Personal Mission Statement Research Articles

Embedding the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into the Career Curricula

The United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals provide a framework for addressing global challenges, linking environmental sustainability to individual and social well-being and social justice. This article explores how embedding the SDGs into career development can enhance career exploration and contribute to a sustainable future. Drawing on experiences from teaching a senior career capstone course, it highlights strategies for integrating the SDGs into career interventions. Key components include developing personal mission statements, researching organizations, analyzing future work trends, and conducting informational interviews. The article also presents evidence of the course's impact on students' thinking and provides practical advice for implementation.

Laying the Groundwork for a Fulfilling Career in Pediatric Infectious Diseases: The Transition from Fellowship to Faculty.

There are limited resources for guidance on the transition from fellowship into a new faculty role in pediatric infectious diseases. This review aims to address this gap and provides a framework for a successful transition that is composed of four essential pillars-1) stepping into your role, 2) finding your niche, 3) building your network, and 4) self-care-all of which are supported by strong mentorship/sponsorship and continual re-alignment with one's personal mission statement. In addition to providing general principles and guidance, this review also outlines specific steps that a junior faculty member can take to expand their influence and build a successful, fulfilling career in pediatric infectious diseases.

Moving the Needle Toward Fair Compensation in Pediatric Nephrology.

Remuneration issues are a substantial threat to the long-term stability of the pediatric nephrology workforce. It is uncertain whether the pediatric nephrology workforce will meet the growing needs of children with kidney disease without a substantial overhaul of the current reimbursement policies. In contrast to adult nephrology, the majority of pediatric nephrologists practice in an academic setting affiliated with a university and/or children's hospital. The pediatric nephrology service line is crucial to maintaining the financial health and wellness of a comprehensive children's hospital. However, in the current fee-for-service system, the clinical care for children with kidney disease is neither sufficiently valued, nor appropriately compensated. Current compensation models derived from the relative value unit (RVU) system contribute to the structural biases inherent in the current inequitable payment system. The perceived negative financial compensation is a significant driver of waning trainee interest in the field which is one of the least attractive specialties for students, with a significant proportion of training spots going unfilled each year and relatively stagnant growth rate as compared to the other pediatric subspecialties. This article reviews the current state of financial compensation issues plaguing the pediatric nephrology subspecialty. We further outline strategies for pediatric nephrologists, hospital administrators, and policy-makers to improve the landscape of financial reimbursement to pediatric subspecialists. A physician compensation model is proposed which aligns clinical activity with alternate metrics for current non-RVU producing activities that harmonizes hospital and personal mission statements.

University of Michigan Medical School.

University of Michigan Medical School.

Knowing Your Personal Brand: What Academics Can Learn From Marketing 101.

Academic departments are increasingly borrowing from the business world as they encourage faculty members to consider their personal mission, vision, and values statements in crafting their plans for engagement and advancement. Business organizations have long known that although doing the work necessary to refine these internal guideposts is important, failing to understand what consumers actually perceive about their product is detrimental. In the business world, perception is reality, and understanding the external shorthand of what consumers perceive-that is, the brand-is essential. Academic clinicians have a brand whether they take ownership of it or not. A faculty member's brand is both what their work (academic products) and how they do their work say about them to those who encounter it. In this Perspective, the authors explore the brand framework informed by marketing literature, and they outline a four-step process for faculty members to identify their own personal brands. The authors share how knowing one's academic brand can (1) help faculty members approach projects and other responsibilities through the lens of building or detracting from that brand, (2) provide a framework for determining how faculty members might best work within their institutions, and (3) help faculty members better understand and advocate their own engagement and advancement. The authors also share a paradigm for finding one's brand sweet spot at the intersection of passion, skill, and institutional need, and they propose how working outside of this sweet spot is a setup for failure.

