Reflective Portfolio

AbstractThis is a reflective essay flavour for at the authors c beer expectations and traveling back footing. Models of reflection atomic compute 18 apply to examine the authors get word and self in gaination in foothold of go aspirations. Past operative history, and the situation with romps in the air passage industry, argon discussed. A homunculus of i admit characteristics for the authors desired subcontract is presented, and the areas in which the author is lacking are congeal protrude. The tools and approaches which spate be used to improve these characteristics and hence become to a greater extent like the ideal candidate are circumstances out.1. IntroductionIn the following paper, I am pass to create at my line of achievement aspirations in the context of lendable careers in my chosen industry the airline industry. I urgency to lean in a client function / homosexualagement capacity at British Airmodal values, building upon my existing acquisit ion-set and fall upon. I go away discuss this subject in terms of approaches and insights I welcome ga in that respectd from studying international tourism management and last tourism management, as nearly as what I contri merelye learnt in this limited module on career development. I die be looking critic totallyy at my experience and self-learning in order to identify the characteristics which I go that I olfactory modality equip me for this role. I leave behind in like manner be identifying areas which take in to be further reverseed on. I willing be combining intuitive writing most my experiences and capacities with academic research, textbooks and theories. In reflecting on my experience, I live with been influenced by a take of models of learning through with(predicate) reflection, including Gibbs and Kolbs. Both these models show a way to structure learning. In Kolb the apprentice is encouraged to look at an experience and make observations accordingly form concepts and general theories, which are then tested against much new experience. Gibbs apprises a similar process of describing, analysing emotional stateings, evaluating, analysis and conceptualisation (Moon 2013). I micturate used models like these to offshoot describe to myself or others my experience, then build conceptual models, abstract key ideas and theorise about what happened in order to do things distinctly in the future.Overall, I will be demonstrating how and why I feel I fit the role of Customer Service carriage within the airline industry, and how I might fill the electric current gaps in my knowledge and experience.2. The Airline Sector and Available CareersIn this section, I will look at the airline industry globally and in the UK, abridgment the areas of work, discuss the different possible job roles, and call down the one which is practiced for me. I will too look at the career possibilities associated with this role, and look at the relationship between the ideal candidate for this role and my capabilities.My ingest is to work in management within the airline industry. Although I establish had a variety of jobs in my career so far, I have always complimentsed to work for British Airways. I was drawn to the opportunities for travel, as I see it as a way of learning and ad hominem development. The old saying that travel broadens the mind seems true to me, although it similarly seems that travel and tourism research has so far concentrated more on why tourists select the destinations they do, rather than the impact on travellers psychology and perceptions (Chon et al 2012). Initially, I entangle I should wait until the right job came along, but I was advised by a friend that I should bump off any job within the organisation and then work my way into the position I valued. Many jobs are advertised internally number one in some employers, not just B.A. (Williams 2010).The airline industry as a whole is wide, and is l ikely to amplify peculiarly if the trend for bodacious air travel continues. Globally, at that place are approximately 2000 airlines with 23,000 aircraft serving oer 3500 airports. By 2006, air travel growth was approximately 5% form on year, and capacity was thought likely to double by 2021 (Hencke 2006). within the UK, aviation is a significant contributor to the economy, with UK airports handling 230 million passengers a year. UK manufacturing, technology and service suppliers in the industry are considered world leading. some 150,000 hatful are employed in the UK directly within the industry, and the celestial sphere contributes nearly ?10 billion to GDP (The Air League online 2014). The loudness and likelihood of growth of the sector, while not directly motivating me to want to join the industry, sure as shooting give me confidence that I will be able to have a life-long career within the industry. In terms of different organisations, the industry is dominated by a few large organisations, although low-cost players have c take careed the situation somewhat. British Airways is the largest operator, followed by Virgin Atlantic Airways. British Midland and Easy Jet are also advantageously known. UK companies face competition from overseas providers as well (Belobaba et al 2009). I was especially drawn to working(a) for British Airways as they are the largest provider in the UK, and as such I feel I will have more opportunities for career development. But because more other companies imply globally, I feel I am in a right(a) position to move to different organisations in the future, not least because I speak a number of languages.Given the large number of jobs in the sector, it is unsurprising that there are a wide range of occupations and roles. The vitrine of jobs available can be divided into three main sections ground handling services (e.g. baggage handling), airport operations (e.g. terminal manager, guest support) and airline opera tions (e.g. ground handling, confine man etc) (National Careers Service 2014). Of the choices, I have decided to focus on roles which directly progress out of the role I am now occupying. In picky, I have mapped out a possible career development scarper of instruction. First, I will go for a Future Talent Customer Service theater director (FTCSM) position, which I can move to after 12 months in this role. by and by this I can progress to a Customer Service conductor (after 2 years), and, beyond this, to an In-Flight Business Manager (IBM). I have chosen this particular development path having considered and rejected another. In the other path I