Personal Leadership Plan Outline
I am a graduate age 26 working in a medium-sized institution operating in the service industry. I joined the organization while still a university student and later transferred to the current department that I am working in after my graduation. The firm’s management encouraged me to join the leadership development program scheduled to commence in November 2020 and is to last for two months. This is a better opportunity that will help me further develop my competencies and leadership skills. However, before the training, I decided to carry out a personal analysis to identify my strengths, weaknesses, and areas for further development.
I was encouraged to start a personal leadership plan after reading Laurie Jones’ book ‘Jesus,’ where she elucidates three significant leadership aspects she learned after reading Jesus Christ’s teachings and life (Jones 17). Jones noted that the mission and life of Jesus was a demonstration of successful leadership. The three categories of leadership traits sourced from Jesus include the power of good relationships, the power of action, and the power of self-mastery. Listening to others and handling them with integrity and respect to inform actions shows self-mastery power (Jones 17). Constant professional development, responsibility, and competency elaborated on the power of action. Working in teams to achieve a common goal, valuing other people’s contributions, and respecting others demonstrate the power of relationships (Lepsinger & Darleen 42). I always strive to live according to my values in everything I say, and every action I undertake. I am also alive of the fact that leaders are people who do not allow problems to show themselves; problems are handled as they come. Upon recognizing what leaders do with problems, I conducted a SWOT analysis on myself, which ultimately exposed my leadership strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (Dugan 21).
Transformational Leadership
My personal leadership plan is to employ the theory of transformational leadership to promote service delivery in my company. People who use transformational leadership employ vision, motivation, and communication techniques to encourage employees to feel part of the organization so that they strive towards achieving the goals of the organization (Bass & Ronald 59). They present their employees with the vision of where the organization is currently, where it should be, and then inspire the workforce to rally behind the organization’s goal. The theory of transformational leadership supports the development and positive change in various settings. The theory, therefore, applies in a personal leadership plan in the service industry. In my PLP, I will employ the theory of transformational leadership as an effective force to change my leadership skills and competencies.
My leadership Strengths
My leadership strengths include good communication, self-confidence, responsibility, and flexibility. According to the leadership trait theory, effective leaders possess a range of intellectual, demographic, and psychological characteristics. Successful leaders have abilities, personal traits, and interests distinct from those of ineffective leaders (Rickards 73). I believe that each of these qualities and characteristics is essential to being an excellent transformational leader. My communication skills are well developed. I can communicate with individuals and groups effectively to express myself clearly without engendering confusion. However, I must say that limited experience as a leader may lower my ability to clearly and effectively formulate directions for the organization’s employees. Self-confidence is also one of the significant traits of a successful leader. Therefore with my self-confidence self, I can undertake risky decisions and complete complex tasks in the organization in the future. Additionally, with my responsibility strength, I am in a position to take responsibility for all the decisions I make and their potential failures in order to achieve the organization’s goals. My conceptuality and analytical skills are adequately developed because I can solve complex problems, articulate, visualize, and work efficiently under pressure. I understand that in the 21st century, the world of business is transforming so first, and that is why I am striving to be as flexible as possible in the workplace. As a leader, I take positive and admit any changes that come my way and employ my leadership decisions to accomplish the new changes effected. The degree to which my leadership competencies and skills are developed can be presented by means of a scale of 0-10. Where ten is ‘highly developed’ and 0 is ‘totally not developed.’ My communication skill is at a scale of 8, self-confidence at a scale of 7, flexibility at a scale of 8, and responsibility is hinged at a scale of 9.
My leadership Weaknesses
My leadership weaknesses include the inability to formulate directions for company employees and having difficulties in the process of planning. In the context of leadership, the process of planning involves setting a vision for the company and achieving it by setting achievable objectives (Northouse 12). I must accept that I am still experiencing some difficulties with the process of strategic planning. This is because my comprehension of the process of planning is not yet developed fully to allow me to be an effective leader. I still do not have a deep understanding and the desired practical skills needed to effect the strategic planning process. My experience in formulating directions to be followed by employees when managing and leading them through the organization’s activities is also not yet considerable. This is due to the short time I have spent at work and the little practical experience I have received in the workplace. In my opinion, the inability to formulate directions for the employees is due to the previous weakness. That is the little knowledge and experience in the planning process. The degree of my shortcomings is presented by means of a scale of 0-10. Where 0 is ‘highly week’ and 10 is ‘moderately week.’ The strategic planning skill is at a scale of 3 while my ability to formulate direction is hinged at a scale of 2, showing that I still have very limited skills and experience in this area hence the need for leadership development. Based on this personal assessment, I can deduce that the advancement of my leadership qualities and planning process and direction formulation are the significant opportunities I will maximize on during the leadership development program.
