Personal leadership Development Plan
Personal leadership involves a person’s leadership qualities ion solving problems related to leadership. The person evaluates oneself to determine the probability of succeeding as a leader. The process usually involves use of personal leadership skills and managerial skills to succeed.
In the process of presenting my personal leadership development plan, I wish to present both my strong points as well as the weaknesses in leadership. In the paper, I will adequately cover the strengths in leadership and expound more on the weaknesses. The paper will further cover the aspect of factors that contribute to the leadership flaws in me and how to cope with the obstacles in short run as well as the long run.
As a leader, management is vital role thus managerial ability is very crucial in the analysis. Therefore, one of our main focuses is on the personal managerial competences and development. Managerial skills are mainly based on collaborative competences. Collaborative competences explain the basic relationship in a working environment which is highly influenced by communication and understanding. According to analysis by my colleagues on my leadership roles, the following information was collected.
1. Understanding one self and others.
2. Team management and leadership.
3. Vision development and communication.
4. Project planning and coordination
5. Enabling and encouraging compliance.
6. Motivation within the organization.
7. Managing and organizing operations in a result oriented manner.
On the other hand, my weaknesses mainly lie in some aspects of communication and monitoring. These aspects include:
1. Effective and honest communication.
2. Negotiation agreement and commitment.
3. Managing and encouraging constructive conflict.
4. Monitoring and measuring performance and quality.
5. Goals/objectives evaluation.
In general, my strongest leadership competence is in idea creation (create role) and my worst competence is in collaborative role as a leader.
The adversely affected roles in my leadership profile are the coordinator role, mentor role, facilitator role and monitor roles. The strongest roles on the profile are the director, producer, and innovator and broker roles.
These aspects makes me as a leader think of referring to personal leadership development plan to help me boost my leadership qualities to the best possible levels and minimize the flaws in my leadership. As a leader, I have to examine the causes of the problematic roles so as to effectively change for the best of the paper and company.
The main problem appears to lie in the communication aspect of the leadership. This is evidenced by the low rating on the scale of roles. The communication related roles like motivation role and facilitator role lag far much behind the other leadership roles.
Understanding the root cause of the flaws to be communication, then the next level is to evaluate the problematic communication criteria. The most affected communication criteria is the top- down information flow. The top down communication which is mostly associated with command and power exercise is problematic since the workers communicate effectively among themselves but to the management, there is a communication barrier.
Evaluating the communication barrier most likely to exist is in the interpersonal skills and mainly in the relationship between me, as the leader and the other members of operational staff. This is mostly exhibited by the poor motivation role bearing in minds that all these roles usually originate from t leadership to the operational staff.
Examining my personal interpersonal skills and communication, the root cause of the impaired relationship can be said to be the seriousness I operate with. Most of my fellow colleagues argue that my face is always serious making the other junior workers fear to talk to me. In the long run, any word I utter is viewed as a command and nothing else. This makes the motivational role which calls for a lot of freedom between the leader and the workers difficult for me.
If one cannot motivate the workers, then facilitation is problematic. This comes without command since facilitation calls for a lot of communication between the workers and the leader. The fact that I concentrate more on other leadership roles make me often forget the motivational and mentoring roles of a leader not to forget the facilitation role.
In a bid to counter the weaknesses, I can opt to use a friendly approach to the main problem of communication with the operational staff. This calls for increased meetings aimed at improving our understanding on one self and others. This will address the issue of communication in which I as the leader can utilize this chance and make myself much closer to the operational staff. In turn, a close friendship or working relationship develops between the operational staff and me.
Another option to help curb this problem would be use of communal motivational seminars and social interaction events. This will help me as the leader to understand my staff better and may be change or modify some of my personal attributes as a leader to help cope and communicate effectively with the operational staff.
The third option is a combination of the first two calling for my humble association with the operational staff which is not on the same academic level with me. The process makes the operational staff accept me and become more friendly enhancing communication between them and me.
For me to improve on my general communication with the operational staff and improve on my leadership roles as a motivator and facilitator, I would like to begin by acceptance of the problem existence. After the humble acceptance, I will embark on improvement of personal intercommunication skills. This will include attendance of many social gatherings involving people of different social classes and occupations. In the process of attending these occasions, I will improve my interpersonal skills and within duration of six months, I project to have achieved the intended goal.
So as to achieve the final goal, I will have to start by improving on my communication within the office. This will include physical appearance mostly on my face and delegation of duties. The new delegation plan will involve more contact between me and the staff unlike the current plan in which the delegation occurs through a line of power in the organization (Quinn, 38).
Improvement plan.
30 days.
1. Power decentralization.
2. Change in duty delegation protocol.
60 days
1. Reading more on leadership and interpersonal communication.
2. Revision of the topic on being a master manager and not a hyper-active manager.
180 days.
1. Seminars and general adaptation to the changes in leadership roles.
2. More personal involvement in matters concerning the operational staff.
The other thing I will have to do to achieve a noticeable improvement within one month is to decentralize the organizational power. This will involve power devolution and the many subordinate leaders will help improve on communication and delegation of duties. This will make the operational staff to reduce the high regard that they hold me at making it possible for us to communicate effectively. This does not necessarily have to result in disrespect but will result uphold respect and enhance socialization.
According to Belasen, a leader should have high adaptability to changes and very much ready to accept mistakes. This is what I should exhibit by accepting to adapt to the changes psychologically for me to cope with the staff and communicate effectively thereby enhancing motivation and facilitation of the staff into working towards the success of the organization (Belasen, Chapter 8).
Looking into Quinn’s book, a master manger or leader is supposed to be very social with the operational staff. This will enhance the ability of the leader to communicate effectively and with confidence and impact to the operational staff. To become a master leader in the long run, I will have to reads and practice some of the qualities outlined in the book (Quinn, chapter 6).
With my strengths mostly in the control and create sector, I believe that the organization will have improved policy making ability. This will result in better strategic plans for the achievement of the final organizational goal. The high ability of creating new idea and implementation will also aid in expansion of the business since new innovative ideas will be created. Using these new business ideas, the organization will have a competitive advantage over its competitors.
The other strength in the leadership role and competence as a director will enable me delegate duties in accordance to personal ability. This will make the staff feel appreciated and considered. Instead of using direct delegation of duties, I will use diplomacy in which each member of operational staff has a right to give reasons as to why he/she cannot perform a certain task this will help pick out the best people to perform certain tasks.
In conclusion, personal leadership development plan will enhance my personal evaluation and enables me keep track of my progress in the strategic plan. This will result in improved personal performance as a leader. The improvement in the weak sectors will enable me to be better than I was initially.
Therefore, I would as well recommend personal leadership development plan to every leader since it will have more good on his/her professional life and social life within the occupational environment.
Works cited
1- Belasen, A. T. Leading the Learning Organization: Communication and Competencies for Managing Change. Albany: State University of New York Press. 2000 Print.
2- Quinn, R. E., et al. 2011. Becoming a Master Manager: A Competing Values Approach. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons. 2011 Print.
