Managing Self and Personal Skills

Managing self and personal skills is a behaviour that is about taking control of and responsibility for your own professional development. In many ways, all of the activities offered by the AUA relate to this behaviour, as they all give you the chance to develop yourself outside of the opportunities available in your role and through your institution. Therefore, the opportunities mentioned below are simply a few of the most relevant options available if you are looking to develop this behaviour.

One aspect of this is the ability to take control of your own development and to organise your time and resources effectively. If you’re looking to enhance your skills and professional practice, then you might like to consider applying for the AUA’s PgCert in Higher Education Administration, Management and Leadership. The PgCert is a self-directed, independent learning programme and so requires you to learn to manage your studies around other work and personal commitments.

Another important aspect of ‘Managing self and personal skills’ is developing and maintaining personal networks of contacts. Whilst it may not always be practical or possible to meet with people face-to-face, the AUA forums allow you to connect with peers online, meaning you can always access support from colleagues in the sector. You can find out more about our forums by visiting our webpage.

Keeping up to date with what is happening in your professional area is another key part of ‘Managing self and personal skills’. The AUA regularly publishes blogs written by colleagues in the sector about the exciting initiatives they are working on. You can sign up to receive a weekly roundup of all the blogs we’ve published, so you can have all the latest developments in one place and never have to worry about missing a post. Similarly, we are always looking for new content, so if you something you’d like to write about then check out our website to find out how you can get involved.

As we have explored, this behaviour focuses on being proactive about your own development, be that by networking, keeping yourself informed of developments in your professional area or taking control of your learning through self-directed study. However, as previously mentioned, because ‘Managing self and personal skills’ is about having an awareness of your own behaviour and a focus on enhancing personal skills, there are many more opportunities offered through the AUA that can help you to strengthen this behaviour whilst also focussing on your own individual development needs. What’s more, you can record your development activity in your MyAUA area of our website, allowing you to easily keep track of your progress.