Competency
In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following
competencies:
Craft a communication strategy for internal and external audiences
Leverage internal and external intelligence to inform decision making
Develop an adaptable leadership mindset and skill set
Scenario
You work as a director of leadership and learning for an organization that
makes prosthetics. The organization has been in business since 1999 and
employs over 350 people in its Tampa, Florida, headquarters and three plant
locations across the Southwest. While the business is currently based in the
United States, the organization is exploring ways to move into Canadian
markets within the next three years. This year’s employee engagement
survey results for the organization show that some leadership practices are
rated lower, while some practices were rated higher. The new chief human
resources officer (CHRO) met with the team to discuss the general results.
Everyone agrees that the company’s focus should be on both specific
leadership development areas perceived as strengths and on those rated as
areas for improvement, primarily regarding social intelligence, emotional
intelligence, and the interpersonal skills of effective leaders.
To help this initiative, your manager, the vice president of leadership and
learning, asked you to create an adaptive leadership toolkit that can be used
throughout the organization. To begin this work, you conducted a personal
leadership self-assessment and turned this into a personal development
plan. Then you shared this artifact with your manager. Your manager was
impressed with the thoroughness of the personal development plan and
saw value in incorporating it as an exemplar within the adaptive leadership
toolkit for use by all people leaders in the organization. After receiving such
positive feedback, you moved forward with creating the rest of the adaptive
leadership toolkit.
Your manager has shared the adaptive leadership toolkit that you created
with the CHRO, and it was well received. The CHRO wants to distribute this
toolkit to all leaders throughout the organization—supervisors and above—
and asks you to create a communication strategy that will help in the rollout
and implementation of the adaptive leadership toolkit. For this project, you
will create that communication strategy.
Directions
Overview: In this part of the communication strategy, you will summarize
the business problems the organization is currently experiencing and
provide an overview of trends from your analysis. You will also explain how
a personal development plan and adaptive leadership toolkit can provide
solutions to these challenges.
1. Summarize the business problems the organization is currently facing
and describe how the personal development plan and adaptive
leadership toolkit will address them.
a. Why was the personal development plan created?
b. Why was the adaptive leadership toolkit developed?
2. Summarize trends in leadership strengths observed in your analysis of
the employee satisfaction survey and describe how they relate to the
leadership skills and behaviors included in the adaptive leadership
toolkit.
a. In which areas did leadership score well?
b. How did your analysis help to inform skills and behaviors
included in the adaptive leadership toolkit?
3. Summarize trends in leadership weaknesses observed in your analysis
of the employee satisfaction survey and describe how they relate to
the leadership skills and behaviors included in the adaptive leadership
toolkit.
a. In which areas did leadership not score well?
b. How did your analysis help to inform skills and behaviors
included in the adaptive leadership toolkit?
Personal Development Plan: In this part of the communication strategy, you
will describe the personal development plan in further detail. You will
include how the personal development plan supports the adaptive
leadership toolkit and the value it will bring once the entire toolkit is rolled
out.
4. Summarize the importance of including a personal development
plan in the adaptive leadership toolkit and explain the value it will
bring to the organization.
a. How does the personal development plan support the adaptive
leadership toolkit?
b. How do the strategies within the personal development plan
address the business problems the organization is currently
facing?
5. Explain how the personal development plan and SMART goal setting
could help develop the leadership styles of the leaders within the
organization.
Adaptive Leadership Toolkit: In this part of the communication strategy,
you will describe the adaptive leadership toolkit in further detail. You will
include how and who the adaptive leadership toolkit brings value to within
the organization.
6. Describe how the adaptive leadership toolkit will be used and who
within the organization will manage it. Your response should address
the following:
a. Who is the target audience for the adaptive leadership toolkit?
b. Who are the owners of the adaptive leadership toolkit?
7. Describe the specific leadership skills and behaviors that are included
in the adaptive leadership toolkit and explain how developing these
skills and behaviors will address the business problems the
organization currently faces. Use trends from the employee
satisfaction survey to support your response.
Rollout and Implementation: In this part of the communication strategy,
you will provide more details around the rollout and implementation of the
adaptive leadership toolkit throughout the organization.
8. Provide a timeframe for rollout and implementation of the adaptive
leadership toolkit and justify how this strategy supports the
organization’s goal of improving leadership skills and behaviors over
the next two years.
9. Describe the metrics and deliverables associated with the rollout and
implementation of the adaptive leadership toolkit. Your response
should address the following:
a. How will the success of this rollout and implementation be
measured?
b. What are some important milestones to consider for tracking
progress?
10. Determine methods for communicating the relevance of the
adaptive leadership toolkit to stakeholders within the organization.
Your response should address the following:
a. How should this be communicated to leadership to help gain
buy-in?
b. How should this be communicated to its intended users to help
gain buy-in?
11. Describe the feedback and communication strategy associated
with continuous improvements to the adaptive leadership toolkit.
Your response should address the following:
a. How can employees provide feedback on any roadblocks,
issues, or ideas for improvement?
b. How will updates to the adaptive leadership toolkit be
communicated from leadership down to employees?
