MGT601 Dynamic Leadership Plan

Introduction

Leadership Development Plan

Student’s Name

Institution Affiliation

Contents

Leadership Development Plan. 3

Introduction. 3

International Change Theory. 4

Imagining your ideal self and creating a personal vision. 4

Comparing my Ideal Self and my Real Self. 6

Developing a learning Agenda and plan. 7

Practicing desired changes. 8

Five-factor personality questionnaires. 9

Conclusion. 12

Leadership Development Plan

Introduction.

Leadership development plan refers to the steps an individual intends to take to be a better leader which may include skills to be improved, responsibilities to be handled and tasks to be completed. Leadership analysis initially focused on leaders alone since it was based on the belief that some individuals are natural leaders because they pose unique characteristics from the other individuals (Zipp, 2019). researchers later shifted their emphasis to the behavior of leaders as the basis of their analysis because the traits did not have a predictable value. Leader traits investigation has however been effective since researchers have developed better theories and measures of traits. Personal attributes like energy level and emotional maturity are now linked to effective leadership. Traits such as the need for power and achievement have been connected to effective managers. Managerial success is now linked to interpersonal, cognitive, and technical skills.

Being a leader in life is the most admirable apex point in the life of a human being. Leadership in life begins by one being a master and a leader of his/her own life. Being a leader of my own life is what motivates me and align my life towards the desirable point. A leadership plan is very key to keep alive the leadership desire in the life of a person. The Plan outlines those steps that one intends to take to become a good leader. There is always a desirable point in the life of every person. I have always been looking forward to being a leader in my life, not for the basis of leading other people but most importantly to lead myself because this is what will shape my life to become a leader to others. My Leadership Development Plan is a parameter that I use to measure my progress in developing towards my Vision of being a great Leader. Through this being able to know my Strengths and exploit them and also identify my weaknesses and work on them for changes.

Therefore, am going to build my Leadership Developing Plan using the five stages of International Change Theory. This Theory was developed by Richard Boyatzis, Ph.D. This theory outlines the five common-sense steps that an individual need to follow and make a durable change in one’s self. This Theory is the most ideal in my development Plan because it begins by first of all highlighting my vision. From the beginning can know and understand my final destination. Therefore, this model now helps me to come up with a strategy that is going to help me achieve my vision.

International Change Theory

Imagining your ideal self and creating a personal vision.

I t has been my desire to be a great leader in my life. Therefore, I came up with a Leadership Development Plan for 5 years. I took that period of 5 years because that was a conducive period, of course, that was when I was pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree in Agricultural Economics at the University then in my Second Academic Year. Therefore, that time was covering two years of degree completion and three years in the employment market. I decided to do that after realizing that most of the decisions I was making on my own so I wanted to come up with the best that will shape my life to become a greater leader in my life and be a person of substance in the society. This is the best thing to come up with in life because it helped me put aside those things that were not necessary for my pursue of a great leader.

Therefore, I had to do insight into what it takes to be a great leader. I came up with a Leadership Development Plan. It includes;

Definition of what generally makes a Great Leader.

I came up with a list of leadership skills that are the qualities of a good leader. Includes; ethical behavior, honest, being able to communicate a vision, being creative, and able to navigate in a difficult and unpredictable situation, sense of integrity, sense of command, sense of motivation. Therefore, I realized can identify what it takes to be a good leader and I desired to have those qualities. By identifying them then it will give me a simple task to assess myself and understand what I have and what I lack. This helped me to understand that to be a great leader it begins by making a decision a go for it. I used to look at this great leader and analyze their lives only to find out that right from their tender age they were out to become leaders.

They began to acquire those leadership skills through participation in schools’ debates, of course, that will make them eloquent speakers and have confidence. That also became my aspiration because at school is a good place of intermingling and socializing with people from different cultural values, different ideologies. Therefore, I thought that having such a desire from school was the best place. According to the Great Man theory and Trait Theories they state that great leaders are born and not developed. The unique traits of great leaders, so I began to compare myself if actually, I have those traits. But I also focused on Behavioral Theories which states that leaders can be made.

The ideal self is essential where you want to see yourself in the future and this drove me to come up with a personal vision. To formulate a personal vision, I also wanted to know what traits do I have. Therefore, I had to assess myself. This leads to the next 2^nd step in Leadership Development Plan.

Take a self- assessment.

Self-assessment helps a leader to know if fit to be a good leader and if am not what he’s lacking (Xuetong, 2019). In this stage, I had also to inquire from my close friends. Then I came to realize that I also bear some of the most important traits of a good leader. Such as integrity, humility, influence and positivity, Confidence but lacked Communication, accountability, delegation, resilience. Therefore, this gave me an upper hand to know better what I lack and I should work on it.

