The Life Styles Inventory Essay Example for Free

The Life Styles Inventory Essay The Life Styles Inventory (LSI) is a self-assessment questioning instrument that processes the information you input into the system into 12 different thinking styles. The LSI encourages applicants to understand and change bad behavior and find ways to improve them by examining one’s thoughts and feeling and why they do things the way they do. After taking the 240 self-assessment exam an individual knows exactly what they need to focus on in terms of their development style, because the assessment gives you raw feedback of the results. The results of the self-description is graphed on a circular diagram and table chart giving visual feedback of the individuals results as it relates to their thoughts and behavior in the 12 LSI styles. This summary is a custom-made developmental needs assessment, which then gives the individuals their strengths and areas they may need improvement in. My Life Style Inventory profile shows my primary style is Avoidance. My backup thinking style is dependent closely followed by Power falling within 5% referred to in the LSI Circumplex. As much as I hate to admit it I found the information in the finding extremely accurate with my primary style. I would definitely agree that Avoidance is in my nature. The information that it has under the avoidance style circumplex describes me to T. All my life I’ve been told that I hide my true feelings, that I shy away from situations that I may not want to get involved in because I make them bigger than they really are, and even that I have a fear of failure and rejection. However, I don’t fully agree with what it says about the Avoidance-Oriented Manager style for me. It states that that (â€Å"Managers scoring higher on this scale are often threatened by the responsibilities of their positions and tend to feel overwhelmed much of the time. By choosing to ignore problems in hopes that things will take care of themselves, they often obtain a false, temporary sense of security. †(LSI 2013). I agree with this statement to a certain extent. I might feel threatened by the responsibility of 1my position sometimes, but that is only because I want to do the job perfectly without any flaws, knots or wrinkles. As this may cause me to feel overwhelmed, it doesn’t make me ignore problems in hopes that things will take care of themselves it makes me strive that much harder to complete the job as best I can. I find myself as a more hands on: we will get it done together type manager because I feel people respect managers who don’t mind getting their hands dirty sometime. That’s not to say that I want delegate responsibilities throughout my team because I certainly don’t have a problem with doing that also. My first back up style is Dependent and I too much don’t agree with everything that was stated in this circumplex but again it kind of fit my personality. The circumplex states that (â€Å"The Dependent scale measures the degree to which we feel our efforts do not count. Dependent behavior originates in a need for security and self-protection: dependent people typically feel that they have very little control over their lives. † (LSI 201) It also stated that this style may be due to some type of life changes which I can see why it fits my personality. I was recently in a long term relationship with the first girl I ever loved and I believe due to that separation I can see how I may feel my efforts do not count and how I may feel I may feel that I have very little control over my life because in this relationship I really wanted to get back with my ex-girlfriend but we never did. And this even ties in with the Power management style which would be like my backup to my backup style. I believe my limiting style would be Self-Actualizing because this is where I scored my lowest score on the LSI circumplex. I believe that my low score in this area is what will possibly keep me from being the most effective manager possible. If I could change one behavior from this area I would change how it says I doubt myself and my ability to make a difference. I would like to have more confidence in my abilities and take the risks because with risk you get big rewards. This style that I would like to change is Achievement. I believe Achievement is one of the styles that I much have working for me because of all that I could gain. I also chose Achievement because this is where I scored one of my lowest scores on the LSI assessment and I agree with the reasoning the assessment had to offer. I think by me not scoring high in this assessment it increase my overall effectiveness in the organization because Achievers have increased opportunities for promotions, higher salary levels, more respect from others and the ability to effectively lead others just to name a few and these are all thing that I want the gain within an organization. My personal style is more laid back. I have a really nonchalant attitude toward most things. I am not really confrontational at all I am more like a mediator. I like to think of myself as an open person accepting of others and very friendly because I have a nature of wanting to be accepted. I feel my management style is somewhat different though. First and for most I demand the respect of all my employees as a manager because I want no misunderstanding what our roles is. Once you start one what you can’t change styles in the middle of the race, I believe you will lose a lot of respect from employees that way even fellow coworkers, top management etc. Also as a manager I feel that I am loyal, honest and fair. I believe that hard work is very important and I always strive to complete assignment at any cost. After I have established my roles as a manager and thing are running smoothly I then let my personality slip into the mix. Once I feel more comfortable with employees I am able to joke around and allow for a un-tense work environment. As I am not a manager at this time I recall my previous positions as a supervisor at my last job as a case manager and as a resident assistant over a floor of 35+ college men. In my job I also strived to complete assignments because I want the team to look good when other department were falling short of the quota. At the same time I was pretty cool with my team because I wanted a non-hostile work environment. My personality was shaped throughout the course of my life. I was raised by a single parent my mother and I was pretty sheltered. I was raised to do the right thing in a Christian household and to do unto others as I would want them to do unto me. I feel that the way I was brought up, my religion and culture definitely plays a part in my personality. I feel my mother sheltering me relates to my need to be dependent on others. I feel that the way I was brought up in a Christian household relates to me thinking the way I do causing me to be a little narrow-minded when it comes to certain issues. Looking back on this assignment I really feel like I learned a lot from the LSI. This experience helped me understand my style a whole lot better and makes me what to take hat I have learned and apply it to my life to make me a better manager. With what I have learned I definitely feel this assignment will influence my personal, academic and professional development because of what I know now. I’ve learned that this chart is not indefinite and that my styles can change if I work on it. The areas that I may feel are character flaw I can work on them and potentially fix them and make me better manager. One goal that I hope to work on is opening up more and not shying away from responsibility. I feel that if I work on these goals I would be a good manager.