The Role of Ethical Decision-Making Frameworks in Education and Practice for Professional Accountants

In the aftermath of the accounting scandals of the early 2000s, the accounting profession experienced increased legislation and rules regulating ethical behavior of professional accountants and accounting firms. This paper considers ethics education for professional accountants (particularly Certified Public Accountants (CPAs)) and concludes that there is a need for a broader, principles-based approach to continuing professional ethics (CPE) in the United States. This conclusion is supported by the recent trend toward principles-based global ethics standards and a review of the current professional standards and CPE requirements for ethics education for CPAs. We present tools, such as listing core values, creation of a personal mission statement, and the utilization of a comprehensive ethical decision-making framework, that can be incorporated into ethics CPE courses for CPAs, ethics education in academic programs, and ethical decisions in practice. We also present results from a survey about ethical dilemmas distributed to a sample of CPAs taking CPE ethics courses. Consistent with our expectations, we find that for ethical dilemmas in which professional standards more clearly apply and the facts were less ambiguous, the CPAs in the sample responded with higher average levels of ethicality and more agreement than for ethical dilemmas when professional standards were not as applicable and facts were more ambiguous. Finally, the paper demonstrates how a comprehensive ethical decision-making framework may be applied to ethical dilemmas, particularly those that cannot be satisfactorily resolved using a rulesbased approach and makes recommendations for future research.

Multidimensional Perspectives on the Faith and Giving of Youth and Emerging Adults

This volume includes eight studies of faith and giving for youth and emerging adults. Combined,we find organizational, cultural, institutional, educational, informal, familial, and developmentalinfluences on the shape and contours of youth and emerging adult faith and giving. These studiesprovide some challenges to popular interpretations of Millennials, and to the ways researchers typicallystudy religiosity and charitable giving. Accounting for the greater demographic and cultural diversityof Millennials may require changes to interpretations of young people by religious and spiritualleaders, parents, and scholars.

Use Your Science to Make America a Better Place

Use Your Science to Make America a Better Place

Tyson Toles on Leadership

Unless we learn to manage our own behavior more intentionally, how can we possibly lead others effectively? This is a descriptive case of one MBA student's views on core leadership principles, his personal charter, his personal mission statement, and his life's dream. The case therefore gives an opportunity to discuss how people need to develop the ability to lead their own lives in order to lead others. The material would work well with the technical note Personal Charters (UVA-OB-0801) and be suitable for any MBA or executive education classroom. Excerpt UVA-OB-0997 May 3, 2010 TYSON TOLES ON LEADERSHIP I have always considered myself a little bit different and have always tried to take a different path. Born to an African-American couple later in their lives, I stood apart from my siblings, who were substantially older. In the small rural town where I grew up, I stood apart from other children amid an eclectic mix of middle-class Anglos and Mexican migrants. I was often the “only one of my kind,” smart and friendly with classmates, but certainly distinct from them. Academics and school were fun, and the camaraderie was even more fun. It came as no surprise, then, that upon reaching high-school age, I asked my parents if I could attend Bellarmine College Preparatory, a Jesuit school considered to be the best school in our area across the board: academics, athletics, and community. Students from that school were always looked at a little differently. “He goes to Bellarmine,” one would hear whispered in hushed tones when a student walked by, as if the student were royalty. Ignorant of the fact that I would face five hours on a bus each day and (even worse) that it was an all-boys school, I had decided that I had to be there. My four years at Bellarmine were invaluable for my personal growth, enabling me to strive to be citius, altius, fortius—swifter, faster, stronger—toward college and beyond. From there, I was able to attend law school and spar intellectually with some of the world's brightest minds on issues that touch everyday life. Upon graduation, I practiced law as a civil litigator, but I made a discovery that would require a change in direction: I had not become a leader. . . .

Using Your Personal Mission Statement to INSPIRE and Achieve Success

Using Your Personal Mission Statement to INSPIRE and Achieve Success

Moral and Cultural Awareness in Emerging Adulthood: Preparing for Multi-Faith Workplaces

The study evaluates a pilot course designed to respond to findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) and similar findings reporting changes in U.S. life course development and religious participation through an intervention based on sociological theories of morality. The purpose of the study is to investigate the impacts of a business course in a public university designed to prepare emerging adults for culturally and religiously diverse workplaces. The intended outcomes are for students to better identify their personal moral values, while also gaining cultural awareness of the moral values in six different value systems: five major world religions and secular humanism. The study response rate was 97 percent (n = 109). Pre- and post-test survey data analyze changes in the reports of students enrolled in the course (primary group) compared to students in similar courses but without an emphasis on morality (controls). Qualitative data include survey short answer questions, personal mission statements, and student essays describing course impacts. Quantitative and qualitative results indicate reported increases in identification of personal moral values and cultural awareness of other moral values, providing initial evidence that the course helps prepare emerging adults for multi-faith workplaces.