would take a less customer-facing role, becoming a craft Office Manager (DOM) or Turn Around Manager (TRM). The first looks at the management of crew, while the second deals with the mechanics of putting aircraft back in the air quickly and efficiently. My decision to go for the first career route was guided by my expertnesss in deal ing with citizenry. I feel I have demonstrated empathy with different types of pile, and am practiced at dealing with races problems. I care about tidy sum, want them to enjoy their experiences and want to continue to be actually hands-on, if not with the domain then with other employees. I also feel that theres a more defined and visible career path in the first set of roles, as I can move from FTCCSM to CSM and to IBM, and beyond.In terms of my chosen career progression, there are a number of skills and abilities the ideal candidate will have. These are not specific to B.A. or the aviation industry, but are needed across all customer service and people facing roles. A CSM/FTCSM should haveGood lead skills Planning susceptibility Understanding and acting on feedback Communication strength Networking ability Flexibility The ability to manage line and pressure as well as cope with job challenges Be able to deal with conflict (Evanson 2011) In terms of this ideal checklist, I believe I already possess several of these requirements. That is, I feel I am able to deal with conflict in a low-key, non-confrontational manner (a skill honed during my time as a bouncer), I can manage stress and pressure, I am fairly good at planning, on a lower floor(a)standing feedback and communication. This is not to say I cannot improve in these areas, but I feel that the areas in which my individualal indite is most mis cope withed with the ideal job candidate profile are leading Networking Flexibility I will explore in more detail my individual(prenominal) mountain and their match to the ideal profile in the next section.3. Current Career & passelThis section looks at my background in terms of career history, strengths and weaknesses. I then assess my competencies in terms of the ideal candidate profile I outlined in the last section. Finally, I identify areas for overture in relation to this profile.Currently, I am working as a subdivision of cabin crew. I hav e 6 months experience. I felt this position will help me advance in the industry as a whole. My previous career history has given me some very useable experience. I have had a variety of jobs from modelling to creation a bouncer. While many of these positions might be considered low direct I feel they have taught me to deal with many different types of people, particularly people who are aggressive or who attempt to manipulate. Having dealt with so many tricky people, I feel I have a inexpugnable intuition about what peoples real motives are, as remote to what they say they are motivated by, and also an ability to communicate with all shed light ons of people without making situations worse.Before I started my current job, I knew I wanted to work within the airline industry. I was also attracted to B.A. as I had heard they were a good employer (indeed.com online 2014). I treated the occupation process as a way of learning how to improve my query skills. I applied to some org anisations not because I especially wanted the advertised job, but in order to brush up on these skills, and become familiar with a range of the interview styles which exist in different companies. Some organisations, for face, use stress techniques to see how you cope under pressure (Parkinson 2002), others put you in either a very structured or an unstructured situation, both of which elicit different types of responses and require different approaches (Lehman and DuFrene 2010).During my 6 months in this job, I have come up against a number of new challenges which have made me more aware of my strengths and weaknesses in terms of the job I am ideally looking for. I have make up that people tend to assume that working as a member of the cabin crew is easy particularly for men. Indeed, theres a strong trolley dolly stereotype (Bolton & Boyd 2003), which I have put in frustrating at times. In fact, cabin crew work is a difficult job demanding good time management, concentration, the ability to think on your feet and solve problems quickly, and an ability to get on with many different sorts of people. In addition, you need to pass a number of tests. For fount for the BA mixed fleet crew the tests include health, criminal disgrace and different aircraft licenses.I have demonstrate out in this job that I am good at listening to others. I feel I have a natural empathy with others and want to listen to what they are saying, rather than try and organise them into my way of doing things. However, and perhaps this is connected with this strength, I am not naturally forceful and good at tip others. In fact, if I am faced with a domineering or overpowering customer, I tend to give in and do what they want. This creates problems for me, for example if what they want is against the company rules. I think if I had more leading ability, I would be recrudesce able to convince such people that the way I want them to behave is the right one for them as well. I also fe el I do not presently demonstrate leadership skills. When in group meetings I tend to hang back and do not put my point of view across. I also feel I do not make the dress hat use of situations. For example, I was asked to train up a new member of my team, but I felt I did not do this well, I felt under-confident of what I was doing and I think I confused the person I was training.In addition to the areas of improvement I need to work on, which I will discuss more in the next section, I need to look at ways in which I can achieve my goal of a management position. I believe that my experience so far has helped a great deal. I have already had 6 months experience working as a member of cabin crew, so I understand the mechanics of this industry, but also of this particular job. After all, many people have to spend several months, if not years, volunteering to get similar experience of their desired industry, and I have had the mess to be paid for getting to this stage. Another ben efit of being in the industry is that I have had a chance to build contacts already. Networking is an passing powerful tool for getting the job you want (Souza 2010) and continues to be useful once in the job. After all, networking can be defined only if as creating opportunities, improving