This is merely due to being available to everyone whenever they need me. By utilizing a calendar, I schedule meetings, deadlines for reports, etc. This is essential in helping with time management. Due to the staffing challenges, delegation is an obstacle impacting time management.
Over my years as a nursing home administrator, I have identified the essential need for a work-life balance. Being a mother at a young age, I worked hard and went to college to ensure my career goals were met. I was always dedicated to work and did not realize the most important job was being a mother. I was young and inexperienced and thought I had to work hard to provide for my child(ren). This is true; however, being an active mother and role model in my children’s life should have been the most important. I did structure my college and work schedule around my children’s needs; however, when I started my nursing home administrator career, I devoted a lot of my days and nights in the facility to ensure I was successful. Listening to my older children, I have changed my mind set to understand that I can be successful at work and be present at home. I have learned to delegate appropriately, manage my time during work hours, and devote time to family.
Most Surprising
Several areas in self-awareness I found most surprising, and knowing my career, others may find it surprising as well. There are moments when I can interact well with my direct co-workers, but my leadership might make me nervous. I’m unsure whether the strength of those above or the possibility of a letdown scares me the most. At times, receiving constructive criticism might make you feel like a failure. At work, I was always nervous when our corporate office came to visit, yet I never received any criticism from them. I was always transparent and open to ideas, but it did not help the nervousness I experienced before a big operation meeting or facility visit.
As the leader, I was responsible for ensuring the overall daily functions of the nursing home. This ranged from growing census to ensuring clinical procedures were followed per regulation.
Least Surprising
Self-management is least surprising for me, which is not unexpected. For me, work is always first and foremost. Hard-working parents who are also workaholics helped shape my character. Upon leaving the office, I would come home, care for the children and spend night hours completing work tasks. I have been focusing on establishing a good work-life balance in recent years.
The coronavirus pandemic has reminded me that it is time to take a step back and discover methods to better balance my career and personal life after putting in an average of 72 hours per week during the pandemic.
Another least surprising area for me is social awareness. I have always cared for and respected everyone. I always think about others’ feelings and perspectives. I want each person to feel important and included. I often spend my time communicating with each employee or person attending a party I host. This is mere to ensure they are all important to me.
By making it easier to strike a healthy work-life balance, workplace flexibility helps employers and employees. Flexible work schedules allow people to balance their professional and personal lives better. For example, employees who have more control over their work schedules may take advantage of grocery shopping on their way home to combine work and home responsibilities.
Professional Growth and Development
Professional growth and development are the results of transforming one’s flaws into one’s strengths. Make it clear to the interviewer that you are aware of a shortcoming but are striving to overcome it. There is no limit to how much a person may learn and improve. Finding common ground between strengths and weaknesses is just as important as managing time and balancing one’s personal and professional lives. As a result, career advancement may be achieved.
Embrace networking, industry expertise, and education advancement are ways to advance one’s career. Keeping in touch with individuals from your past, including former colleagues, might be key (Hargie, 2021). They may be able to assist you with favors, such as opening doors to other jobs or providing excellent recommendations. It is important to remember that favor is reciprocal; thus, it is best to maintain in touch. In addition, they can be a resource for guidance if needed in similar industries (Hargie, 2021). For instance, my preceptor and I still communicate and brainstorm. She is a nursing home administrator with many more years of experience. Even though we both work for different management companies, the regulations are the same.
I have developed excellent communication skills. It was tough for me to properly present a speech to our corporate team at the beginning of my career. I am blessed to say I am now a Regional Vice President of Operations. I assist several of our nursing homes in operations. From my experience, being in the role of nursing home administrator, I have the knowledge and ability to build a successful team and operate a profitable facility.
In addition, I lacked self-assurance and clarity in my vocal delivery since I was very young. This continued into adulthood. Unfortunately, I was timid, so I would not present or speak to crowds.
For some reason, I could not use my body language to my advantage. My interpersonal communication skills also grew as my career progressed, and I gained more experience. I’ve learned that being calm, courteous, and attentive while interacting with others is critical (Echterhoff, & Schmalbach, 2018).
References
Echterhoff, G., & Schmalbach, B. (2018). How shared reality is created in interpersonal communication. Current opinion in psychology, 23, 57-61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.12.005
Hargie, O. (2021). Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory and practice.
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. https://www.routledge.com/Skilled-Interpersonal-Communication-Research-Theory-and-Practice/Hargie/p/book/9781032008783
Parvez, H. (2022). Emotional Intelligence Assessment. PsychMechanics.
https://www.psychmechanics.com/emotional-intelligence-assessment/
