Leadership, as the class title states it, was a big component of the class. I learned about the Five Practices of Leadership Module presented by Kouzes and Posner. They identified five practices common to personal-best leadership experiences and concluded that in order to get extraordinary things done in organizations leaders engaged in the following Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership:
• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart
As Kouzes and Posner wrote, “Leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (23). Effective leaders engage in the five practices. In order to learn how to engage in these five practices I identified the practices I already perform well in and which ones I needed improvement on. This was done through the Student Leadership Practices Inventory Self-Assessment made up of a set of questions ranked from one to five and resulting in an overall score for each practice. The results were the bases of my leadership development plan (link). In this plan I identified the practices I ranked high in, the ones I performed well, and the practices I ranked low in, the ones I needed improvement on. I then proceeded to creating an action plan to improve the practices I ranked low in while working with my team. My progress in my leadership development plan is recorded in the weekly blog posts available on the home page.
There are many ideologies when it comes to leadership, in this class, “Leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance” (23). It is not about personality; it’s about behavior (Kouzes, Posner 15). My leadership development plan was a way to improve my weak behaviors and continue practicing my strong ones. It was a way to help me understand effective leadership in organizations through my behaviors. Below is an easy access link to my leadership development plan:
Leadership Development Plan
(Kouzes, James M., and Barry Z. Posner. “The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.” The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007. 3-26. Print.)