relationships with other people and making useful contacts. In a job, these benefits deepen over time, as you develop a more permanent network (Fisher 2011). As such, it is useful to career progression.Another skill I need to learn is flexibility. After all, as Pryor and Bright (2011) point out, the 21st Century workplace is characterised by change. Being able to adapt to change, not to expect the workplace to stay the same for years (or counterbalance months) and having a portfolio approach to a career are becoming progressively important. I recognise that I am somewhat inflexible, and that change scares me. I naturally prefer the security of some sort of routine. However, there are things I can do to become more flexible. To some extent, working as cabin crew has helped improve my adaptability and increased the extent to which I can have a positive response to change, as I am never 100% sure where Ill be going over the next months, and I have become aware that people can be very different in their demands and expectations. As I deal so much with members of the public, I have learnt to adapt to circumstances as they come up in a consistent way. I think there is more I can do in this area though.To summarise, there are some key areas which I need to work on developing my management skills (including communication) and improving my networking, as well as being more flexible and open to change. I have cover networking and flexibility in this section, and will look at leadership in the next section.4. The increment of Key Skills LeadershipThis section evaluates the personal development tools I have used to improve my leadership skills, as it has been identified above as one of the areas I need to work on. I have had extensive working experience in a variety of positions, but have not really worked in a position where I have had to lead others. This initially made me delight in if I had what it takes to be a leader, but a number of things we covered in the module have convinced me that I can lead others. Other gaps include networking skills and flexibility.Theoretical learning about leadership has helped expand my horizons in terms of career development. Before I started the module, I believed that leaders are born, not made, and that one either is or is not the sort of person who can lead others. However, we learnt about different theories about leadership, and also about ways leadership can be developed. The idea that leaders are born is also known as the great man theory of leadership (Daft 2007). A similar theory is the trait model (Komives et al 2009). Although these are old models, they were still influential in my thinking.My experience on t he course opened my eyes about different leadership theories. Many hold that leadership can be learned, for example behaviour-based theories, hap theories and transformational theory (Komives et al 2009 Bragg 2008). Of the three, I have been most influenced by transformational theories. behavioral and contingency theories seem to lack soul for me. It seems to me, based on my working experience, that people need to relate to and be inspired by leaders. Transformational theory, introduced by Burns (1978), suggests that transformational leadership is related to morality, charisma, vision and values that is, the leader mustiness inspire people. Leaders also need to work with the people they lead, overlap information (Lucas 2005, p.20).One problem I found was that while there is a lot written about transformational leadership, there is not so much about how it can actually be put into practice. I did find a model based on Burns (1985) ideas. Manktelo et al (2005) suggest a 4 step pro cess involvingCreating a submit of the future to inspire people Getting people to buy in to the picture Manage the way the vision is made to occur meliorate relationships between people involved in delivering the visionThey also suggest ways in which each stage can be achieved. In order to attain my desired career goals I will certainly be using this model to help me. I also found some textbooks recommended for the module useful. Chapman and ONeill (1999) broke leadership down into 6 practical steps. I found this useful as I find it hard sometimes to translate theory into practice. I also found Covey (1999) useful. This approach teaches one how to base leadership around principles. I have always felt that management should be to do with treating people fairly and involving them in decisions, no matter what level of the company they are working at. Gardner and Laskin (1996) have given me ideas about how to watch what other leaders do and incorporate their behaviours into my own app roach. One writer I found less helpful was Watkins (2013). He suggests getting to understand the pivotal people in the organisation quickly, through understanding their motivations and the pressures they are working under as well as the way they see their choices. The strategy is then to apply tools of influence to sway them. I have two issues with this approach. First, I believe every worker in an organisation is equally important. I would rather get all people agreeable to a course of action than concentrate on those he sees as pivotal. By concentrating on a few, resentment might arise. I would also suggest that it might not be possible to get to know people as quickly as he thinks. Watkins (2013) assumes that people will be honest and open about their motivation in a goldbrick conversation, and from my experience this often is not the case.Overall, I believe that learning more about leadership and finding practical approaches to being a better leader, including coaching skills, is the key way to address the gap I have talked about in earlier sections between my current skill set and the skill set required for my ideal position.5. ConclusionIn conclusion, I have examined my career in the context of my past working experience, where I am at the moment, and where I want to be. A number of tools I have learned during this module, as well as through self-learning, have helped me work out the ideal profile for my desired job role. I have also identified how I might turn my current skill set into the desired one. In particular, I need to work on leadership abilities. I have found a number of practical tools to help me do this, and have explored them above. My networking skills and flexibility can also be improved.6. ReferencesThe Air League (2014) UK Aviation online (cited 8th February 2014). 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