Question :YOUR SUBMISSION
This part of the process is to allow you to establish how, within the last 18 months, you have
a) Demonstrated consistent effective performance within your own organisation or a client organisation if appropriate
b) Used your skills and expertise in leading people and managing change in a professional and ethical manner in accordance with international acceptable code of conduct
c) Learned from your experience, being committed to ensuring your Continuing Professional Development (CPD).
Please note: Use the first person singular wherever possible to indicate that it is your effective performance that you are describing. Where possible your submission should not exceed 8 pages, and use of graphs, diagrams, tables or appendices is not allowed.
Guidance has been provided below in each section. Please delete the guidance notes and replace with your information.
1 INTRODUCTION
I WILL BE DOING THIS - SAMPLE-
I will be describing the Organisation where I work. For aid your work, let me just start..., I work for the Sierra Leone National Electoral Commission as Director of Finance. I manage 7 staff. I am a member of the Procurement and Evaluation Committee, Integrity Committee and Budget Committee
2 ACHIEVEMENTS AND CONTRIBUTION
Describe your key achievement(s) - (as indicated in the guidance notes below) - over the last 18 months and explain the contribution or influence they have had on the organisation's performance. Where possible you should include measures (quantitative or qualitative) and/or outcomes to illustrate your contribution.
The organisation need not be one in which you are employed; perhaps you have recently changed employment or are particularly proud of what you have achieved in a formal, though voluntary, position you hold in, for example, a charitable body, a sports or leisure club.
Achievements will be personal to you and your role, and demonstrate how you have delivered consistently effective performance within the last 18 months. Possible areas may include:
. Consistent performance in meeting or exceeding targets;
. Creating something that delivered positive results for your organisation; product, service or market development;
. Changes you have introduced which have improved operations and/or how people work;
. Making significant savings or performance improvement via a new way of doing things;
. Maintaining performance in the face of difficulties, e.g. reductions in staffing levels;
. Maintaining and sustaining your business model; motivating staff to retain skills; maintaining the level of turnover (even if not growing); maintaining established links with key stakeholders;
. Mitigating losses and sustaining business viability in recessionary times;
. Increasing profit or market share;
. Turning a department or business activity around.
To illustrate the achievement(s) you should include measures where possible; "hard" measures e.g. savings made, or "soft" measures e.g. increased customer satisfaction.
A good starting place for you to identify your achievements may be from the performance objectives you were set, or from a recent appraisal. However it may be that due to unforeseen circumstances (perhaps due to changes in the environment in which your organisation operates) that the objectives you were set became inappropriate.
N.B. operational changes must be within the last 18 months. However the implementation of strategic changes may go back beyond that the important thing would be to show some measures were delivered in the last 18 months.
3 EXPLAIN HOW YOU USED THE SKILL OF 'LEADING PEOPLE' TO ACHIEVE THE OUTCOMES IN SECTION 2.
Select three of the leading people sub-skills from the guidance notes and describe specifically, using examples how you used them to lead people effectively, starting what you personally did and why.
You have now told me "what" you did i.e. the nature of your achievement(s) and now you're explaining "how" you achieved the deliverables identified in section 2.
Please select three sub-skills for this Leading People section from the list below.
Using each sub-skill as a heading, describe how you have applied that skill; it is not sufficient to simply describe why the skill is important.
In short, you need to explain:
. what you did,
. how you did it,
. with whom or to whom'
. why'
. what are the benefits.
For example: Stating "I provided support to the team" is fine; but how exactly did you provide the support? What methods did you adopt and how did the staff benefit? Try and give real-life examples of how you applied the chosen sub-skill. It is advisable that the explanation of each sub skill should be a maximum of three paragraphs.
There is no need to give any academic references here. N.B. all the skills are equal - therefore choose those that you can most easily relate to the activity and describe:
. Provides clear purpose and direction
. Inspires trust respect and shared values
. Communicates clearly and succinctly
. Develops and supports individual and team members
. Resolves problems and conflicts with positive outcomes.
. Adapt leadership style to take account of diverse situations
In explaining how you used your chosen sub-skills to achieve the outcomes, you should pay particular attention to demonstrate how your behaviour demonstrates the ethical practice of a manager highlighted in the Code of Conduct and Practice of International Best practices
4 EXPLAIN HOW YOU HAVE USED THE SKILL OF 'MANAGING CHANGE' TO ACHIEVE THE OUTCOMES SHOWN IN SECTION 2.
Select three of the managing change sub-skills from the guidance notes and describe specifically, using examples how you used them to lead people effectively, starting what you personally did and why.
Mirroring the requirements in section 3, using the list below please select three sub-skills for this Managing Change section. Using each sub-skill as the heading describe how you used them; it is not sufficient to simply describe why the skill is important. Please explain what you did, how you did it, with whom or to whom and why. Don't forget to explain the benefits. Try to provide real-life examples wherever possible.
. Encourage others to be creative and innovative
. Identify opportunities for change and development
. Scope plan and drive change
. Manage others through the change process
. Consistently apply strategic thinking
. Take account of stakeholder issues
In explaining how you used your chosen sub-skills to achieve the outcomes, you should pay particular attention to demonstrate how your behaviour demonstrates the ethical practice of a manager highlighted in the Code of Conduct and Practice of International Best Practices.
5 IDENTIFY YOUR PRINCIPAL LEARNING LESSONS.
Reflecting upon the experiences you have described in this submission identify:
(1) What you have learned about your skills of leading people and managing change?
(2) With hindsight what would you have done differently and why?
Remember this is more about your behaviours rather than any process you employed.
Reflection is at the heart of developing the skill to learn continually from experience; reflection will be personal to you - it is what you have learned that is of interest here.
In this section you need to critically reflect on your experiences, activities and use of the skills to draw out any learning that might help you in the future. You may for example have discovered that you were better at handling conflict than you thought or were surprised that you aren't as good at influencing and negotiating as you thought. How did you overcome any challenges? Were they easy or more difficult than expected? So this in essence is where you reflect on your strengths and weaknesses; and where you may need to learn new or build on existing skills.
The second part is where you reflect constructively on how you might have done things differently and the lesson(s) learnt so that if you were to undertake a similar exercise in the future you could do things better.
6 IDENTIFY YOUR FUTURE LEARNING PLANS
Drawing upon your reflection in question 5 and any planned changes within your role/responsibilities identify:
(1) The skills and knowledge you need to develop over the next 12 months
(2) The activities you plan to undertake to achieve these goals.
Please ensure you address both aspects of this question.
What are your goals and what skills and knowledge do you need to develop in order to help you achieve those goals?
It is useful to identify what your learning aims and purposes are, the activities to achieve them and what time- frames you are considering. This is an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to your continuing professional development.
Remember that development activities are not restricted to formal training courses, and may occur through day-to-day activities, including: coaching and mentoring, delegation, secondments, experiential learning, or distance learning lectures/talks/conventions/conferences, research and reading e.g. via the internet, books, journals etc.