Personal Values and Mission Statement: A Reflective Activity to Aid Moral Development

Personal values guide ethical decision-making behaviors. Business professors have traditionally addressed undergraduate ethics-based learning through a learn ethics approach using case studies, simulations, presentations, and other activities. Few offer a live ethics orientation requiring completion of a personal values self-assessment and creation of a personal values and mission statement through a reflective paper. Utilizing content analysis, the authors’ findings suggest that undergraduates’ narratives can serve as a cognitive developmental tool to actively engage ethical reasoning awareness and encourage moral formation and development within the learning environment.

You, Inc.

You, Inc.,” is you. It is the name of your own enterprise. The pride you have in your career and your ability to manage opportunities and advancements is an important component of the personal business and career plan for You, Inc. Our contention is that the best practices of solid business planning and marketing for business are applicable to the efforts you put forth in the continuous development and realization of your career plans. The adaptation of best practices from business planning—whether you are early in your career, a mid-careerist, or a veteran C-suite occupant seeking a career change—can greatly assist you in preparing to search for and identify viable opportunities. When developed effectively, your personal business plan becomes a detailed, practical approach to evaluating and implementing a strategy in support of your next career steps. To build that framework, however, you must have the ability to answer the vital questions of who, what, where, when, why, and how. These questions constitute some of the best and most simple planning tools available. The tools you adopt should compel you to (a) develop and clearly articulate your personal mission, vision, and values statements to allow for careful comparison to the mission, vision, and values of each opportunity; (b) identify resources—people, finances, and so on—needed to complete your search; (c) identify challenges and obstacles and how to circumvent them; (d) research the target opportunities within organizations, and research their leaders; and (e) review legal, regulatory, and certification requirements, such as state licensure and credentialing criteria. All these tools ultimately define and drive your career experience.

Convergent validity of a newly developed occupational performance assessment: A pilot study

Aim: This pilot study aimed to investigate the validity of an assessment for instrumental use of the mind: the Assessment and Intervention Instrument for Instrumentalism in Occupational Therapy (AIIIOT). The AIIIOT is used to guide individuals being assessed in developing personal mission statements to guide their lives. The individuals then assess themselves on perceived frequency, adequacy, satisfaction, and belief in ability to perform occupations that would help them achieve the stated missions. Method: The validity of the AIIIOT in evaluating occupational performance was investigated by comparing it with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM). Eleven people, aged 19–58 years, comprising of nine women and two men, participated in this convergent validity study. Data were gathered using the AIIIOT and the COPM. Pearson moment correlation and linear regression analyses were conducted to determine the convergent and predictive validities. Results: The participants' AIIIOT belief scores were correlated with the COPM performance and satisfaction scores, indicating that the AIIIOT belief scale had convergent validity. The AIIIOT belief scores were good predictors for the performance and satisfaction with performance of prioritised occupations as measured on the COPM. The AIIIOT adequacy scores were good predictors for the AIIIOT Frequency scores. Adequacy scores were also good predictors of the AIIIOT satisfaction scores. Conclusion: The above findings suggested that the AIIIOT had reasonable convergent and predictive validities. Further research with larger, more representative samples is indicated to confirm these findings.