Identify my core values

These core values are the principles that I use to make decisions and define integrity and ethics. They include; competition, helping others, humor, knowledge, loyalty, wisdom, enjoyment, friendship, personal development. These core values are very important because they are the ones that drive my life towards my achievements. Therefore, using these core values, I was able then to work on them towards achieving the desirable leadership.

Write a Personal Vision Statement.

A personal vision statement reflects personal traits and core values (Zipp, 2019). It, therefore, answered the question “who am I and what is my higher calling”. This stage focused on what I wanted to be in terms of character traits, what I wanted to achieve, the principles I use to make decisions big and small. My vision statement was ‘to become a great and competence leader’.

Comparing my Ideal Self and my Real Self.

My ideal self is my desirable future and my Real self is what I am at the moment. Therefore, this is a comparison where now I had to work on the variability. Therefore, through the self-assessment that I made, I was able to pick out what I was lacking and wanted to make a change. Also, I realized the values that I had and were very important that I had to keep them. Therefore, I developed the next step in my Leadership Development Plan.

Developing a learning Agenda and plan

Once I had a vision for the future and an accurate sense of my current self it was then time to develop a plan of how to move toward my vision. This was to align the reality with the vision. In this category, I had to include other stakeholders. Therefore, I began to attend some workshops which were organized by the university then. Some of this workshop was meant to empower young men with business skills, to make them empower their entrepreneurship skills. Therefore, I got a chance to learn more, I used to encourage myself to ask questions and with time I found my courage to stand before people and manage stage fright now moving from one level. In this workshop I also learn on time management, business management skills, therefore these workshops became one of my learning strategies.

I used my own Academic Research Project. In this one, it helped so much because I was supervised by a professor in my department who was very strict. Therefore, I ensured I went to the field to look for primary data. Since I loved to research and I wanted to do my best out of it. I was doing research in certain Agribusiness Farm called Abma., therefore my research study was to analyze and evaluate various enterprises in the Abma Farm and come up with a recommendation. Therefore, this helped to personal skills such as managing personal stress, developing self-awareness, and solving problems since this work was individual. I had also to develop good personal relations because I was to face the different managers of those enterprises and ask them questions, and also ask for cash inflow and outflow sheets. It was a very learning ground to me because each time I had to approach I ensured I develop very personal contact with them so that I could get the best of the information I wanted for analysis.

These were my learning strategies to become a greater leader I took advantage of the resources at disposal at that time. After the field, I used to approach my supervisor to present before him my work. It was a very awesome moment because we used to sit down and share ideas. At the end of the study, the highest grade of (A) in that research study.

I also had a strategy to enter into various organizations around to empower myself with interpersonal skills like coaching and counseling, influential and motivating others, being able to manage conflict. Therefore, I entered in HIV awareness movement. This was running by some students who were the leaders. Therefore, we used to meet and given those skills.

That was also a good field to empower me with Group skills such as delegating and empowering, building effective teams, and team working, because we used to work in teams and after receiving the skills I had to go out and teach others. That was the mandate of the movement.

Practicing desired changes

In this stage of the model, I needed to experiment with new behavior. One you are moving in the right direction it was my time to practice. This was to help me turn the changes I had made into habits. This step was to find out stimulating ways to learn then test my new skills, knowledge, and attitudes.

Therefore, after my studies, I decided to begin a business. I used to supply carrier bags. I began small with a little capital because I wanted to see growth. It was not an easy thing because I was new to customers so I had to introduce my business to them. I used to do delivery myself. Sometimes you go customers and found that already they had received supplies. I was new to them so there is no way that customer relationships could be established instantly. Therefore, it required a lot of patience, endurance, and have a hope that tomorrow will be different from today. With time I began to gain that customer relationship because sometimes I was forced to reduce the price to attract them. I also ensured I do door to door delivery because I aimed to create that customer loyalty. Then I saw with time even my business share began to increase because I began to identify new customers in the process.

My business began to grow in scale; therefore, it became interesting. In this, I was out to acquire technical skills in leadership such as project management, personnel management, making policies, making presentations, and budgeting. It became a key area of study in my life because I had the objective of expanding my business and also make a good profit that can sustain my welfare. Therefore, those became my driving factors and I became an enthusiast in the whole ordeal.

Five-factor personality questionnaires

The five factors that I desire to inhibit within me fully are the elements of neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. The quality of extraversion is deep-seated in my personality but as and when I am progressing towards the overall grooming, I am quite curious to create a leadership development plan that brings out my inner talents and positive traits. I would go with the factors of agreeableness and conscientiousness which would hence strengthen my plan.

Leadership skills.

