Managerial Readiness Self-Analysis

Communication: If I was to grade myself on my communication skills, I would give myself a B-. I certainly have my strength and weaknesses that I recognize myself. I was born in Japan and English was my second language, I was placed in an ESL class during my elementary years which made me hide inside my shell for many years. My parents had realized this and they enrolled me in various activities such as Japanese school, soccer, kendo, and basketball. As I became more social, I was able to articulately express myself better and better. After overcoming the language barrier I had during my childhood, I utilized my ability to speak two different language to my full advantage. An example of that could be seen in my leadership roles during my high school years. As I organized and led my Japanese Club that consists 150 members for two year, my junior and my senior year, I consistently used both languages to convince and motivate all the members for my club.  

Strength: Oral presentation is one of my greatest strength. Instruction role through Kendo really enhanced my oral presentation and articulation. As I instruct kids and adults during my weekly Kendo seminars, I experienced wide range of oral expression, this means I realized there are many ways and styles of saying one thing to different persons. Since there are many competitors who are much older than myself, I would change and adapt the way I would instruct the kids and the adult. It may seem easy, but through this experience I was able to really enhance and capture my various communication techniques.

An another strength would be ability to give and receive feedbacks. Through friends, relationships, and various activities, I have learned that it is essential for one to be able to give and receive feedbacks towards each others. I am not hesitant to speak my mind to people and I think that reveals my true feeling towards the fact of discussion. Although I feel like I might be expressing myself rather harsh sometimes, I still keep my composure to receive and analyze my peers opinion also. When an individual can not communicate thoroughly by giving and receiving feedbacks, people would get frustrated which would not result positively. 

Weakness: Definite weakness that I recognize in myself is my inability to express my feeling with text. Although there are many things that comes into my mind when expressing my feelings orally, it seems like my brain panics and shuts down when I try to express myself with text. Since I recognize this weakness, I am improving gradually as my education proceeds. I realized you can not be a great writer over night, but you could gradually be a writer who could at least express their feelings with texts. 

Although I would not consider this as a weakness, but I must admit my ability to utilize appropriate technology is not where I want it to be. I am not in any means technologically handicapped but, I have not yet experienced enough situation that I had to use appropriate technologies. Since I finished my course series for my statistics, my ability to use spreadsheets and SPSS would be the strength of my appropriate technology, and my ability to use Microsoft Word is also a strength but it is so commonly used that I would be a little embarrassed to say Microsoft Word is my strength. Pass the fundamental skills to utilize appropriate technology, I am not confident making web pages, programming, or graphic design, in which you must learn and devote your time into the field.  

Teamwork: I must say the greatest strength that I have is teamwork. I would grade myself an A- for this section. This is because I am evolved in so many activities that requires teamwork, I am well adapted and well experienced for various conflicts and situations that might arise. 

Strength: My personality would contribute greatly for team success. Although I will accept and not throw a fit when I lose, I naturally have a winners mentality and would be very competitive to obtain the success. This is through my years of involvement and success with sports. I believe sports is one of the greatest tools to enhance your team skills, many individuals are great competitors, but only as a cohesive unit you could obtain success. An example of this would be my club soccer team that won the state championships and ranked best 16 also in the national championships. All of our 16 (including our bench) players had to support and communicate with each other on and off the court to have this success. 

Even though I prefer to be in a leadership role on a team, I could adapt and work well with others also. This could be seen once again on the club soccer team I presented. I was the youngest player out of the 16 players that was registered, and it was a different atmosphere then usual, where I was the one leading and advising my teammates. I had a difficult time listening and interpreting my teammates in the beginning, but I soon adapted and realized the role on the team that was leading me to success. 

Conflict management is also my strength in teamwork. Since I believe the ability to give and receive feedbacks are essential, I incorporate special focus in situations when conflicts arise. Also, my high school program of conflict managing helped my a lot with the situation also. I was one of the couple conflict managers in my high school, in which we would mediate any conflicts that are arouse by the students. I have mediated numerous conflicts ranging from gang fights to couples argument. 

 Weakness: Although I consider teamwork as my greatest strength, attitudes towards teamwork could occasionally be my weakness. This happens when my team does not succeed in what ever tasks we are trying to accomplish. When my teammates fail to accomplish a challenge, I tend to get frustrated repelling them instead of supporting them. I understand at times like those, teammates should stand by each other and support each other but, it is hard to kill my dissatisfaction towards failure. 

Self-Management: Although self-management would not be my strongest category, I would not consider this to be my weakness also. I would grade myself a B for this criteria. 