An Elective Course in Leader Development

To describe the design, implementation, and evaluation of a leader-development elective course. Students discovered, reflected on, and enhanced their leadership skills by participating in leadership quality presentations, selecting and facilitating team-building activities for pharmacy-based scenarios, creating a personal mission statement, maintaining a journal, creating pharmacy performance matrices, facilitating leadership discussions and activities, and completing a variety of leader-development inventories to identify their strengths and opportunities for growth. Students successfully completed 98% of the assignments. The most valued topics and assignments involved validated instruments, which promoted self-discovery and development. End-of-course survey results revealed all students agreed the course achieved all learning outcomes except preventing conflict from escalating (9% disagreed) and applying knowledge of core values to achieve greater effectiveness in interpersonal communication (4% disagreed). Students perceived this leader-development elective course was effective in achieving learning outcomes. Assignments guided the creation of personalized leader-development tracks, ultimately promoting lifelong learning.

Focusing on needed change in pharmacy

Like an athlete spinning, pharmacists today can expect a little dizziness in their daily lives, keynote speaker Alex Varkey, PharmD, MS, told the 50 APhA officers and volunteers attending last month's Academies Leadership Meeting (ALM). The athlete maintains balance by watching a focal point during each spin, Varkey said, and pharmacists also need to focus on a specific goal during these turbulent times of change. In this issue of Pharmacy Today, that focus is described as economic survival by MTM Pearls columnist Randy McDonough, PharmD, MS, CGP, BCPS, FAPhA (page 35). I know many pharmacists agree with that. With increasingly thin—or nonexistent—margins in the dispensing operations of community pharmacies and pressures coming from vertical integration, recognition by payers of pharmacists as valued providers and diversified revenue streams cannot come a moment too soon. At ALM, Varkey described the provider status initiative as a "huge opportunity for pharmacy that hopefully will result in our being recognized as health care providers." He likened the effort to an Olympic torch race, but the Methodist Hospital pharmacy operations manager from Houston warned there's a fine line between passing the flame and burning out. For pharmacists such as McDonough who are on the front lines of change in pharmacy, that is the struggle. How can we run the next leg and pass on the flame to the pharmacists of tomorrow without ourselves burning out? It starts with having a personal mission statement—think of a ballet dancer's focal point—that can help pharmacists develop the needed resilience during tough times, Varkey told ALM attendees. In the year leading up to APhA2014 and at the meeting itself next March in Orlando, APhA is focusing on "The Power and Promise of Pharmacy." At ALM, APhA leaders had this concept in mind as they fine-tuned our strategic plan; engaged around securing consumers access to pharmacists' quality patient care services, often referred to as the provider status initiative; identified topics for the 2014 House of Delegates; looked at the needs of APhA's Academies, Sections, and Special Interest Groups; and made their own personal commitments for the coming year. The time is right: pharmacy really does have power and promise. With a common focus, we can effect change in our own practices and those of generations to come. Enjoy your May Today !

Yes, the Hokey Pokey Is What It’s All About!

You have accessThe ASHA LeaderFirst Person on the Last Page1 Sep 2012Yes, the Hokey Pokey Is What It’s All About! Liliana WilliamsMA, CCC-SLP Liliana Williams Google Scholar More articles by this author , MA, CCC-SLP https://doi.org/10.1044/leader.FPLP.17112012.39 SectionsAbout ToolsAdd to favorites ShareFacebookTwitterLinked In Liliana Williams I have a favorite quote: “Music is the universal language of mankind,” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I also have a personal mission statement: “Look beyond the disability, to the possibility.” My students with moderate-to-severe disabilities love activities involving music and dance. In my work as a speech-language pathologist, I have always used music and movement as a “carrier” for speech and language. I choose music and movement activities that are rich in receptive and expressive language concepts. My activities include auditory processing of sequences (put your left foot in, put your left foot out, now clap your hands, and do-si-do!), and instead of tedious artic drills we do “artic thrills” to popular tunes (singing buh buh buh or guh guh guh to the tune of “Baa Baa Black Sheep”—the students always giggle). One day I took my idea of learning to music one giant skip forward. I was watching the general education students perform their annual music show when I thought, “Hey, my students can do that, too!” I collaborated with my occupational therapy co-worker and we created an End-of-Year Music and Dance Show, starring our students. I was excited to start rehearsing, but many of the teachers and staff were wary and reluctant. Could their students really memorize songs and dance steps? Could their students handle performing in front of an audience? “Let’s try!” The initial rehearsals were definitely hectic; it was like herding cats. Students dashed abruptly off stage, “stimmed” on tinsel stars, and occasionally chewed on the curtains. Eventually, however, the rehearsals began to gel, and soon it was show time. Parents, grandparents, siblings, and friends poured into the cafeteria, hauling an astonishing array of video equipment. As the students performed, I watched the audience’s faces glowing with pride and joy. Most parents had never seen their children on stage before. After the students gave their final bows, they scampered off stage for family hugs and photos, and well-earned cookies. And now after this inaugural show, our music shows are held once a year. These shining stars learn to music every day. Author Notes Liliana Williams, MA, CCC-SLP, is a speech-language pathologist at the Santa Clara County Office of Education in San Francisco. Contact her at [email protected]. Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Advertising Disclaimer | Advertise With Us Additional Resources FiguresSourcesRelatedDetails Volume 17Issue 11September 2012 Get Permissions Add to your Mendeley library History Published in print: Sep 1, 2012 Metrics Downloaded 140 times Topicsleader_do_tagleader-topicsasha-article-typesCopyright & Permissions© 2012 American Speech-Language-Hearing AssociationLoading ...

