Self-Assessment, Career Goals, and Ethics in Business Education

Self-Assessment and Personality Profiling

According to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (1997), "Self-awareness includes the competencies of emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. Skill in knowing about personal strengths and limits and self-worth are related to these competencies." Various professional assessments have provided useful insights into my own personality characteristics and professional strengths.

For example, according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, my personality type is ISTJ (Introverted, Sensing, Thinking, Judging), which I find valuable in assessing my personality style and strengths. The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation-Behavior (FIRO-B) assessment, a tool used for improving working relationships and individual effectiveness, places me at the midway point between "need for inclusion" and "need for total control." Additional assessments indicate personality characteristics including self-confidence, adaptability, initiative, empathy, service orientation, and ability in conflict management.

Aspirations for a Terminal Degree

In both educational and work endeavors, I have been fortunate to gain insights from a variety of tests, inventories, and personal characteristic instruments. Each has offered information valuable in formulating goals that suit my abilities and potential.

Underlying my professional goals is an aspiration I would have pursued even without the benefit of formal assessments: to follow in the spirit of Father Patrick F. Healy, S.J. (1834–1910), the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in the United States. As Father Healy inspired others to pursue learning — for their own benefit, for the benefit of society, and for the joy of learning itself — I also wish to make a positive difference in the lives of others within an educational setting.

Ethics, Business Education, and the Role of the Educator

Like Father Healy, who has been called the "second founder" of Georgetown University, I would like to inspire interest in and love for education, particularly in the area of business education — and for minority group members and women in particular — from within the federal government's Senior Executive Service (SES).

I believe that, especially in today's competitive world and business environment, my goal to inspire business employees toward a passion for ethics is worthy of Father Healy's own example — and one toward which I can apply my past business and military experience. The less-than-positive public image that business has acquired, due to recent scandals, bankruptcies, and incidents of accounting fraud, has cast both business and business education in an unfortunate light. For that reason, I believe business education today, more than ever, must include not just the teaching of procedures and processes, but also of ethics. Business education must address not only "bottom line" issues but also the ethical dimensions of how that bottom line is created. Responsible future business leaders must begin to incorporate ethics into business practices and inspire those they influence to do likewise. Both today's and tomorrow's business leaders must aim to be exemplars of ethical conduct among those they supervise and manage.

Having spent over 23 years as a working professional and as a retired member of the United States Army, I have on numerous occasions found myself in the role of "educator" within organizations. Even early in my military career, I understood — at first intuitively — the influence, positive or negative, that educators typically have on the attitudes, actions, and outlooks of those they teach. I have since come to believe even more strongly in the many positive effects that an inspiring, conscientious, and ethically minded educator can have on those he or she teaches. I also recognize the potentially enormous benefits of business leaders being willing to educate as well as lead.

An optimally effective educator, whether in an academic or professional setting, can engender not only a passion for learning in students, but also a willingness to act responsibly and ethically — not only in the classroom, but in life. Using that influence, an educator or business leader in a position to shape others may encourage them not only to learn and work at their best, but to be their best.

I have been very fortunate to have been taught by excellent teachers, many of whom could both explain and inspire. It is well known that individuals who set definite goals — educationally, professionally, and personally — are most likely to succeed. Carolyn Nilson, author of How to Start a Training Program, observes that today, all across America, "companies are rediscovering the enormous potential in individual employees" (1998). That suggests tomorrow's business graduates may well find satisfying professional niches if they are educationally prepared to fill them and willing to continually adapt and learn on the job. Already, many companies have begun to invest far more in inspiring the personal best among workers — a dramatic shift from the purely "bottom line" business mentality of the past. In keeping with that new emphasis, however, employees must themselves pay careful attention to more than just profits and their own careers. Those who thrive in the future will be those who not only possess sound educational backgrounds and critical thinking skills, but who also demonstrate a commitment to society's well-being, including a belief in ethical business practices.

Increasingly, an employee-development approach to workplace culture and practices is the method of choice for CEOs and human resource departments alike. For employees to fully benefit from this shift, however, they still need to be as well educated, trained, and prepared as possible. Education and training will play increasingly pivotal roles in equipping workers for the demands of today's and tomorrow's leaner work environments.