Individual Leadership Development Plan
Aya Younus
Leadership and Development
Sheridan College
March 30th, 2022
Individual Leadership Development Plan
Leadership Profile
I have experienced both negative and positive leadership experiences in my profession. Leadership experiences are developed by the different people I meet while in my leadership posts. One major leadership experience I have lived to embrace is the significance of openness to different characters and personalities. Being in a leadership position means many subordinates look up to one for mentorship (Daft, 2017). One does not necessarily have to be born a leader because experiencing life and people can mold one into becoming a leader. Relating with different people makes a leader learns how to regulate the negative traits and accommodating both the positive and negative traits.
My leadership view has been formed by the significance of having leaders within a workplace or society. Leadership is not about being powerful or exercising the power over the subjects. It is about growing with the subjects and being open for corrections and change because leaders have vivid flaws that should be corrected (Gandolfi & Stone, 2017). Additionally, my views about leadership have been shaped by the maintaining an excellent image to be emulated by the subordinates. Leaders have a significant influence in their immediate environment. Constant growth is attributed to the leader just like how failure is related to them.
What I have learned about the 21st century environment has significantly impacted my definition for leadership. The 21st century has characterized the business environment as a change paradigm which shifts constantly (Penny, 2011). Therefore, being a leader within the 21st century means that one should be ready for change. New trends emerge within the leadership environment and an individual should ensure they are updated. Sticking to one leadership system makes an individual’s perception of leadership outdated. The 21st century undergoes change because of the technological discoveries thus leaders should be ready to change their perspectives.
Transformational leadership theories resonate with me because I think it is the best concept that should be incorporated within the workforce environment. Leadership is all about ensuring that positive relations have been developed between a leader and his subjects. Transformational theory guides an individual to use motivation as the best tool to ensuring they have made significant changes within the working environment (Daft, 2017). The subordinates feel encouraged and develop positive views towards accomplishing their tasks. Moreover, an excellent connection exists between workers and the leaders thus minimize complaints and increases output production. Such a leader has a significant understanding of his people thus ensures that he indulges in activities that positively implicate them.
After reading about transformational leadership, I have further comprehended a leader’s purpose and responsibilities. It has changed my perspective from leaders should exercise their powers to they should collaborate to achieve all the goals and objectives. Transformational leadership theory facilitates the development of leadership identity. The type of connection and path taken by the leader is what can be used in describing his identity. For instance, a strict leader’s identity can be termed as ruthless (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Understanding the theory impacts how I will lead through integrity and focusing on the connection to achieve the anticipated results.
Assessment and Reflections
Themes
Some of my top themes that help me through leadership are spreading positivity, maintaining focus, improving communication, maintaining discipline and building a realistic future. Each theme contributes to my leadership skills and how I associate with my subjects to help achieve the anticipated outcomes. I have spread positivity through encouraging and motivating the workers. Motivation plays a huge role since an individual is discouraged from focusing on the negativity. The workers will be encouraged to channel and spread positive energy while accomplish their tasks (Penney, 2011). Additionally, I helped built a realistic future within the organization through ensuring that all efforts incorporated are focused on the future benefits. For instance, I encouraged workers to help develop a positive brand which is an excellent future investment for the company. Moreover, discipline is maintained through carrying out the routine tasks using the expert skills obtained. Discipline contributes in developing focus and encouraged workers to achieve their tasks. The themes have an excellent relation to leadership and help in developing excellent outcomes.
Values
Some of the essential values that have served me through my leadership experiences are humility, empathy, communication, positive support, dedication, and mentoring, observing respect, developing visions and mentoring. Values are significant since they help a leader to create boundaries and maintain focus. Values are part of an individual’s identity thus should be upheld in all leadership levels. I have shown respect in my leadership through maintaining a meaningful connection with the workers (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Through respect, I have developed values like communication to ensure that I have clearly passed my message to the intended audience. Furthermore, being dedicated towards accomplishing my objectives serves set for the organization and for my leadership. Generally, my values have inspired my leadership journey and helped me grow in every aspect. Standing by the values have helped define my identity and pushed me through all the leadership challenges. However, the major shadow side of using the values is that each individual has a different perspective that they might cause a conflict.
