Leadership vision
Effective leadership is a necessity for every company, enterprise, or organization that wishes to prosper. Mainly, it involves being in charge of the other members. Although trait leadership theory suggests otherwise, I believe that leadership is a skill and one can learn it at any level. Leaders are not perfect individuals; instead, they are people who have committed to be responsible for a team. A leadership development plan (LDP) is an outline that enables an individual to achieve his or her leadership goals. The plan comprises various elements will help a person to accomplish his or her leadership desires in bits while attending to one’s weakness. The article is a summary of my leadership development plan that spans a period of five years.
Foremost, as a leader, there are several things that I want to accomplish in my team. I am committed to transforming the organization into another level, which involves bringing change to the entire team. Notably, the institution has lagged behind the others because the stakeholders are not quick in accepting change. For that reason, I want to inject new energy into the institution that will result to new, novel experience (Changingminds.org). Transformation involves every individual, employees, and even the structures in the institution. Precisely, I wantto cultivate a working culture among the employees who are demonstrating reluctance. Thus, my leadership will involve rewarding competency and punish poor performance.
Furthermore, the structures require a complete makeover to accommodate more clients and facilitate comfort for both the clients and employees. The new structures will be designed in a way that they allow ease while attending to the clients. A complete makeover involves availing modern technologies in offices that will facilitate efficiency among the workers. My leadership seeks to procure modern computers and other technologies that are geared towards lightening the workload and enhanced services to the client. Lastly, I am planning to facilitate a participative leadership whereby all the employees are free to criticize the administration, and through the rightchannels, they can participate in decision-making.
Notably, a downfall of an organization or any institution commences with small problems and complaints among the employees and the clients that end up becoming huge challenges because they were not addressed in time. In my administration, I do not want such a scenario; therefore, I will encourage the workers and the clients to share their comments and compliments through proper channels such as customer care, suggestion boxes, and online feedback system. Effective communication skills among the employees will be handy in ensuring that challenges do not aggravate to such a point that they are out of controlled (Jones). In brief, I want a participative leadership that will lead to personal and institutional transformation. The key values in this type of administration are diligence, responsibility, personal development, innovation, and creativity.
Leadership development plan
Transformational leadership
The business Dictionary defines transformational leadership as that which the leaders identifies the needed change, creates a vision, to guide the change through inspiration, and executes change with the commitment of members of the group (Johannsen). The above definition entails several factors that are involved in this type of leadership and justifies the need of the development plan. Notably, change-oriented leadership is the only kind of administration that will have a tremendous impact on the organization. Therefore, such type of management requires commitment and diligence because it involves a heavy task. Notably, to facilitate change in an organization, it entails persuading individuals who have achieved a status quo to start working towards a particular goal. Precisely, it is like telling people that something needs fixing while according to them, that thing is not broken; in fact, it is functional. LDP is crucial because it allows division of a huge task into small segments that can be accomplished within a short time frame with the available resources (Johannsen). Therefore, I arrived at the decision to outline an LDP because the task of bringing change seemed incredibly big and unrealistic, but when I segmented the activities, it became attainable.
According to my assessment, the attainment of the goals requires many resources that include time, workforce, finances, and commitment. Importantly, the available resources especially, money is limited, and without an effective plan, the goals will be unrealistic. The LDP allows me to accomplish my goals with the available resources. Moreover, I learned that to achieve change in an organization requires much effort from the leaders. A transformational leader plays a significant role in any organization to make major accomplishments (May). Observationsof famous leaders that are considered transformational depict individuals who have sacrificed numerous things and undergone difficult situations. I have learned that people will follow an inspirational leader. Thus, I will garner my team's support if I am visionary and passionate in all the endeavors I undertake. The leadership development plan highlights the areas that require my participation and more effort and those that are beyond my scope.
According to Bass’ transformational leadership theory, leaders are defined based on their influence on the team members (Johannsen). Thus, the kind of leadership involves ideal influence, inspirational motivation,individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation. Notably, it involves influencing and inspiring followers to a point that they have achieved their leadership ability (Cherry). The implication of the above is that the followers have a role to play in the achievement of change. Therefore, the LDP allows me to identify the role of the team players and the various ways that I can employ to facilitate individual development. The plan allows the consideration and involvement of all the stakeholders that will partake in therealization of the leadership vision. In summation, a leadership development necessitates practice, and the LDP is a sure way of enabling practices that will enhance the quality of work and services offered. Besides, it highlights the gaps that ought to be addressed to achieve the desired accomplishments.
