Personal Leadership Plan
Leadership excellence is a result of good theories in practice and the right personnel to execute them. Good leaders can be born naturally with the ability or learn it over a given period. Workplaces worldwide vary in many ways, and the dynamics of human resources are also different in every place. A successful leader also needs to understand these issues and know how to maneuver around them carefully. This class has been very resourceful in terms of the theories taught and the dynamics involved in leadership. There is no doubt about the value of leadership in an entity as it is the foundation of administration and control required almost everywhere. This paper is my leadership plan that includes the dynamics of leadership that I have learned and will apply in my approach as a leader.
The Making of a Great Leader
The definition of what makes a great leader varies from one person to another. It is all down to the experience that a person has had with leadership and how they perceive it. It is uncommon to find leaders in different entities with the same leadership and personality because the needs from their position vary. However, underlying principles are broadly similar in the philosophy that they use. I like to think of leadership as an opportunity to facilitate the growth of others and benefit the organization one works for. A variety of elements dictate how leaders approach their roles in organizations. Most approaches include pillars on which the leadership style is based.
The primary pillars that dictate a good leader are morals, outcomes, workplace welfare, ethics, and inclusivity. More importantly, great leaders should be visionaries who can predict what is coming and plan themselves accordingly to handle the situation when it comes. It is paramount that leaders should be well-versed in the domain they operate in. This is because their style will comprise their philosophy and professional expertise to offer consultancy to juniors. From experience and the knowledge gained in this class, vision, creativity, intuition, and ethical behavior are the core elements of a great leader (Nejati et al., 2019). Great leaders should also have excellent communication and people skills.
Self-Assessment
This section builds on making a great leader and how I am positioned with respect to great leaders. I have been in leadership positions before with my peers and can draw from my experience in leading small teams. This section documented all the issues faced in that period and how I navigated in the face of challenges. My personality has a significant impact on how I prefer to lead people. I am an open-minded person that is understanding of those around me and always tries to help others improve themselves.
Leadership Strengths
Being able to communicate well and effectively is by far my biggest strength. It is one of the most important things that I hold with great value. As a leader, effective communication is crucial in conflict resolution and general communication with personnel at a workplace. As an open-minded person, interacting with others relatively easy because I am also considerate. I try to change whatever I can and encourage others to do better for themselves to create a better world for everyone.
Leadership is not a one-sided affair that involves issuing commands and instructions. It is the main reason why I always encourage people around me to raise their issues. I consider this an essential point because the personnel in any workplace are the true definition of handling them before they escalate. While I sometimes try to work alongside my colleagues, I think it is best to delegate duties as a leader and monitor how they are done for better efficiency. I am empathetic because I feel it is the core of leadership that cannot be automated. Having a better understanding of people is a trait I consider essential in my leadership approach because it allows me to know the elements that can influence people.
Doing things in tandem is productive, but it sometimes requires closer management and more personnel. I am an agile leader who likes to distribute tasks to teams and have people collaborate on them rather than give specific tasks to specific individuals. This allows me and the team members to learn about the task and the ability of the people I lead. I am a just and fair person that likes to inspire people to do the same. It is crucial for me as a leader to always be honest and have integrity in my doings. This is because I know that people rely on leaders for answers and as their mentors.
Challenges and Opportunities for Development
As a sociable person, managing people in the modern workplace can be very challenging because of diversity and organizational culture. The present-day workplace encourages diversity, and one is likely to encounter even more challenges and types of people and personalities. One of the things that I must improve is being flexible to handle a multigenerational workforce. I need to do this because managing people outside my age group proves challenging at times, especially those older than me. Leadership is a hierarchy, and I often want to be in control. Even as a junior leader, autonomy in the delivery of my leadership is crucial as one is responsible for the people they lead. Their actions reflect the leader and the organization, and therefore, it is essential to allow leaders to be flexible.
All domains are always looking for the personnel and workers in the highest percentiles. This pool of personnel comprises protégés and rising stars that are considered exceptional. A leader’s goal is to understand this and find ways to attract top talent. A good leader should also be able to retain the talent to keep turnovers on the low. High-potential experts are my primary targets in any team-building because all growth in the team emanates from them. One of the biggest problems is earning the loyalty of premium talent and retaining it. I plan to leverage good communication and people skills in managing top talent.
A good leader should be able to predict the future and plan for it accordingly. However, there are aspects of the future that cannot be expected due to their dynamism and the involved variables. Good leadership should be based on best practices and optimal management of resources. A leader must provide development opportunities, but sometimes it can be difficult for opportunities to avail themselves. As a leader, I will encourage those under my leadership to create opportunities in places where they cannot find any. My core for leadership is good man-management and positive organizational performance. Implementation of quality and risk management would be ideal in my practice as a leader. Perfect business continuity planning is a crucial component that will be integrated into my leadership style.
