Signature Assignment: Personal Plan (Hospital Senior Leader)
In this assignment, you will write a personal plan specifically for your career situation and goals. If you have little or no previous health care experience, complete Option 1 below. If you currently work in the health care field or have previous health care experience, complete Option 2.
Option 2: Advance Your Health Care Career CURRENTLY CLINIC MANAGER with GOAL OF SENIOR LEADER
Create a 1,050- to 1,400-word plan for advancing your health care career. Include the following in your plan:
Skills you will need to develop for future opportunities
Strategies you will employ to gain the required skills needed for future opportunities
Explanation of how you currently project a professional image and how you can continue to build your brand, considering the effect of professionalism and etiquette
Strategies you will employ to advance your career
How you will measure the effectiveness of your strategies to advance your career
Strategies you can be employ for continued professional growth and advancement
Your top 5 practices for career success, with descriptions
ANSWER
This plan is a highlight of my career situation and goals designed to advance my healthcare career currently as a clinical manager with a goal to be a senior leader. Owing to the similarity of the roles, most if not all of the lessons from my current job will be carried to my prospective roles. For instance, being a clinical manager requires a fundamental understanding of ethics and confidentiality, efficient communication skills, customer service etiquette and knowledge of patient care framework. These skills are fundamental to every role in healthcare and in the role of a senior leader, these skills will still be required. Other more advanced skills in my current role include medical informatics, supervisory experience and employee management. These skills will require further advancement for future more senior roles. For example, while in my current role employee management is limited to subordinate staff, as a senior leader, I would be in charge of other health practitioners both peers and senior and therefore the importance of advancing the employee management skill. Other skills applicable to this future role include knowledge of computer information systems such as computerised billing and registration systems and data entry framework procedures such as an Electronic Medical Record System (EMR) and Microsoft Office 365 set. Proficiency with these tools will be fundamental in a future opportunity as a senior leader.
To gain the required skills needed to fulfil future opportunities, I will majorly employ the SWOT strategy. A SWOT analysis comprises a list of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This strategy is considered instrumental by most professionals because it reveals opportunities and goals that would otherwise have stayed concealed. Similarly, comprehension of one’s weaknesses provides a platform to be proactive in dealing with such situations where I can look to improve them or cooperate with another professional towards joint results. Having worked in a clinical setting before, I understand the demands and requirements of the job, I understand what it requires and what I fall short of. Using SWOT analysis, I can prepare myself for a future career that is more achieved and fulfilled. Other strategies I could employ towards the ambitious goal is requesting feedback from peers and customers alike. Using this feedback, I can understand the areas I need to improve on while capitalising on the areas that I am most successful at. I would also consider creating a vision board where I can create a visualisation of my goals from concept to execution.
I have various methods I use to project a professional image at the workplace that entails my actions and reactions at the workplace as well as my relationship with other employees. The purpose is the first target in achieving a successful professional image. Purpose entails being at locations I am required at the right time, performing research towards projects I am involved in and other simpler objectives like being on time. Secondly is dressing professionally as the phrase goes that people often judge a book by its cover. While most time my profession requires overcoats and lab coats, at certain moments like during meetings, I ensure I am dressed like someone who is aware of their environment, values and audience. Thirdly is conviction. This involves the confidence and esteem that comes with the feeling that I am supposed to be where I am not by luck or chance but through hard work. This also allows for more sustainable relationships with other employees not by submission but by mutual respect for each other and for each other values. The last one is being informed not only on things that are work-related but other external professional information like policies and legislations that affect the work I do as well as current events.
To advance my career from where I am which is a clinic manager to a senior leader, I have six strategies I aim to apply. The first one comprises embracing my network. A career like many other human creations, cannot be successful without the input of others. It is vital to have a network of professionals sharing similar interests and goals. Today, a platform like LinkedIn provide an opportunity to network effectively with professionals across the globe. Secondly, finding a mentor. A good mentor provides an opportunity to learn and anticipate whatever comes next both in the positive and negative. Thirdly, is asking for more responsibility after mastering all the requirements of being a clinic manager. By asking for more responsibility, I will be proving to both myself and my superiors that I am ready for a bigger role and promising to accomplish all that it entails. The fourth strategy is to take performance reviews seriously where I capitalise on strengths and at the same time improve on weaknesses. The fifth strategy is mastery of the health industry and all it entails. This means mastering the medical jargon to the best of my ability through the reading of health magazines, news and other secondary sources of information. Lastly, further education through research, teaching and training those who come after me. There is a rule that people understand things better by explaining them to other people. To ensure I never lose focus on what I have learnt, I will aim to teach it to others.
To measure the effectiveness of my career strategy, first of all, I will have ticked some items out of my vision board. This means that items and objectives I once set for myself are becoming a reality little by little. I will have received a positive commendation from my superiors from my work and I will feel more achieved professionally. To ensure that this continues requires setting new goals periodically, like every year. Building a new vision board for every year and learning new skills at any chance the opportunity presents itself. Performing an updates SWOT analysis could also come in handy to ensure continuous improvement in skills, performance and opportunity discoveries.
In conclusion, the top practices for career success include hard work where I must be ready to put in extra hours towards the achievement of an objective or goal. The setting of achievable goals includes using information available to intentionally decide the course of my professional life, not by accident but by my own decisions and plans. Having functional routines that accelerate my ability to work both effectively and efficiently. Periodic personal analysis and assessment where I get to countercheck my decisions and actions and determine whether or not they work in the interest of my future. Lastly, the presence of a professional mentor who has accomplished things I consider important. Such a mentor represents an idea and is a symbol that goals can be achieved and dreams do come true.
References
Leigh, D. (2009). SWOT analysis. Handbook of Improving Performance in the Workplace: Volumes 1‐3, 115-140.
Weng, Q., & McElroy, J. C. (2012). Organizational career growth, affective occupational commitment and turnover intentions. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(2), 256-265.
