The goal
for this week’s blog was to think back and figure out what or who helped lay
the foundation for my personal and professional development. I will admit it
was rather difficult coming up with specific examples because I always thought
of myself as mostly self-motivated. That said, perhaps certain events in my
life helped shape me into the person that I am now. Two of these events include
receiving praise/punishment based on my grades and the development of my
competitive nature based on video games. I will then follow up with what I
believe my supervisors are failing to do in my feedback session and what I can
do to help develop those that I lead.
Going as
far back as I can remember, I would always either receive praise for my good
grades or I would receive punishments for my bad. For example anytime I
received good grades on my assignments I would receive some sort of
acknowledgment from the teachers and peers, but most importantly I would be
recognized and congratulated by my parents. This obviously brought up good
feelings within me and it was something I sought after as a kid. However in the
event that I didn’t do so well and received bad grades, my dad would shut off
my Internet, which kept me secluded and cut off from the outside world (I was a
shy kid and stayed mostly indoors). This lack of Internet kept me away from my
video games, which in turn lead to increased stressed levels as I was no longer
keeping up with my video game peers in a competitive nature. Perhaps this
combination of praise and punishment was what helped shaped my slight fears of
failure and my hunger for success.
Video
games, surprisingly, also helped shape me into the competitive person that I
am. Ever since the beginning of video games everyone is constantly trying to
beat the scores of someone else. This led me to thinking that the only point to
play is to win. Before joining the military I was heavily into World of
Warcraft where I would spend countless hours trying to obtain the best sword,
or the best armor, so that I could have that competitive advantage when it came
to the Arena. This translates into my thinking that if I spend the time to get
that degree or volunteer my time out in the community that I will hold an
advantage over my peers when it comes to promotions. So far this holds true, as
I am currently the highest-ranking person out of everyone that I went through
Basic Military Training with.
The second
question in the exercise “Who Helped Me?” says to “think of the people who
conducted performance reviews with you or gave you feedback on how you were
conducting your life or functioning at work.” (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008) During my
feedback sessions at work I’ve always been told that I was already competing
ahead of my peers, to not change what I was doing, and to keep up the good
work. For years this has been going on and the problem I have with this is that
it tells me nothing with how I can further develop my self to my full
potential. It’s constructive criticism and feedback that I seek and I’m not
getting any of it. In the coming months I’m going to be promoted, so I fully
expect to be conducting my own feedback sessions with my own troops.
There are
two things that I will take from this and bring to the development of my own
troops. The first is that I will reward success and actively punish failure. I
believe in order for this to work I need to discuss ahead of time what rewards
are worth seeking and the types of punishments that they think would be fair
based on what it is they have done. The idea of tough, but fair, would be
important in this domain. The second thing that I would bring to the
development of my own troops is that I will always work with them to set new
goals on how to further develop them as a person, even if they’re already the
best. Just because they’re doing better than everyone else doesn’t mean they
can’t be better themselves.
So by now
I’ve reflected on how certain life events have shaped me into the person that I
am today and how I believe I can take what I’ve realized my supervisors have
lacked in my own personal development and to turn it around to further develop
my own troops. Granted, I won’t know if this method will be successful or not
until I try it, but I will most certainly try. At the end of the day my only
wish is to maximize the effect of personal development for my troops and to
help them reach their full potential. I want to be there for them when they
need it the most and I want to be there for them to help them succeed.
References
McKee, A.,
Boyatzis, R., & Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a Resonant Leader.
Boston: Harvard Business School.
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