Leadership Reflective Plan
Leadership is all about extrapolating one's vision of the future upon others and taking responsibility for the possible mistakes. People usually start following leaders when they have no other option. That is to say, people need a leader when they either have no vision of their own future or they are afraid of taking responsibility for their own mistakes. To this end, leadership studies imply a development of two major aspects such as endless passion that motivates surrounding people and some sort of fatalism that helps to take risky steps in the course of time.
As for the theoretical framework of the leadership reflective plan, it can be based on the so called Seven Rules of Success by Steve Jobs (Gallo, 2011). Steve Jobs was one of the most outstanding transformational leaders of America, along with Henry Ford, John Rockefeller, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and the Founding Fathers (Blumenthal, 2012, p 89). Seven Rules of Success by Steve Jobs are easy to follow because they were clearly formulated using simple words (Goldsworthy, 2012, p 61).
Every new transformational leader appears in case of the so called vacuum of leadership. In other words, Steve Jobs came back to Apple Inc in 1997 when then Board of Directors of the company had neither vision of the corporate future nor capability of taking responsibility for the upcoming bankruptcy of Apple in 1997. Steve Jobs had both a clear vision of the corporate future while being ready for taking responsibility for the mistakes in the long run.
Using the leadership experience of Steve Jobs, the first part of the three-year leadership reflective plan would include the development of one's passions and hobbies. Steve Jobs formulated his first rule of success simply by saying, “Do What You Love” (Isaacson, 2011, p 71). Being rich means being the best at something. Steve Jobs was the best at motivating software engineers like Steve Wozniak to create new devices like Apple PC or iPhone. Willingness of doing something interesting has to be facilitated by some sort of psychotic obsession with some strategic goal. For example, President Abraham Lincoln gave his life away for the sake of freedom of American nation though he knew he could have been assassinated for his policies. The Second Rule of Success by Steve Jobs can be formulated as “Dream Big.”
The second large aspect of the leadership reflective plan is related to improving communication skills in terms of networking and public speeches. Networking plays a critical role for successful leadership since one talented person cannot embrace all knowledge in the Universe. Even a brilliant leader needs a team of the same-thinkers and deputies who would back him/her. Development of the communication skills also implies selectivity of the business contacts. That is to say, communication skills have to be developed within some certain range, Networking implies in turn two major aspects such as basic data collection for the purpose of understanding potential target audiences (Ford, 2010, p 49). For example, top-list politicians have to spend some time on talking to ordinary people simply because they have to understand their problems (Osborne, 2008, p 47). Hence, communicating with ordinary people helps to understand their problems, which can be exploited during the election campaign. The second major aspect of networking covers an upward perspective, that is to say networking has to be focused on selecting the best possible business contacts (Indigenous Leadership, 2014, p 264). Communication skills have to provide the best possible environment for the decision making. A true leader has to be able of selecting the most talented business partners and close subordinates. Deputies have to be obedient and assertive at the same time, being able of both obeying and suggesting something new. At that point, team building is also a great way for developing communication skills within the corporate structure. Developing empathy would help to coin short messages that would be able of affecting people in some way. The more downward communication with ordinary people, the more clear vision of their interests and needs. Hence, proper marketing campaign is literally impossible without commonplace collection of data about customers' needs and interests. The more leader understands the interests of the subordinates, the more clear vision of their future can be constructed and extrapolated by him/her.
The last aspect of leadership reflection plan refers to self-education, which inevitably implies selectivity of hobbies and tasks. All tasks and hobbies have to be analyzed in regard to their overall positive effect on the strategic goals (Tracy, 2014, p 117). Hence, all low-effective activities have to be excluded from the list. All negative hobbies have to be converted into positive ones. For example, smoking can be converted into drinking tea. Since smoking is usually exploited as a work break to distract oneself from the work routine, smoking can be replaced by drinking tea. Hence, negative habit is converted to a positive one since tea indeed supplies human body with the useful ingredients such as vitamin C, P, PP, B. Tea is a great source of energy, unlike smoking. Various time killers such as mobile apps and video games can be replaced by reading books, articles, journals (Kelly, 2006, p 39). Watching TV can be replaced by learning foreign languages or any other subjects.
Leadership reflective plan has to comprise three development areas such as development of positive hobbies, appropriate contacts and optimizing various unnecessary time expenses. The first aspect of the leadership plan has to be focused on developing strategic planning skills, framed within a set of simple ideas that in turn can be extrapolated on other people (Grint, 2005, p 219). As soon as vision of the future is formed, there has to be a certain number of the same-thinkers, able to executive directives and provide interesting ideas at the same time (Lawler, 2005, p 219). Focus on some certain goals require extreme selectivity of hobbies and habits. Simply put, true leader has to restrain himself/herself from a lot of different low-effective activities. Back to the experience of Steve Jobs, he cut spending on various projects within Apple in 1997, focusing on four projects such as iPod, iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Steve Jobs said, “Say No to 1,000 Things.” Leadership requires complete obsession with the implementation of a strategic goal.
As a conclusion, leadership reflective plan implies a three-year plan focused on developing positive habits and interests, establishing proper contacts, friendly ties and optimizing various unnecessary habits and activities. Potential leader has to get prepared for the so called window of opportunity, that is to say a set of conditions that enables tremendous structural change. Strategic goal planning is the most important for leadership reflective plan. Networking and time management are usually adjusted to the strategic goal. Hence, the first development area of leadership reflective plan is the most important, while the other two development areas depend on the strategic goal formation.
References
Blumenthal, K. (2012). Steve Jobs. New York: Feiwel and Friends.
Ford, J. (2010). Studying Leadership Critically: A Psychosocial Lens on Leadership Identities. Leadership, 6(1), pp.47-65.
Gallo, C. (2011). Steve Jobs and the Seven Rules of Success. [online] Entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220515 [Accessed 19 Apr. 2016].
Goldsworthy, S. (2012). Steve Jobs. New York, NY: AV² by Weigl.
Grint, K. (2005). Leadership. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kelly, S. (2006). Leadership Refrains: Patterns of Leadership. Leadership, 2(2), pp.181-201.
Lawler, J. (2005). The Essence of Leadership? Existentialism and Leadership. Leadership, 1(2), pp.215-231.
Isaacson, W. (2011). Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Osborne, C. (2008). Leadership. London: DK Pub.
Tracy, B. (2014). Leadership. New York: American Management Association.
Special Issue Leadership Journal: Indigenous Leadership. (2014). Leadership, 10(2), pp.263-265.
