Leadership Self Reflection and Personal Development Plan

MGT 530 Reflection Opportunities

Questions, Topics, Assessments

What person or experience taught you the most about effective leadership? What person or experience taught you the meaning of bad leadership? What is your ideal leadership image? What is your definition of leadership? Did your definition change throughout the course? Where are you on the Level 5 hierarchy? Have you ever confronted an ethical dilemma? If so, how did you resolve it (or not)? Would any of Kidder’s models or principles have applied to your situation? What standards to test your ethical principles were utilized? Also, see Highlight 5.5 in your text for further reflection. Examine the instrumental and terminal values and complete the Personal Values Priority exercise. What are your strongest values? Complete the Bases of Power Inventory and the Empowerment Inventory. The influence assessment in the article about power deficits should also be completed. Where are your strengths and areas of development? Reflect upon the team roles that you perform in groups and teams. Utilize the survival simulation from class as well as workplace and other team experiences that you have had. What are your dominant (most preferred / required) and backup (somewhat preferred / required) leadership styles, as assessed in the Leadership Style Questionnaire (LSQ), as well as those that still need development (least preferred / required)? What surfaced as strengths and areas of development from the Vincentian Leadership Assessment? Describe the culture of an organization that you would want to lead or be an employee of. Have you had opportunities for Vision development and enactment? Will you have any future opportunities for this? As a leader of an organization, what vision would you create? Or as an employee in an organization, what organizational vision could you embrace? [See pages that follow for paper instructions and guidelines, formatting of paper, and evaluation criteria.]

Leadership in Organizations Reflective Self-Assessment and Development Paper Guidelines

Part I. Reflective Self-Assessment Section This part of the paper contains your reflection on all of the questions and assessment opportunities throughout the course, and concludes with a listing of your strengths and areas of development as a leader. You will need to include the LSQ (from the Leadership Style Workbook) and the VLA results, as well as all of the other opportunities for reflection, such as values reflection, team roles, bases of power, etc. that were identified during class sessions. (All of the “Opportunities for Reflection” on page 1 of this document need to be addressed.) Specific scores from your assessments are less important than your interpretation of whether you scored “high,” “medium,” or “low” in the main areas and sub-areas of the assessment instruments. When you are reflecting you will need to provide specific examples from your experiences that confirm or dispute the assessment instruments’ results, or that add information to your reflection/assessment in other areas of the course. This will help you demonstrate that you have truly reflected upon these opportunities in depth. At the end of this section, after your reflection, list your strengths and your areas of development. Part II. Practice of Leadership / Action Plan During the course you need to identify two leadership competencies that you want to develop further. Explain how those competencies were identified. One way that might be done is by examining your ideal image of yourself as a leader that you completed in the reflective section. This image could guide your selection of the area of development that you want to concentrate on for future action items. You might also examine your lowest scores on your assessments, or your most urgent future needs as a leader. You might want to consider your career plans, but do not consider this project as a career development plan or path. Your focus should be on what you need to improve upon to be effective as a leader in certain positions, and not how to get to the “next position.” You are identifying “building blocks” for some of the leadership competencies you want to further develop. The areas of development that you want to concentrate on for future action need to be identified from the course topics (i.e. “inspiring a shared vision,” “coaching managerial style,” “dominating team role,” etc.). Then you need to create an action plan for these two leadership competencies or areas of development. Several action items need to be aligned with each leadership competency that you want to develop.

You could enact a leadership role at work, at school, in the community, or in some other situation. Be sure to make the action items specific to you and your actual situation (i.e., name the workplace, event, people, etc.). Focus on gaining experience, and not on further education and/or training. (Please note: This is a confidential plan, but feel free to change the names if you do not feel comfortable sharing them with me.) Development/Action Planning

It will be very helpful for you to utilize your textbook when preparing ideas for your future development plan. On page 67 of your textbook you will find a sample Individual Development Plan (IDP). You may utilize this format for your developmental action plan. Your text could also be very useful to you in identifying “building blocks” for some of the leadership competencies you want to develop, as well as specific action items for their development. You may want to utilize the Leadership Skills chapters in your textbook (Chapters 3, 8, 11, 16) for further information and action item ideas for your development plan. Some of the assessments you completed this quarter also provided developmental suggestions. However, you are not limited to those suggestions. Be sure to choose your leadership development competencies from the course topics. Part III. Your Feedback Team Finally, you will need to identify your “feedback team” for now and for the near future (1-2 years). At the very least, there should be at least one individual you trust who will be willing and able to give you feedback on your growth and development as a leader. This could be a formal or an informal executive coach, a mentor, a supervisor, a trusted significant other, and/or members of your coaching team from the MGT 530 course. This feedback team might also include peers and subordinates. Keep in mind that individuals at different levels and in different positions may view your leadership efforts with different perspectives. That is one reason why a 360º approach to feedback is often the best approach. The most useful feedback focuses on specific behaviors, so you may want to focus feedback sessions on the action items from your development plan. [See next page for formatting of paper.]

Formatting of Paper

Reflective Self-Assessment Section 100 points

 In-depth reflection section on all of the questions and assessment opportunities (see page 1) throughout the quarter

 Listing of your leadership strengths and areas of development Action Plan / Practice of Leadership Section 95 points

 Identification of the 2 leadership competencies to be developed further and how those competencies were identified

 Description of subsequent leadership development opportunities and at least 3 action items for each competency

 Specific details for action items including timeline and plan for assessing progress towards the development of the competencies and action items you identified

Feedback Team 5 points

Identification of feedback team

The papers should be typed and double spaced. [See next page for evaluation criteria and grading.]

MGT 530 REFLECTION/DEVELOPMENT PAPER

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Points Points Possible Received Reflective/Assessment Section Were all of the assessments (LSQ, VLA, etc.), as well as reflection from all of the other topics, 60 addressed in the reflection section? (See “Opportunities for Reflection” on first page) Did the paper demonstrate an in-depth 35 self-awareness? (Specific examples were discussed.) Were strengths and areas of development 5 listed? Practice of Leadership /Action Plan Were at least 2 leadership competencies identified for improvement? 10 How were they identified? Were at least 3 action items created for each of the 2 competencies? Did the action items align with the leadership competencies? 45 Did they focus on gaining experience, and not on further education and/or training? Were specific details for the action items provided, including a timeline and plan for assessing progress towards the development 40 of the competencies and action items identified? Feedback Team Was the feedback team identified? 5 Total Points 200