Leadership Development Plan
Self-Reflection
The main areas that I should work on regarding K&P’s five practices are to Model the Way and Challenge the Process. Specifically, I have weaknesses in finding ways to receive feedback and to build consensus with a team. I always had difficulties working with teams in academic situations, primarily because I lacked the confidence to assume the leadership role I should have taken. In high school, I was quiet and I often disagreed with what my team thought; however, I never challenged them on their values. Thus consensus was rarely formed on many of the teams I worked with in high school. Also, there were never really opportunities to focus on feedback in many of my leadership roles; the goal was to finish the project or paper, and then be done working as a team. Leading my high school cross country team was different however in that I approached my coach and asked him what I could do to become a better leader in practices and meets. The following day or race, I would focus on meeting his expectations, whether that was leading my group on warm ups, cool downs, stretching, or the time management of a meet. In this way, I helped accomplish a goal of unity on the team, and also a goal of preventing injuries. I had weaknesses with challenging others’ thoughts and values in a group setting. In one of my group projects, I decided to open up and challenge some of the ideas in the group in order to make the project more successful; however, my ideas were quickly rejected and denoted as dumb. Since then, I have shied away from speaking against what the group as a whole wants. I have had many successes as a leader too; I consider myself to be respectful of others’ thoughts and ideas in groups. In group projects, I always took everyone’s ideas and never bashed anyone’s thoughts. Instead, we steered our thoughts into ideas that the group could agree upon and move from there. Furthermore, I am good at praising people that do well in groups or teams. Leading the NHS club in high school, I always encouraged the officers that went above what their duties were, and praised them for that when we met to discuss meetings. I like to set an example of what I see as good values and traits that I want to instill in others. I was always positive during runs and encouraging people to conquer what they saw were challenges. Even when people that struggled running up a hill beat me at the end of a run, I still felt good because I helped them push through that hardship. Selflessness is an important part of being a leader and it is something I am fairly good at, but would like to further improve on.
Action Plan: 5 Practices of Leadership
Right now, I feel fairly successful at inspiring my shared vision, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. I would like to improve as a leader in the areas of modeling the way and challenging the process. Right now, I tend to focus solely on my own interpretations of issues and values, so others might tend to see me as closed off to challenges to my own ideas. I don’t want to appear cold to people, I just have a tendency to close off in group projects because I like to do my own work and be credited for my work. I also don’t tend to make time for feedback after the project or project steps are completed so that I can challenge myself to become a more active listener.
In order to achieve my goals as a leader and to better develop some skills in modeling my values and challenging the process, I plan to work a little on each weakness at every team meeting. After completing a phase of the group project, I will step up and suggest that we have a ten minute team meeting where we discuss what worked well and what we can improve on. We need to reiterate our goals as a group as well, which will help us to become a more cohesive group. Furthermore, I’ll take the time to praise my group and the individuals on various things they do to help make our project a success, I don’t want to be as focused on my own individual success. During our first meeting as a group, we should go over some encouraging words that no one will be judged for coming up with an idea different from everyone else’s. Differences in the group will play to our advantage, and I will be sure to speak up about any ideas that come to my mind.
Action Plan: Emotional Intelligence
I struggle with controlling my emotions about certain situations I am in, and I believe that I should focus on self-management, at least in these first couple of weeks of the group project. I often get discouraged when something doesn’t go how I envision it, and that often affects my mood. I also get stressed out and focus purely on emotions, then I tell others about them. This always starts a chain of negativity, so I need to learn to control how I express my emotions. I found that with running often times, I would tell the person I was with that I was tired, or thirsty, which caused the other person to begin complaining. All that did was drag out the run, and it was often even more discouraging.
I’m going to take action to change some of my attitudes and ways of expressing my emotions towards the project. Although group work is not ideal, before and after meeting up with my group, I will do a little reflection on how I can change my attitude for next time or how I can inspire positivity in my group. During the meetings, whenever someone says something negative, I am going to think of a positive aspect to the situation. For example, if someone says something such as “this project/class is so boring and time consuming” I can talk about the rewards that a class has to offer; maybe the class will give them the means to become a better leader in business and outside of business. If my group suggests an idea I am not thrilled about, instead of becoming moody and negative, I can make a suggestion about a way to look at the problem or solution in a different light. I also want to work on accepting others’ ideas when I don’t get what I want in some aspect of the problem. There may be some disappointment, but I will work hard to flush that disappointment and move on in exchanging ideas about the next issue or solution.
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