Seventy-Eight Behaviours for Managers and Leaders

This morning a colleague invited me to fill in one of these anonymous 360-degree feedback forms. Being so acutely aware of my own “development points” I never really feel qualified to feed back on other’s professional behaviours, but people seem to keep asking me! While ticking the little boxes I had to work at staying focused, instead of becoming self-conscious of my own imperfections brought to mind by the questionnaire!

Even though my aim is to “downshift” and escape the corporate environment (often one of the most challenging environments in which to develop these behaviours) I will always have to be able to collaborate effectively, and will always want to behave in a way that is constructive and respectful of those around me. It still struck me that the list is a pretty thorough and proven memory aid for achieving that. Here is the list:

Links: Fatigue and lifestyle entrepreneurship

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Become a Lifestyle Entrepreneur at CultivateGreatness.com

Work worries: Monday 7th April 2008

• Reporting day
  • accountable/responsible for problems I have already tried to avoid
  • when people say “best isn’t good enough” I don’t have an answer
    • defeated – think nothing I say will make any difference
  • not raising problems, or not challenging when problems are dismissed
  • trying to fix them all myself
  • accepting being fobbed off
  • not getting “client” buy-in to difficult messages
  • doubting own abilities
    • means excess time for me
    • not escalating because I’m worried it’ll reflect on me

There seems to be lots of doubt going on here. Could use more balance; helpful to look at what I could have done differently but also needs to be balanced with what others could also have done differently. Might be useful to read “The Now Habit” again.

Money

This morning I totted up the costs that will be incurred in Jan/Feb time by attending the TEFL course I’d like to do:

Required 
Air fare (2 x one way) - £900
Cost of TEFL course - £1146
Cost of living while on TEFL course (accom & food) - £700
Mortgage while waiting for a tenant - £1000
Storage - £100 (should cover two months)
Buffer (for emergencies and unanticipated costs) – £500
Total: £4346
Minus £700 that could be saved in Dec & Jan: £3646

Divided by the next 8 months: £455

I do know that there’s no way right now I can afford £455 per month for the next 8 months. So this is a problem. I’ve not found the solution yet, but it is good to at least have identified the problem with enough time (perhaps) to do something about it.

One option is to go abroad without the TEFL cert. In fact, that would be by far the simplest and cheapest solution. But we’ve all seen what happened to Nova. I don’t want to find myself out on a limb a long way from home. And much as its tempting to trim any slack out of the figures, it will already be tough adjusting from a fairly comfortable budget down to a minimalistic one – its important to be realistic.

Argh. Radical solutions may be necessary. I’m glad I looked at this before I bought furniture and signed up for the next dance class.

SOAS MA Social Anthropology

The SOAS MA in Social Anthropolgy is a course I’ve looked at a couple of times before. It claims to be a suitable conversion course in a subject I think would capture my imagination while still allowing enough variety in applicatoins to stop me getting bored.

Recently I had started thinking the MA in Pacific Asian Studies may be a better bet, since it would allow me to focus on both Chinese and Japanese studies, but I realised today that the Social Anthropology syllabus also includes these two as options.

Unlike the MA in Anthropological Research Methods the Social Anthropology course doesn’t qualify for ESRC funding, but there are some bursaries and scholarships that may apply. Questions that remain are:

• Am I likely to win a bursary/scholarship when my first degree is not in a related (or even social sciences) subject?
• Would the course be adequate preparation for a research degree at SOAS (since the research degrees page specifically mentions the research MA, not the others)
• Would taking both the Chinese and Japanese course options be an acceptable combination?