Aristotle, Connectionism, and the Brain :: Philosophy Psychology Papers

Aristotle, Connectionism, and the Brain Can a mass of networked neurons produce moral human agents? I shall argue that it can; a brain can be morally excellent. A connectionist account of how the brain works can explain how a person might be morally excellent in Aristotle's sense of the term. According to connectionism, the brain is a maze of interconnections trained to recognize and respond to patterns of stimulation. According to Aristotle, a morally excellent human is a practically wise person trained in good habits. What an Aristotelian theory of ethics and a connectionist theory of mind have in common is the assumption that the successful mind/brain has the disposition to behave appropriately in appropriate circumstances. According to Aristotle, the good person knows the right end, desires and chooses to pursue it, and recognizes the right means to it. Thus the good person's brain must be able to form certain moral concepts, develop appropriate behavioral dispositions, and learn practical reasoning skills. I shall arg ue that this collection of the brain's cognitive capacities is best accounted for by a connectionist theory of the mind/brain. The human condition is both material and moral; we are brain-controlled bodies with ethical values. My essay seeks to understand the relationship between our brains and our values, between how the brain works and how we make moral decisions. How can the brain be a mind, a conscious person? Recently, some philosophers have argued that human consciousness and cognitive activity, including even our moral cognition and behavior, can best be explained using a connectionist or neural network model of the brain (see Churchland 1995; Dennett 1991 and 1996). (1) Is this right? Can a mass of networked neurons produce moral human agents? I shall argue that it can; a brain can be morally excellent. A connectionist account of how the brain works can explain how a person might be morally excellent in Aristotle's sense of that term. 1. Connectionism The brain receives input and somehow transforms it into output. How does it do it? In part because of the extraordinary technological feats achieved using digital processing computers, the brain has often been interpreted as a symbol manipulator and its cognitive activities as the transformation of symbols according to rules. By contrast, recent successes with parallel distributed processing computers have encouraged a connectionist theory of mind which regards the brain as a pattern recognizer and its cognitive activities as the transformation of neuronal activation patterns; however, these pattern transformations are not rule-governed processes, but straightforwardly causal processes in which networked units (neurons) excite and inhibit each other's activation level.

Ethical and psychological Egoism Essay

Egoism is the theory suggesting that the motivation and goal of a particular action is the self. Egoism in a general context has two variants, normative and descriptive. The concept of the descriptive variant suggests that egoism as a factual description of human affairs and cannot be described any other way (Moseley, 2006). The normative side gives a conception that individuals should be motivated, without consideration to their current state of motivation (Moseley, 2006). The two variants conflict in principle alone which insinuates a debate on the rightness or wrongness of particular human acts throughout history. Ethical Egoism Ethical Egoism is a normative ethical standpoint which implies moral people should act in accordance to their self-interest. Ethical egoism has three formulations; personal, individual and universal (Waller, 2005). Individual ethical egoism stresses that a person should do what is most beneficial to them (Waller, 2005). Personal ethical egoism suggests that actions should be grounded on a person’s own self-interest without concern to what others around him should do, while the concept of universal ethical egoism holds that everyone should act in the basis of their own interests (Waller, 2005). All in all, virtues that suffice an individual’s self-interest is egoistic, otherwise it is non-egoistic (Waller, 2005). The strong version of Ethical egoism suggests that the promotion of an individual’s own good is moral, not promoting one’s own good is deemed as immoral (Moseley, 2006). The weak version still holds that morality is the promotion of one’s own good, however, it does not necessarily mean that it is immoral (Moseley, 2006). There are just implications of conditions that the evasion of personal interest has a possibility to be moral (Moseley, 2006). Psychological Egoism Psychological Egoism, on-the-other-hand, posits that every human action has an underlying selfishness, and even altruistic acts have inner selfish motivations (Hazlitt & Cook, 1991). Psychological Egoism is a form of egoism under the descriptive variant, suggesting how people should go about themselves. The principles of psychological egoism and its assumtive nature are acquainted to several criticisms that are very crucial (Moseley, 2006). The fallacy of Psychological Egoism  The detractors of Psychological Egoism ground its fallacy on the rejection of the notion that the theory is flawless, that it is structured in such a way that it cannot be approved or disapproved (Hazlitt & Cook, 1991). It is evident on the Psychological egoists’ advocacy that altruism is a mere act of acquiring a good feeling for doing altruistic actions. In a broader scenario, the person doing an act, either selfish or unselfish, is doing what interests him or her which makes the act ultimately selfish (Moseley, 2006). In another note, the fallacy of psychological egoism lies in the suggestion that people only do what makes them feel good. In this context, the description of a Psychological Egoist may project an unselfish person (Moseley, 2006). Furthermore, there is confusion in the concept of psychological egoism found in the object of desire and the subsequent results of the fulfillment of that desire (Moseley, 2006). The Difference between Psychological and Ethical Egoism It is of vital importance to distinguish the two from one another since the two forms of egoism conflict in advocacy, motivation and goal. Ethical Egoism per se, postulates that the promotion of an individual’s own good conforms to the standards of morality (Waller, 2005). In contrast to the Psychological Egoist claim that focuses on how people act, not on how they ought to act. The doctrine of motivation for Ethical Egoism lies within self-interest, while Psychological Egoists are motivated by the rational self-interest, even in an act that tends to be altruistic in nature. Self-Interest and Selfishness Self-interest is defined as an agent that stimulates an individual’s concern over a particular issue or matter. Self-interest is the element that governs human action. Selfishness, meanwhile is the devotion to satisfy one’s own end and interest. It is simply an individual’s concern for personal welfare. Philosophically, the two terms may be synonimous to each other as the two terms may refer to the placement of personal needs above others, however, self-interest and selfishness can be deemed independently as self-interest is a subjective element in a person’s perspective which can be directed to the self or for others.

Customer Service A Successful Business Essay - 1828 Words

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