The Value of a Personal Mission Statement for University Undergraduates

Despite the developmental significance of emerging adulthood as a time for critical self reflection and clarification of values, college and university education rarely includes self-assessment in curricula. Stephen Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a description of the importance of formulating a personal mission and critically reflecting on personal priorities. As part of a course in organizational psychology, students read about mission statements, their importance, and completed an accompanying workbook/journal. A key component of this exercise was for students to develop a personal mission statement. Students reported that they found this activity to be very helpful-- particularly regarding values clarification and how they were actually using their time. Students commented that because of the fast pace of their lives, they rarely had time to engage in this type of reflection and were appreciative of the structure provided by the reading, journal, and opportunity to discuss their goals and values.

Understanding who you are and how you work: the role of self-assessment

Routine and meaningful self-assessment is a key step in continuing professional development and can help guide professional decisions and improve effectiveness. Strategies for self-assessment include use of self-assessment tools such as personality or skills inventories, which provide insight into an individual's traits, attitudes, or interests. Strengths-based self-assessments focus on identifying and developing individual talents instead of improving weaknesses. A personal mission statement can be used to establish personal and professional values and goals. Results of such self-assessment activities can be applied to the workplace to enhance performance and better align work activities with individual interests or strengths. In addition to incorporating self-assessment into professional development activities and decision making, it should also be a routine part of day-to-day work activities. Strategies for routine self-assessment of teaching, scholarship, and service are presented.

Promise of professionalism: personal mission statements among a national cohort of medical students.

While historic medical oaths and numerous contemporary medical organizations offer guidelines for professionalism, the nature of the professional aspirations, commitments, and values of current medical students is not well known. We sought to provide a thematic catalogue of individual mission statements written by medical students nationally. In the Healer's Art elective course, students write a personal mission statement about their highest professional values. In 2006-2007, we randomly selected 100 student mission statements from 10 representative schools nationally. Three researchers coded content using a team-based qualitative approach and categorized the codes into major themes. Student mission statements were compared with classic medical oaths and contemporary professionalism guidelines. The mission statements were similar across different schools. Three major themes emerged, comprised of codes identified in 20% or more of the mission statements. The first theme, professional skills, includes dealing with the negatives of training, listening and empathy, growth and development. The second theme, personal qualities, includes wholeness, humility, and constancy/perfectionism. The third theme, scope of professional practice, includes physician relationships, positive emotions, healing, service, spirituality, and balance. Unlike the content of classic oaths and contemporary professionalism statements, the students' statements dealt with fears, personal-professional balance, love, nonhierachical relationships, self-care, healing, and awe as key to being a physician. In their personal mission statements, this national cohort of medical students described an expanded view of physicianhood that includes such elements as presence, love, and awe. Medical school curricula may require adaptation to support the personal aspirations of those now entering the profession.