Unlock Your Personal Career Strategy

Struggling with how to formulate your personal career strategy? Here are some ideas.

What's Your Preferred #LearningStyle?

What are Learning Styles and why are they important?

Identifying your learning style is helpful in solving business problems as it identifies the natural approach you prefer to use. It is also helpful in diverse teams as everyone is different - it provides an understanding of how your colleagues prefer to learn.

Understanding learning styles fits with other career management themes of leadership, communication, conflict management and managing your brand - all posts we have been exploring on this blog. 

Learning Styles link to other career management strategies

Kolb identified a natural learning cycle that everyone goes through. He focused on how we first experience learning and then expand upon it to define our new experiences.

Honey and Mumford, using the work of Kolb, devised 4 distinct learning styles. They identified that we may exhibit a blend of styles but that generally we have a preferred learning style. 

Why is this important?

1) It might sound obvious but learning styles are helpful in identifying how you prefer to learn. For example it might not be the best solution to attend a long theory based course (although sometimes there is no option) if all you want to do is jump straight in or simply understand how something actually works in practice. 

 2) Learning styles also provide a mechanism for identifying your natural style (and that of others) and in doing so create awareness. This enables everyone to flex their style accordingly. For example an activist could annoy a reflector and vice versa. This is because an activist is hands on, they want to jump in and get started, whereas a reflector needs and wants the time to think things through. Both can find each other equally frustrating. 

3) An awareness of the learning cycle can also aid any coaching relationship. The diagram above also shows how the STAR coaching model can be overlaid. 

No one learning style is right, therefore increased awareness can only be a helpful thing in understanding and avoiding any conflict.

The Learning Styles:

Activists: 

• Tend to act first and consider the implications after 
• Jump right in, requiring little preparation time. 
• Thrive on being thrown in at the deep end 
• Tend not to reflect as they have moved onto the next thing by then. 
•  In a group exercise or team building event it will be the activists that are hands on straight away. 
• Are switched off by detail and prescriptive processes

Pragmatists:

• Focus on the practical application, they need to know that solutions will work 
• Like to relate back to how this fits with the job/task 
• Get impatient with lengthy discussions 
• Are switched off when there is no obvious benefit or lack of guidelines on what to do

 Reflectors:

• Focus on different perspectives 
• They thrive on collating and analysing data 
• Like to have time to think before making decisions 
• Are switched off by having no time to prepare, by being rushed or thrown in at the deep end

Theorists:

• Think problems through step by step 
• Are perfectionists
• Thrive on complexity, structured thinking and business models 
• Enjoy questioning 
• Are switched off by situations involving emotion or lack of structure

There are lots of free self assessment tools available on the internet - which is your preferred learning style?

Maximise Your #PersonalBrand Part 2 - #CommunicationStyles

Which style do you naturally prefer? What happens to your communication style when you are under pressure?

Don't score an own goal with the wrong communication style

Communication is an important element of your personal brand, it defines who you are and how you interact with others. This post builds on our earlier blog post "Maximising Your Personal Brand Part 1 –Self Awareness".

We all have a natural or preferred communication style and this blog post explores the various communication styles, linking them to the transactional analysis ego states. Often we use a different style depending on the situation or who we are interacting with. As part of any robust career management strategy it is important to flex your communication style and not adopt a one size fits all approach. Effective communicators influence others, gaining buy-in and engagement.

Building on the earlier theme of self awareness give some thought to what happens to your communication style when you are under pressure – does it become more pronounced, change radically or alienate others?

There are lots of free self assessment tools and questionnaires available on the internet to help you determine your communication style. Which style(s) do you think you use?

Style: Assertive	Passive	Aggressive	Passive Aggressive
Ego State: “I’m OK You’re OK”	“You’re OK I’m not”	“I’m OK You’re not”	“You’re not OK I’m not OK”
Transactional Analysis: Adult	Child	Controlling Parent	Rebellious Child
·  Best style ·  High self esteem ·  Genuine ·  Gains respect ·  Least used	·  Pleases others and avoids conflict ·  Low self esteem ·  Doesn’t contribute views	·  Ineffective style as causes reactions ·  Often at the expense of others ·  Low self esteem	·  Appear passive but actually subtly undermine others ·  Indirectly aggressive ·  Devious ·  Two-faced ·  Sarcastic ·  Criticises self
·  Open body language ·  Listen & don’t interrupt ·  Good eye contact	·  Avoids eye contact ·  Closed body language	·  Loud ·  Intimidating ·  Out to win	·  Sweet and innocent ·  Fake ·  Mismatch between verbal and non verbal
Builds good relationships with others	Low energy, gives in too easily, lacks confidence, can be self critical & resentful	Can upset others, and appear angry and hostile	Can remain stuck in the victim mindset, so can’t move on. Can alienate themselves from others

What Type of #Leader Do You Want to Be?

Often it is difficult to define what #leadership is, or the type of leader you want to be. Part 4 of our leadership series explores leadership traits and follows our earlier blog posts on Leadership styles, Situational Leadership and Authentic Leadership.

Below are some aspects of leadership that you might find helpful. They might provide some ideas for the type of leader you aspire to be.

Are You A Blue Sky Thinker - Want to Push the Boundaries?

Are you Authentic?

Do you:

• Have an acute awareness of self and others?
• Care not about being right but about succeeding? 
• Use emotional intelligence? 
• Focus not on what is said but on how it is said? 
• Display integrity, building trust and inspiring others to follow?

Are you Visionary?

Do you:

• Never stop challenging the process or pushing the boundaries? 
• Challenge perceptions?
• Bounce back and learn from failures because you are a pioneer? 
• Continually strive for improvement? 
•  Instinctively know the right path? 
• Create focus and alignment?
• Believe anything is possible?

Are you Action Orientated?

Do you:

• Have a high energy approach? 
• Believe in the mantra do something, doing anything – but act decisively and just do it? 
• Display role model behaviour, leading by example and going first? 
• Regard detail as analysis paralysis?

Are you a Problem Solver?

Do you:

• Embrace risk? 
• Feel motivated by overcoming obstacles, regarding them as an opportunity to develop and learn? 
• See patterns and trends?

Do you Develop Future Leaders?

Do you:

• Stretch people to ensure they develop, whilst providing a safe environment to try new things? 
• Surround yourself with talented people and create high energy teams?
• Act as a trusted advisor for difficult challenges? 
• Have high expectations – of outputs, yourself and others? 
• Ask more questions than you answer?
• Focus on the strengths of others rather than their developmental areas? 
• Share your own career experiences?
• Provide career advancement opportunities through networking and assignments?