Objectives for Personal Leadership Plan
The objectives for a personal leadership plan (PLP) are developed by the use of SMART criteria. This implies that the objectives should be time-bound, relevant, achievable, measurable, and specific (Nevarez et al. 65). Through the SMART criteria, I am sure to counter the leadership weaknesses that reduce my performance. My objectives for PLP include the following. To develop my qualities and skills further in formulating directions for the subordinate staff by the end of December 2020. To improve my ability to set a vision for my department or company and effect the vision through establishing achievable objectives by the end of January 2021. The final objective of the PLP is to improve my comprehension of leadership by the end of December 2020.
Action plan
My action plan to make good use of my strengths while developing my weakest qualities and skills to participate in formal and informal activities of my leadership development plan is as described below. Each of the objectives requires two actions to be performed in order to extricate the weaknesses and, on the other hand, achieve the best leadership qualities. To accomplish the aim of developing my qualities and skills in direction formulation, I will complete the LDP by the end of December 2020 and provide my seniors with an assessment report. The second action requires practical use of my newly acquired leadership knowledge and competencies, which I need to put to action within a period of two months-January 2020.
I am planning to achieve my first PLP objective by finishing the LDP. I am confident that this program will help me achieve my first objective of formulating clearer directions for the workforce of the company to enhance their performance and productivity. I also believe that the first objective will improve my leadership knowledge in formulating substantial and precise directions. Upon completing the program, I plan to measure how effective the action is by completing an assessment survey and giving the results to my superiors. The practical part of the first objective will involve delegating duties to my subordinate workforce over the post-program meetings. I will also ensure that all the tasks assigned to each subordinate are done within the set time. In this phase, I will keenly apply the newly developed leadership competencies and skills practically to make the skills gravitate to experience for all my future leadership tasks. The efficacy of my capability to draw up directions will be assessed on January 30th, 2020, by my superiors using formal and informal task success appraisals (Dugan 97).
The second objective will also involve carrying out two actions. The second objective’s first action will require finishing LDP and writing the program report to be assessed by my bosses. This will be done by December 30th, 2020. Upon assessing the newly acquired competencies and skills in the first action, I will perform the second action under this objective. The action will be communicating the organization’s objectives and vision to the subordinate staff. The action will help me identify whether I can competently put these skills into practice. For this purpose, I plan to develop a team of workforce and communicate the objectives and vision of the firm to the members of this team. Working with a team is very important because teams have higher engagement levels and commitment to meeting goals. Therefore, creating a team and communicating the purpose and vision of the organization to them is a significant process. Additionally, working with a team will help me quickly and effectively assess my skills in strategic planning, using the organization’s objective and vision. The action of communicating the company’s objective and vision should be accomplished by the 31st of December 2020. To validate the achievement of this action, I will carry out a survey among the subordinates making the team.
The final, personal leadership plan objective, which aims at broadening my leadership comprehension, is also to be achieved through two actions. The first action is to complete the leadership program by 31st December 2020 and submitting my report to the top leadership for the assessment of skills and competencies achieved. In this objective, I will be widening my knowledge of leadership by learning from and observing the actions of the highly experienced leaders in the organization. To achieve this objective, I will make sure that I attend all the leadership meetings graced by these experienced leaders for two months (November to December 2020). According to research done by Nylund and Raelin, they found that sharing knowledge ensures that knowledge is articulated is accessed, and shared by all the members of an organization (Nylund & Jonathan 537). Therefore accessing information from experienced leaders through meetings will help me broaden my knowledge in leadership.
Conclusion
Participating in the leadership development program will help me develop my leadership qualities and skills in formulating directions for my subordinates. It will also add to my ability to set my company’s vision and realize the vision by setting achievable objectives. The LDP will additionally help me broaden my knowledge of leadership skills and competencies. After undergoing this planned leadership program, I need to initiate actions to exercise every skill achieved from the program practically. For this reason, I am planning to learn by attending experienced leaders meetings, facilitating teamwork, practice active task delegation, and organize a number of meetings with my subordinate staff. Finishing the leadership program that will run from November to December 2020 will not be the only finite aim, but the beginning of my endeavor to practical leadership. Jones gave a good analysis of the mission and life of Jesus Christ, deriving some of the leadership qualities that we need to embrace as we develop our leadership skills and competencies. Therefore, I plan to embrace Jesus’ leadership qualities coupled with transformational leadership theory to enhance my leadership competencies.