Elements of my leadership development plan
Individual skill development
As aforementioned, transformational leadership requires a charismatic leader who can provide appropriate administration that will result in the desired change. Notably, as a transformational leader I believe that I am innovative and creative enough; thus, I can come up with alternative ways of coping with a challenge. Besides, I am an enthusiastic individual, a trait that is necessary to get things done (May). Nonetheless, I need to enhance my communication skills as soon as possible because they are required to get my followers support. In an organization where the workers are in status quo, it is challenging to get them buy your ideas. Thus, enhancing my communication efficiency will allow me to sell the vision, and inspire my team players. Effective communication is essential because it will enable me to demonstrate passion and strong believe in my ideas and in return, earn me trust from my followers. Although I am confident and resilient to challenges, I should enroll within three months for training to learn tested and approved techniques of solving problems and conflicts with the organization (May). Lastly, I will install feedback systems and encourage positive criticism of the administration so that I can learn about my shortcomings as well as that of my leadership; hence, address them in time.
Socialization of organization vision
The desired change is achievable when the stakeholders believe in the organization’s vision. Thus, the LDP includes several mechanisms of selling the leadership vision that includes printing the goals and posting them at various sites (Changingminds.org). Indeed, all the offices will have at least a copy of the organization’s vision others will be placed at the main entrances. Besides,monthly meetings that will involve all the team players will be held to remind and emphasize the significance of the vision. During such meetings, employees who will have memorized the vision will be rewarded. Similarly, the organization can have caps and t-shirts with the vision printed on them.
Strategic leadership initiatives to promote change
The significance of followers in realizing change cannot be underestimated. In fact, transformational leadership involves empowering the members to a level that they have attained their leadership capabilities. One of the goals of this LDP was to foster a working culture among the task force that will result in client satisfaction. Thus, the LDP outlines various activities that will be undertaken to enable personal development among the employees. My leadership development plan relies mainly on the workforce for large-scale changes(Kraus and Wilson). Foremost, the plan outlines that the current employees are given an opportunity to attend several leadership programs and training to enhance their values. The training will happen in shifts to avoid scenarios of inadequate laborers. The training program will be effective as soon as possible so that in the next two years all the employees will be adequately skilled.
Furthermore, the organization will seek highly qualified individuals for the next recruitment; these people will benefit the organization with their skills, creativity, and innovation. In order to foster diligence and a working culture, the LDP proposes motivation of the workforce. Notably, unmotivated employees are not committed in their endeavors and are associated with poor performance. Recognizing an individual when he or she does good, will inspire the fellow workers to be hardworking. Motivations will include promotions, relieve from some duties, and other forms of prizes. Progress involves an embrace of modern technology; the LDP outlines procurement of advanced technologies and training the employees to use the equipment in six months(Kraus and Wilson).Transformation does not involve people only, but also the infrastructure in the institution. Therefore, construction of modern buildings will take effect after three years. The project is long term because the organization will focus first on the workforce and ways of generating income to finance the massive constructions. Indeed, the leadership
Conclusion
Indeed, facilitating change in an organization is a hard task that requires not only transformational leaders but also many resources. The difficulty spurs from the fact that the leaders have to get all the stakeholders in the plan to achieve change. A leadership development program is fundamental because it gives a concise outline of the activities to be done to enable change. Precisely, LDP allows the realization of the vision in bits with the available resources, and it describes the different roles of the team players.
I will learn the effectiveness of my LDP through several evaluation mechanisms. Foremost, the performance and the production are signals of whether the plan is efficient or not. Thefeedback systems in place are another way of gathering information about the way people feel about the administration. Lastly, I will issue questionnaires at the end of every year to collect data that will be used to assess the effectiveness of my leadership plan.
Works Cited
Changingminds.org, "Transformational Leadership" Changingminds.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Cherry, Kendra. "How Do Transformational Leaders Inspire?” About.com Health. N.p., 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Johannsen, Murray. "A Guide to Transformational Leadership."Legacee. N.p., 2014. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Jones, Tegan. "10 Impressive Characteristics Great Leaders Have." Lifehack.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Kraus, Aaron J., and Chantele N. Wilson. "Leadership Development For Organizational Success." SIOP White Paper Series (2012): 1-4. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
May, Ryan. "Importance of Developing Leadership Skills."BusinessDictionary.com. N.p., 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