Leadership Goals and Plans
The role of a leader is to lead, which includes delegating duties, facilitating personal and professional development, and handling conflicts. My goals and plans as a leader are to:
- Build strong connections with the personnel teams I am responsible for.
- Be accountable and show more bravery, courage, and confidence.
- Be a better mentor for my team; I will coach, guide, and advise them accordingly.
- Be able to adapt to new changes and make smarter decisions in challenges.
- Bolster efficiency and effectiveness for optimal resource utilization.
- Manage time and other resources effectively as an example of what I expect from the team.
- Create a healthy, safe, and productive for personnel.
Personal Leadership Style and Leadership Philosophy
I am a democratic person who understands that every person has something to contribute to a team. It is important to me that team members can express their concerns freely. I will therefore adopt a democratic leadership style and base my leadership philosophy on elements that promote democracy. Conflicts are inevitable issues in a workplace; workplace policies and rules will be used in the face of a conflict (Raines, 2019). Extreme cases like difficult people to handle in a workplace will require extra care and attention alongside effective communication. I try to resolve issues before they escalate as much as possible, reflecting my leadership philosophy and style.
Conflicting parties should also know that their issues are heard and considered in the settlements of workplace conflicts. I will do this by listening to all parties in a row before deciding on a solution. Decisions will be made via a consensus that both parties reach. In case of a stalemate, both parties should agree on a compromise to help resolve an issue. Policies will be created through the contributions of all people they govern, and that includes employees. Creating rules for themselves can be challenging, but it can be done. My contribution to the process is devising a framework that provides the policies’ limitations.
The goal of every leader is to excel in their duties and provide growth opportunities for their teams. Effectiveness and efficiency are the core principles of my leadership style and philosophy. Honesty, integrity and respect will be integrated in my style because I value them. These will perfectly complement my strengths and provide an opportunity for growth and development while evading challenges. Therefore, I value ethics and morals and will abide by societal moral requirements and ethical standards in my doings. This will trickle down to teams as I will try to have them working with the same model. However, I must be flexible to accommodate more diverse workforces. My philosophy primarily promotes equality and diversity in leading personnel teams.
Importance of Diversity
The human resources available in the present are varied in terms of demographics and culture. Putting together human resources teams requires plucking top talent from various places and combining them at a workplace. The process means leaders put together different people in the same place to achieve a common goal. People have different cultures that also have varying practices and beliefs. Creating a workforce with different people translates to combining their cultures, beliefs, and practices in the same place. The goal of hiring top talent is to have better performances and superior outputs.
Achieving this goal requires having to work with people of varied cultures. While this is a major hurdle, it can be navigated with exemplary leadership to an entity’s benefit. Diversity is the source of new experiences and ideas that can enrich an organization and its workforce. We live in a modernized and connected world where one can interact with another from a different culture at some point (Roberson, 2019). New ideas and experiences increase creativity in an organization, increasing profitability and improving performance.
I will promote diversity to ensure that my teams are exposed enough to accommodate others. It will also provide them with an opportunity to get additional perspectives on issues. A connected and diverse workforce bolsters engagement between employees and improves their morale. The end goal for this is to reduce employee turnover through motivation. Linguistic and cultural experiences are essential for personnel in a workforce. The experiences will increase if employees will openly welcome diversity. Language barriers will be broken with a diverse workforce in cases where workers interact with customers.
Developmental Goals
There are common issues that people experience in various workplaces, and motivation is one of the biggest. A good leadership style should encompass employee motivation which can be a combination of incentives and growth opportunities. I believe resources are limited and should be managed effectively and efficiently. My leadership style will provide enabling environments for teams to grow and develop. The issues experienced in a workplace are easy to work if the workforce is motivated and supportive of the leaders in place. Leaders should provide the teams with personal and professional development opportunities.
Professional Development
Even with top talent, an organization needs to grow and improve its workers’ expertise, which leaders facilitate. Professional development is the primary aim of leaders for the teams they manage because it directly improves team productivity. My developmental goals will apply to my team and me because we all always need to improve. I will provide avenues for everyone, including myself, to learn a new skill, increase networks and challenge ourselves (Maloney & Bindon, 2020). More importantly, I will use appraisals to highlight specific issues that employees need to work on. Everyone should read more to increase knowledge and communicate better and professionally. I will also facilitate professionalism by creating a balance between work and life and encouraging everyone to be organized.
Personal Development
Professional development should also reflect on employees and their lives. This will be a long and continual process but a necessary one to benefit all parties involved. Time management, resilience, and emotional intelligence are crucial things I promote in my leadership. My team will also be required to learn to listen actively. It improves people skills and facilitates effective communication for everyone involved. It is paramount for teams to develop a growth mindset for them to grow because it eliminates the mental block to any resistance to change. Workers should be encouraged to learn how to speak in public to avoid embarrassing themselves and their team.
