Management
Leadership Development Plan
Purpose:
The purpose of this assignment is to help you expand upon your leadership development by
furthering your understanding of your leadership abilities and strengths. This process began
when you came up with your 10 Leadership Principles and continued when you completed the
Beginning to Develop You assignment. This assignment will allow you to see how your
interpretation of your leadership lines up with what others perceive in you. Ideally, the end result
will help you further solidify appropriate leadership styles for you to use given your strengths
and help you determine areas of improvement should your perceptions not align with what others
perceive.
Here is the assignment I did during the semester that the instruction is talking in the first paragraph.
10 Leadership Principles
1: Lead by an example:
2: Have solid values:
3: Leadership is about people:
4: Place values at the heart of every action:
5: Be human and admit mistakes:
6: Cultivate diversity and collaboration:
7: Develop leadership skills:
8: Embrace vulnerability and adversity:
9: Be willing to develop:
10: Help to develop future leaders:
Instructions:
STEP 1: Identify at least 3 respondents from different aspects of your life (for example, one
family member, one friend, and one co-worker). Then ask for feedback about your leadership
· Find people who know you well and are willing to be interviewed by you. Possible
categories that these people might fall into include:
o Family members
o Friends
o Sports teammates
o Club members
o Neighbors
o Boss/Supervisor
o Co-workers
o Classmates
o Professors/Teachers
· Ask each of these individuals to tell you how they believe your personality traits
influence your leadership style(s), and ask them for EXAMPLES of specific moments
when you demonstrated this. You can do the interviews in person, over the phone/video
conference, or through email (this option is convenient for keeping track of their
responses, but not as fun!). If you are interviewing face-to-face or by phone/video, make
sure, to write down your interviewees responses as thoroughly as possible.
· You are free to go about interviewing in any manner you choose but some sample topics to cover are:
o What they believe your leadership traits are.
o What they believe your leadership style is.
o How they believe you can best develop yourself to reach your fullest potential as a leader.
STEP 2: Recognize Themes & Supporting Behaviors
· Review the feedback from your respondents and identify some common themes (approx. 3-5) regarding your leadership. When doing this, take note of any that relate to the 10 Leadership Principles you submitted earlier in the semester.
· Develop a chart or table to organize the major themes, the specific situations/behavioral examples that show how you demonstrated these, and your interpretation of this information: how do you make sense of this? (Please see the example chart below.)
STEP 3: Plan How to Develop Your Leadership Ability
· Plan how you can use this new information to make changes – now or in the future – by
incorporating this information into various areas of your life in which leadership is necessary (i.e. work, school, sport, volunteer activity, home life, personal relationships,
etc.).
· Provide examples of how you will develop or use this information by relating it the
Beginning to Develop Your assignment. Does it match what you had here, does it suggest
you need additional development/training? Be as specific and concrete as possible!
Written Paper (contains three parts):
· BACKGROUND. Please provide a brief background based on Step 1 above. This might include details about your interviewees, your relationships to them, how they reacted to the request, where/how the interviews took place, and/or any other information to help set the context for the exercise. (about 1-3 pages, 1-inch margins, double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font)
· STRENGTHS TABLE. Produce a table/chart based on Steps 2 & 3 that organizes the
common themes of what your interviewees reported to you. Ensure you include the
examples they provided, as well as your own interpretation. Most importantly, provide
specific action steps that describe how you might incorporate or develop your leadership
abilities or styles, now or in the future.
· PERSONAL REFLECTION. Please reflect upon the exercise, and write about what you learned; it might include leadership traits or styles you did not know you had, how
different people see you, how you plan to develop your leadership based on this new
evidence, or even the process of asking someone about yourself. (about 2-3 pages, 1 inch
margins, double-spaced, 12 pt. Times New Roman font).