Personal and Professional Values

Professional values are those values portrayed by professions and are generally acceptable in workplaces.  Someone is said to observe professional values if he or she;

• He is accountable for his behavior and ensures that his conduct is according to the set rules.
• Dresses according to the occasion, his or her dress conduct does not affect the under doings of other professionals.
• Values his or her work and works his level best to ensure that he delivers according to the requirements.
• He leads as an example through his general conduct; that is, he observes the values that come with professionalism.

Each individual has their own set of professional values, but you will mostly find that some organizations have their own set of values that will compel professionals to follow.   For the sake of helping out those professionals who are not aware of those universally accepted professional values, we will try to look at those values.   The first value is applying ethical standards in our conduct. This value is meant to encourage and remind employees that the reason they secured a position in the organization was not only because they can do the job, but also because they can successfully adhere to the ethical standards and apply them under doings (Poorchangizi et al. 2019).   Promote transparency and participation, and this value reminds the employees that they were not employed only to wallow around the organization and help others grow.  Promoting innovation and creativity, when we interact with many diverse people, we tend to acquire new knowledge, so many organizations encourage the employees to showcase their creativity through interaction with other employees and provide them with a platform to use to channel their ideas.  The values mentioned above are mainly encased in the mission statement of the organization.

Personal values are the values we hold dear to ourselves; those values control our lives to the extent that they affect our final decision-making in everything we do.  Some personal values we deem so important may be a bad fit for us, meaning our general behavior was eroded, and we did not even realize it. It takes another person with good morals to point out that we are messing up (Tomlinson & Jackson, 2021).  This section will be looking at those personal values that are a   good fit for us.  Determining whether a certain personal value is a good fit, we need to evaluate some criteria’s such as how many times the personal value made other people happy, not only just you, the times it made other people be proud of you, and finally, the times it made other people fulfilled and satisfied.  The personal values deemed to   be a good fit are;

• This is a good fit for personal value because it makes us come up with new ideas of inventions, and as will all know, inventions are good for everyone.
• This is a good fit personal value that encourages or motivates us to muscle through every situation, no matter how difficult it seems to be.
• Honesty is a good fit personal value that reminds us to always be true to ourselves and even others.
• This is a good fit personal value that keeps us in check of always showing affection to other people no matter the challenge they are going through.
• This is a good fit personal value that reminds us that we should never tire but always be hungry for achieving our set objectives.
• This is a good fit personal value that encourages us to always relate to other people’s feelings.

As earlier mentioned, we have personal values and professional values. It gets to a point where we find that the personal values are not agreeing with the professional values; that is, the conflict.  This section will evaluate those personal values that might conflict with the professional values in modern-day social work practice.  Personal values are a moral indicator; social workers may find themselves in a dilemma of what they ought to do and what they want to do.  We may find ourselves in a position where a social worker has the personal value of being creative. Still, since the professional value of the organization prohibits one from not wasting the organization’s resources to pursue some wild ideas, the employee sought to default from the value of being creative.

What we tend to call personal success may not sometimes be success to other people; this is so because we travel through this life in different intervals. Life sometimes takes a different toll from what we expected; my level of success as a social worker may be different from what the organization deems as success (Norland, 2019). I may want to continue pursuing a certain venture in the organization. Still, because the organization has already termed my previous accomplishment as success, they may end up barring me from proceeding with my ambitions only because there is a new job waiting on me as per the moral regulations of the company.  This will automatically result in a conflict on my values and my professional values.

The social work practice that I deem to be difficult for me to perform is justice and corrections, and this is because most of the individuals convicted are criminals. Hence, they have wanting behaviors; hence relating with them may seem to be a problem (Jennifer, 2020).  The other set of individuals I am supposed to interact with within this section of social work practice is trying to prevent going to jail. This set of people will make my social work practice difficult because some people cannot change,  and if at all you continue nagging them into doing something they are not cut out for,  they may end up inflicting me with bodily harm.

I am a strong believer in preserving my integrity and self-worth; if I get a small feeling that I am not wanted in a certain place or situation, I will gladly see myself out.  So, suppose all the individuals I am trying to help prevent from getting into jail continuously fail to hid my advice. In that case, I will walk out on them, not because I am rude, but because of the personal values I hold, that is, integrity and self-worth.  If the individuals heed to all my devices, they would have simplified my social work. Since understanding and inclusivity are also part of my values, I will gladly walk with them on their journey to freedom.

I plan to include the code of ethics in my plan is being considerate and converting differences into strengths. Since no man is an island and we all ought to take into account other people’s views during decision-making. This is so because the decisions made will also affect the other social workers; the code of ethics of being considerate seems to fit well with my values (Hilliard & Kovras et al. 2020).  Being in the capability to convert differences into strengths is a must code of ethics inclusion in my plan because I always believe that whenever more than five people with different opinions are gathered together, they can come up with innovative ideas.

The root of my problem with my social work practice is fear, and I am afraid of being hurt, be it emotional or physical.  When someone does not heed what I advise him or her to do, I will be hurt emotionally, and if he or she inflicts bodily harm on me, it will be physical.

The personal plan I have devised to deal with this deficit in my social work practice is associating with people frequently.  When I interact with different people, I will understand what they are going through, and relating to their problems would be easier, and I would not end up shutting them out.