Developing leadership skills is a continuous process that needs to be sharpened throughout a person’s career (Sousa, 2019). To develop my leadership skills, I will need to first take into consideration my existing leadership skills, strengths, and weaknesses. While doing this, what would be required of me is the consideration of the difference between leadership and management. Though the leadership skills incorporate the elements of charisma, dependability, flexibility, judgment, Integrity, courage, individual consideration, and others, I would like to inculcate some of the dominant skills while framing my personality plan. The skills would include intellectual stimulation, charisma (most required), and individual consideration. All these elements make my plan worthy.

Team building

This leadership trait can either be a success or a failure of a leader. Team building aims to achieve greater cooperation, better communication, and less dysfunctional conflict (Mazzarol, 2020). Experimental learning techniques like interpersonal trust exercises, conflict-handling, and interactive games are common. Greater emphasis is placed on how workgroups get the job done than on the job itself. I appreciate team building in any individual and I would, therefore, put more emphasis on it. I would bring the idea of building and leading groups. In this way, a sense of team would be visible in my skills, in turn making me a perfect leader.

Communication

Communication is key for the organization to function successfully. Organizations establish formal mechanisms and processes of vertical and lateral lines or channels of communication to provide how information, facts, ideas, proposals, emotions, feelings, opinions, and problems can be exchanged. Communication can be defined as the field of knowledge which deals with the systematic application of symbols to acquire common information regarding an object or event. Communication and information feed the quality of all human relations in organizations. Good communications underlie good relations and exchange the general quality of working life, motivation, and morale. Bad and inadequate communications lead to frustration and enhance feelings of alienation and lack of identity and unity (Frunză, 2017).

Choosing the right kind of communication is crucial in forming a leadership plan and it depends a lot on the culture of a region. My communication style depends partly on whether the addressees make a high or low contribution to the communication process. My communication style is more participative as I belong to a culture in which there is more of a democratic style of functioning. The style of communication also depends on whether a culture is individualistic or collective. Since there are some traits of collective culture, therefore, my emphasis is more on the achievement, rather than on individual achievement.

The leadership skills primarily incorporate the element of communication, which in turn exhibit the vital ingredients that are necessary while communicating with an individual. I would certainly like to acquire some of the pertinent communication skills that would make me a jack in the field of leadership. These skills would incorporate the tinge of activeness and vigor to impress the one standing on the other side. Another important communication skill that I would like is the ability to convince the other. This would make several doors open for me while planning my steps in the development of the leadership plan.

Strengths and weaknesses.

My major and most important strength is my ability to work hard. Hard work and perseverance are considered the most vital elements for gaining an upper hand on the most vital elements for gaining an upper hand on the other individual. While developing the leadership development plan, the foremost thing that I shall adhere to is gathering my strengths together and making the best possible use of it in my career. My ability to lead shall make me more eligible for succumbing to the development plan. The only way to lead in life is therefore to accumulate all the hidden strengths and wave off all the imbibed weaknesses which spoil the entire plan in a go.

My weakness is that I am a short-tempered individual and me, therefore, tend to lose my patience at times. This can prove to be a very negative trait I poses while developing my leadership plan. Therefore, to become a successful leader, I would have to eradicate this weakness and work on further avoiding the same. This will therefore make the whole process of developing a plan to reach the set targets. Since patience is an important trait in the success of a goal, I will work to ensure that it is inculcated in me whenever it is required of me.

Conclusion

My leadership development plan is one that will make me a well-groomed individual with excellent traits of empathy, patient listener, leadership motivation, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Also, because I inherit features like extraversion, cognitive antecedents, and strong determination, I would aspire to go smoothly on the path of success, by moving along the mentioned factors. Group achievement is another factor that I would take into consideration so that I can be able to position myself well and strategically in a highly dynamic leadership environment. My leadership development plan would therefore include all the positive traits and skills I mentioned above.

References

Frunză, S. (2017). Seduction, Communication, and Leadership. Transylvanian Review, 26(03), 137-149.

Mazzarol, T., & Reboud, S. (2020). Work Book: Team Building, Company Leadership, and Strategic Alliances. In Workbook for Entrepreneurship and Innovation (pp. 117-138). Springer, Singapore.

Shonhiwa, C. (2016). An examination of the situational leadership approach: Strengths and weaknesses. Cross-Currents: An International Peer-Reviewed Journal on Humanities & Social Sciences, 2(2), 35-40.

Sousa, M. J., & Rocha, Á. (2019). Leadership styles and skills developed through game-based learning. Journal of Business Research, 94, 360-366.

Xuetong, Y. (2019). Leadership and the rise of great powers. Princeton University Press.

Zipp, G. P. (2019). Building a Personal Vision Statement. A Guide to the Scientific Career: Virtues, Communication, Research and Academic Writing, 25-28.A Guide to Leadership Development at a Company.

Zipp, G. P. (2019). Building a Personal Vision Statement. A Guide to the Scientific Career: Virtues, Communication, Research and Academic Writing, 25-28.