MBTI personality type
My MBTI personality type is agreeableness since it has the highest percentage from the assessment. I believe that my strengths are based on the M-B type and ii resonate with the trait because I am warm and friendly. It means that I am open to listening to other people’s opinions and weighing with mine. Being agreeable means that I have less emphasis on personal opinions and open to different possibilities on a given concept. Additionally, the major underdeveloped area noticed from the MBTI test is extraversion (Penney, 2011). I scored a low percentage indicating that I am an introverted person. Therefore, I need to work on ensuring that I am extroverted and open to associating with people within my primary environment. Moreover, I have to make those improvements because they play a significant role in my life as a leader and how I associate with people while developing connection. I have to be more outgoing and welcoming to people in the outside to help in becoming more extroverted. However, the shadow side I have experienced because of agreeableness is challenges in having an opinion.
Emotional intelligence
My EQI suggests that I am above average in my self-perception because I have high scores on self-regard, emotional awareness and actualization. It means that I have a higher self-understanding capability as a leader. Being aware of my personality helps in ensuring that I will become the best leader to my subjects. The results suggests that I have to improve on my stress management skills since the scores indicate I face a tough time in understanding emotions. Moreover, the results show I have the best decision making skills because of applying reality within while making essential decisions (EQ-i 2.0 leadership report, 2021) . I am not surprised by the results because I have some undesirable characters that I need to make a significant improvement in as a leader. I will need to have a further improvement on the stress management sector because of the high pressure I will face as a leader.
Connection
The major connection between EQI, value perspective, MBTI and strength finder is that they are both aimed at ensuring they have improved an individual’s leadership. They reflect some of the possible weaknesses that might be reflected by an individual. However, the significant differences discerned is that some of the factors mentioned help provide solutions for the identified weaknesses (Penney, 2011). For instance, EQI helps individual find improvement solutions which are beneficial to their leadership strategies and goes
Development goals and strategies
A
The smart goal I intend to develop is practicing active team participation. I will make the changes in my relation to the subjects (Daft, 2017). The major benefit is that I will obtain improved relationships that ensure achievable of the organization goals. I will depend on the team members to give their feedback on my improvement.
B
I would like to improve on sharing my emotions with the people. The subscales have indicated that I have a low score in sharing emotions and I would like to make a significant improvement on the matter (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). Additionally, I should improve on my flexibility and dependence level because they have a direct influence on my performance. The development areas are essential in my leadership since they help in improving my skills. The major objective of the EQI tests is pointing out some of those areas that need improvement which help facilitate excellent leadership experiences.
Leadership Vision
Leading is a process in which an individual takes charge of the given position and helps direct the followers to the anticipated objective. My analysis suggests that I will be an excellent leader who uses all my developed skills in ensuring that I have accomplished the needed results. I will be an excellent leader at work since I will collaborate with other people within the environment to ensure I have obtained positive results (Penny, 2011). What I have learned has helped me this far in comprehending that as a leader I will always face challenges. I will have some negative traits that may affect my leadership efforts and decisions. However, I should remain focused on the leadership through ensuring that I have improved on the weaknesses. The best part about being a leader is that it helps me grow personally and professionally while associating with the people.
Additionally, the major implications of leading someone with different strengths, values and personality mean that we will have constant conflicts on the possible differences that might affect leadership. However, I should be open to other opinions and count on my strengths to help me navigate such situations (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018). The new knowledge learned will help me in my future leadership ventures. I have learned new information which has been added to my objectives as a leader. It means that I am well prepared to navigate as a leader and ensure that I will have positive future achievements. Being a leader is an excellent opportunity to guide people using my skills to an anticipated success path.
References
Daft, R. L. (2017). The Leadership Experience. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.
EQ-i 2.0 leadership report. (2021). Multi-Health Systems Inc. https://mhs.com/
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant
leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.
Penney, S. H. (2011). Voices of the future: Leadership for the 21st century. Journal of
Leadership Studies, 5(3), 55-62.
