Developing Others as Leaders

6.3 Assignment. Team Member Development Plan

Getting Started

This course culminates with this assignment that will add one more tool to your toolkit. Here's the scenario:

Your organizational leaders are considering you for a promotion with expanded leadership. During your last review, you mentioned to your organization's leaders a bit of what you have learned about leadership development in this course, specifically about the impact of leadership development plans. They are quite intrigued and have asked you to show them a sample of a leadership development plan that spans 12-months. You believe that your promotion is resting on the outcome of this sample development plan.

Your task is to create a leadership development plan for one of your employees for the coming year. You can use a tool or assessment that we have discussed in this course (e.g., a strengths-based approach) or use Maxwell’s (1995) book (e.g., IDEA personal growth plan in Chapter 6) as guide. You should organize your thinking around the key concepts of this course as you create this development plan.

As you develop your sample plan, you will want to provide an example of “assessment results,” your interpretations, as well as your recommendations. You do not have to actually meet with a follower or a direct report in your organization for this assignment. You can utilize a friend, family worker or any other person willing to complete the assignment and “pretend” to be one of your followers or direct reports. Please provide a detailed description as to what assessment you “used”, what the results were, how you addressed the results, and summarize the key themes and your recommendations.

While you have the freedom to present the plan as you like, be sure to review the assignment instructions for the required components.

An important thing for you to keep in mind. The developmental plan is NOT about you. It should be a follower-focused, developmental-focused approach. A helpful image for your role may be that of “guide.”

Following the guidance from Maxwell’s (1995) book, be specific in your recommendations for development areas and offer suggestions as to how the future leader may develop themselves further. Make sure to mention potential pitfalls as well as the metrics you will use to determine if the development plan is successful. Your assignment should take the form of report (Word document; could also contain charts) and should be no longer than 3 pages (including charts).

Upon successful completion of this assignment, you will be able to:

· Use an assessment tool to analyze a person’s strengths and development areas.

· Apply training and development knowledge to foster growth through development assessment.

· Describe how one might coach or mentor the individual used for the course project.

Background Information

In preparation for this assignment, read the Saunderson (2020) article “ Are you sinking or swimming with leadership development?(new tab) ”, review the video entitled  “How to Develop Your People”(new tab) , and review any/all appropriate resources covered in this course. You may want to refer to Rath and Conchie’s (2008) book,  Strengths-based leadership(new tab) . Rath and Conchie’s (2008) book provides hundreds of strategies for applying strengths and with an accompanying website for an online assessment to discover your top 5 talents.

Instructions

1. Review the rubric to make sure you understand the criteria for earning your grade.

2. Review the  Saunderson (2020)(new tab)  article as well as any/all appropriate resources covered in this class.

3. Based on the scenario in the Getting Started section, create a leadership development plan (Word document) that demonstrates your ability to identify areas of strength and development, make appropriate recommendations, provide resources, and identify metrics for success.

4. Please make sure to include the following:

a. A general statement of your leadership development plan. What are its key features, tools, processes, and components? Consider this to be an executive summary.

b. An assessment and description of the person’s strengths (e.g., Chart with Employee A’s strengths include….)

c. Identify any potential challenges or weaknesses (e.g., Chart with Employee A’s potential challenge areas include…)

d. The person’s personal organizational goals (i.e., What 2–4 goals would Employee A like to accomplish in the next 12 months?)

e. Your recommendations of specific steps this person will take to accomplish each of their goals (e.g., To accomplish X, Employee A will….)

f. Potential resources needed to accomplish goals (e.g., trainings, books, mentoring relationships, conferences, etc.)

g. How developmental progress will be measured (i.e., metrics – how will you know that development has occurred)

h. A timeline for progress and benchmarks (i.e., how often you will meet to assess progress)

i. Finally, please include how you will support this employee during this development time (e.g., a short paragraph or chart with this information)

5. You are encouraged to use graphics/ Excel charts (within Word) to enhance visual appeal.

6. The plan should be long enough to present the information, but not excessive in length. Please keep the length to no longer than three (3) pages (including charts and graphics), Most plans are two pages.

7. Naming Convention: Use the following format for naming the (Word document) files that contain your assignment: 

a. Part 1 – Initial of first name

b. Part 2 – Last name

c. Part 3 – Assignment name

d. Part 4 – Date: Using numbers in the order of month, day, and year.

e. Example of the file name: SmithJ_Leader_Dev_Paper_020122