Why personality development is important for all students
The importance of personality development is felt in schools and colleges, now more than ever before. The chief reason is the very dynamic changes that have already taken place in the social and business environments. This article is an attempt to discuss a few of these aspects in some detail.
Introduction
Personality Development is an aspect that is totally different from academic excellence. Personality Development comes into focus in today's conditions, for a number of reasons. It is for these reasons that it becomes very important.
The main reasons are: a) The need to train everyone from a very young age b) Soft-skills are absolutely essential in today's world c) Personality Development is a complex web of inter-related variables d) Out-of-the-Box thinking is also essential in today's conditions and e) Personality development is a continuous process.The need to train from a very young age
Personality Development starts when the child is able to think on his or her own. This normally occurs when school students enter the eighth standard.
The student should be adequately exposed to the external world and then made to engage in group activities that go far beyond mere academics. For example, if a group of three boys and three girls of the eighth standard are made to refer to the internet on the latest developments in the Indian Banking Sector and then made to make a PowerPoint presentation to all students, the particular group of students would learn the value of teamwork, of relating to each other and then making a good PowerPoint presentation. When such positive developments take place in the minds of the school children, the same children will become highly versatile in all aspects of personality development, when they enter college and then take up jobs in their careers later.Soft-skills are essential in today's world
Global companies such as Infosys Technologies, TCS, and so on today require managers who are or can be trained to become effective team players and can effectively and clearly express their ideas. The need to articulate ideas and also pick up communication and presentation skills are extremely important as well. Unless students and teachers understand the larger context of personality development, nothing much can happen. This is all the more necessary in the semi-urban and rural environments and hence the need to make maximum improvement in such environments. The colleges need to really make several initiatives to enable students to put in their best efforts to pick up the required skills.
Soft skills are extremely essential in today's world for success. There is conclusive evidence that only those with effective personalities are effective performers and that being just academically brilliant with the best of grades or marks in the degree or post-graduate levels alone, is not enough at all. Personality Development is a complex web of inter-related variables
There are quite a number of variables associated with Personality Development. The need to be emotionally mature and handle any crisis with confidence and tact in today's conditions is as important as being economically independent.
This happens in formal offices and it also happens in the social and family lives of any adult. For, the roles in the offices and in families are totally different. The role of the parent becomes even more complex and this is also related to personality development. For example, as a parent, the ability to be creative in spotting any new opportunity to invest money more productively and save for the long-term is so important. Similarly, the need to take care of the educational needs of children in a very complex world is a task that requires tact, patience, endurance, and tolerance. All these qualities do apply to any individual at any point in time, and hence personality development is key to acquiring such qualities at school and at college. For the girl students, the question of personal safety is also very important.
In fact, there are a number of industrial organizations and IT organizations that give maximum importance to training that is focused on developing these qualities, through a number of applied behavioral science training programs. Out-of-the-Box thinking is also essential in today's conditions
Entrepreneurship as an option is not reserved only for the rich. Even the lower-middle-class people today aspire to become entrepreneurs, particularly in the service sector, where there is tremendous scope for success. Today, the need for out-of-the-box thinking far outstrips any other need.
Such out-of-the-box thinking goes far beyond academics. Even when one is a student, in a college, the need for out-the-box thinking is maximum. For example, an MBA student who specializes in Marketing can easily find out the buying patterns of customers in a particular gated community, who purchase a range of goods from Amazon. By analyzing what goods they buy, and then relating to the purchasing power of the buyers, the clear patterns of buyer behavior can be analyzed. The scope for such intensive research will always stand the MBA graduate in good stead, as companies always want only such people who are pro-active in acquiring knowledge;Personality development is a continuous process
There is no end to personality development. It should start at a very young age, as already emphasized when the child is in the eighth standard, and then proceed for a lifetime. It becomes vital to know the need and then specialize in getting the "what to do" nitty-gritty in any given situation. Educational institutions ought to understand what is at stake and do all that they can at any point in time. Conclusion
The importance of Personality Development, along some dimensions, has been discussed in the aforesaid paragraphs. Given the tremendous complexity of our times.it has become essential to take Personality Development very seriously. The need to get this done is an urgent task for all schools and colleges.
This is a world full of competition and only the fittest will survive. Knowing the subject and doing things properly alone may not assure you a happy journey in your career. How you manage yourselves and how you manage others will play an important role in this.
The parents and the teachers play an important role in the personality development process of the child. If a teacher can explain how one should conduct himself/herself in various situations to the students, that will make a big impact on the behaviour of the students. Once a way is developed, changing it is a difficult task. So the parents and teachers should give due importance to the personality development of the kids from their early age itself.