Actions to Achieve Development Goals
Professional Development
Achieving professional development results from hard work and discipline, which are the traits every employee should have. However, this ability is not evenly distributed because people achieve their professional goals differently. The role of a good leader is to ensure that teams are presented with equal opportunities regardless of the ability of the team members in them. Great leaders encourage those with fewer abilities in their development and support team members in the course. My leadership style and philosophy will provide personnel with opportunities to attend seminars (Masoumi et al., 2019). They are instrumental in advancing specialties and skills for workers. They also provide them with opportunities to network with fellow professionals and experts.
Leaders always keep up with industry standards and any educational sessions to ensure that my team stays informed. All team members under leadership should be given opportunities to improve their professions by taking courses whenever they are available. Great leaders facilitate their teams to attend professional conferences when the resources for such are available. Retreats and workshops are great ways for teams to network and learn new skills and improve their expertise. Resources for these activities may not be available in some cases, but leaders should not deny those who can attend out of their pocket. Ideally, leadership should make the information on opportunities available to everyone and allow those who can and want to participate in professional meetings and seminars.
Personal Development
The most crucial action that should be taken for personal development is the initiative to do so. Leaders should provide the workforce with recommended actions based on their employee appraisals. Care must be taken when addressing some personal issues that personnel should work on because some are sensitive. General issues are to be included in policies, while specific issues need to be taken care of by human resources managers. Either way, communication will be vital in dictating the course of action from the team. Leaders must ensure a standard for personal goals in their styles to keep a consistency that is desirable for their philosophy. Special congratulations and remarks will be reserved for those who go out of their way to ensure they comply with the required standards.
Lessons Learned
Developing this personal leadership plan was a fantastic experience because I learned a lot more about myself in the process. Leadership is something I hold with high regard because I consider it a mandatory requirement. It is the authority in place to cover all administrative issues and provide effective management of resources. My leadership style is generally democratic but borrows some strengths of other types and my personality to improve it. I also got to take an MBTI personality test to get a better understanding of myself. The entire experience was good, and the result of the test was very accurate. I am an extrovert that values efficiency and almost considers it a mandatory requirement. My self-confidence and energy fuels my strong will to do my daily duties, personality elements that reflect well for leaders.
I value strategy and planning, and they are the cornerstones of my philosophy. Ethics and morals are also crucial to my vision as a leader. The personality test I took confirmed it and my charisma which is integral to my life and will be in my leadership style. I hate lazy people, and therefore, laziness will be my first issue to root in places I lead. Irrational people are unsuitable for teams and should be managed carefully. Interacting with people is an excellent way to ensure leaders understand people and can manage them more effectively. That experience helps leaders improve their overall emotional intelligence. Firm convictions of leaders should not waver, but there should be room for acceptable adjustments.
I have always interacted with new people because I feel it is essential to know more people with different perspectives on various issues. I have attended school with different people from different races. They may think the same way, but their perspectives are varied from mine, making it better when brainstorming issues in school. This approach, diversification, is also crucial for workplaces because they increase exposure. Diversity also provides workers with an opportunity to explore a variety of perspectives on a given subject. It increases the experience, creativity, and innovation of a team in finding new solutions. Diversity also promotes the workplace as a place of peace and harmony.
It has always been a challenge when dealing with older people because I respect age and do not question them. This is a weakness that I should work on as a leader because I will be dealing with a multigenerational workforce. A multigenerational team that is diversified in culture increases the creativity, perspective, and experience of a team. However, it is a cause for many workplace issues if not managed well. I think the key is leaders being flexible to understand various generations and the cultures of their employees. My leadership style would rely heavily on effective communication for sensitive issues. I will ensure that policies are updated accordingly, especially guidelines and procedures for conflict management, which should be updated when a policy can be drawn from a resolved conflict.
References
Maloney, P., & Bindon, S. L. (2020). Developing leaders: A shared responsibility: Take on challenges, seek support. American Nurse Journal, 15(5), 25. Web.
Masoumi, D., Hatami, J., & Pourkaremi, J. (2019). Continuing professional development: Policies, practices and future directions. International Journal of Educational Management, 33(1), 98-111.
Nejati, M., Salamzadeh, Y., & Loke, C. (2019). Can ethical leaders drive employees’ CSR engagement?. Social Responsibility Journal, 16(5), 655-669.
Raines, S. S. (2019). Conflict management for managers: Resolving workplace, client, and policy disputes. Rowman & Littlefield.
Roberson, Q. (2019). Diversity in the Workplace: A Review, Synthesis, and Future Research Agenda. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6(1), 69-88.