Strength: Work ethic and responsibility towards commitment would be a definite strength of my personality. Like I said earlier, I have a winners mentality and I would do any work necessary for how every period to succeed in the task. My career in Kendo would demonstrate my work ethic and commitment towards various responsibilities. When I first started kendo in 6th grade, I had many peer competitors that was around the same age range, but as the practice increasingly gets harder as we become older, more and more of my peers failed to continue with their dedication. As a result, I am the only one in my Dojo who has still continued practicing among my peers, and through this experience I could adjust my instructional skills towards the younger students that teach now.

Weakness: Understanding ethical issues would be one of my weakness in self-management. Even though I have a strong ethical standards, I would sometimes go against my ethical standards to help my peers. This is for example, giving small discounts for the people I know when it might not be allowed. I believe strong relationships and bonds towards your peers would ultimately be a great investment towards yourself, therefore, sometimes result in actions that are against my ethical standards. 

Leadership: Leadership is one of the strongest criteria that I am confident in. I would give myself a B+ for this criteria. As I determine myself in various activities, I observe many different leaders and experience, develop myself being a leader also. As I observe various leaders, I try to analyze the pros and cons of their leadership and try to incorporate the pros to my leadership role.

Strength: One of my strength for leadership is project management. Since I liked to be organized and limit ambiguous situation, I take projects in my hand and navigate the workload among our team. My aggressive action would motivate our team for a positive outcome and help the passive individuals to express their opinion for the groups progression. 

Being an Asian-American I understand to know that every culture has a different behavior and actions. I understand that even among different Asian cultures, behaviors vary greatly. With my communication skills, I am confident to learn and incorporate cultural behaviors to specific tasks. As I was raised in schools that were fairly diverse and continue education in Irvine,  I encountered many cultural differences and will keep on build my knowledge of diversity since I am an international studies major. 

The most strongest leadership skills that I have is the strategic thinking skills. I believe this skill is one of the skills that you naturally posses, rather than learned in classrooms. Of course, you could learn many strategic plans with education, but the creativity that is involved exceeding the strategic plans in classrooms comes from your own experience and knowledge. I believe this coexists greatly with conceptual skills.

Weakness: My weakness of the leadership position is my global issue awareness. Since I do not watch world news daily and research much of the activities that goes around the world, I consider myself unaware of global issues. I believe this is because of the life style and position that I am in currently. I am working locally and all my activities are local also. If I was a manager of a corporation that deals business around the world and is greatly influenced by global issues, I would be the first one to know what is going on around the world and be sure to come up with any strategic plan to go against it. 

Conceptual Skills: Conceptual skills is one of my inconsistent category. I would grade myself B- for this category. It is very hard to make great decisions and make great strategies every occasion, but I believe my conceptual skills could be improved to be more consistent for stable results.

Strength: When I make decisions I usually make good judgments because I weigh the pro and cons of the outcome.  I spend time to think about the ethical and economic issues revolving my decisions. I am also a very creative and innovative person, probably because I expose myself to new and different things all the time.   Due to my creativity I can usually find innovative ways of solving problems.  I spend time analyzing a problem, taking it apart until I reach a solution.

Weakness: My weaknesses come from decision making and gathering information.  When it comes to making decisions, most of the time I am indecisive. I think it might be do to the fact that I have poor  strategic planning skills.  If I were better able to predict future outcomes, my decisions would not be so hard to make.  I also realize that when I come to a decision it usually take a lot of time.

Professionalism: I believe professionalism is a part of common sense and ethical presentation of individual. It is hard to argue one can not look professional because that would be denying the physical appearance of the individual. Even if someone presents themselves unprofessionally during their leisure time, you could make an effort to present yourself professionally in those situation that you must. If you have a long hair, cut it. If you have a tattoo, hide it. If you only wear white "wife beater" tees, just wear a white collared shirt for one moment you need to.

Strength: I try my best to take any jobs seriously and professional as possible. I have no problem dressing in a suit everyday if I have to, I think suits are neat and attractive. With my experience in Kendo, I could speak to peers and strangers in a professional and sophisticated matter. My college experience developed myself to be comfortable socializing with strangers and be able to build relationship that might be useful in the future.

Final Paragraph: I would like to spend rest of my UCI experience effectively to gain more skills and experience in the business world. I also would like to create many connections and relationships that could be useful for later business. Since school and studying could give you a limit to your skills and experience, real business jobs and interns would greatly be a plus throughout my UCI career. 

I also have a special interests doing business in Japan, so I am planning on going abroad to strengthen my knowledge in Japan and to exchange ideas that are different from America also. I believe that more cultural awareness would give me more business chance around the world to succeeds in life.