Personal Leadership Plan Complete Submit a 1,750- Essay

Personal Leadership Plan Complete submit a 1,750- 2,450-word paper describe personal plan a leader future. • In addition reflecting previous leadership plans, include key concepts Brent & Dent, Deal, Nahavandi, Yukl texts, readings.

Personal Leadership Plan

The environmental factors that influence individuals', companies', organizations' behavior require that people benefit from the influence of a strong leader. In an environment with different types of change levels, it is important that people feel the strength of a leader that is able to point them in the right direction, to allow them the resources they need, and to give them the constructive feedback they require in order to reach their objectives. Leaders must be able to adapt their leadership style in accordance with the requirements of each situation, and not be rigid in a certain leadership style.

In order to become successful leaders people must develop a plan. This is important because it helps them establish their objectives, which establish their direction upon which they build their strategy (Burns, 2012). In addition to this, by developing the personal leadership plan individuals increase their commitment level in reaching a leadership position.

Personal Vision and Mission

As a college senior, I am interested in building a strong management career that allows me to put to work my skills and interest in managing people. I cannot state that I have a clear vision about the professional position I intend to occupy, but I know that it must involve managing people and processes. It is obvious that this is a long-term objective that will be achieved through intense study, hard work and experience, and acknowledgement from peers. Therefore, my vision is to become a flexible leader, with the company's interests and my team members' needs in mind at the same time. My mission is to develop and apply a leadership style that adapts to the necessities of each situation, and that encourages people to follow.

Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses Self-assessment

Communication Skills

The success of business enterprises relies on communication. In other words, how we communicate with our business partners, employees, and managers determines our success. It is important to focus on developing and improving communication skills. This is very important for leaders (Brent & Dent, 2013). They cannot expect that their team members make all communication efforts. The leader must be the example that his team follows. Therefore, individuals that want to become leaders must evaluate their communication skills in order to identify the areas that require additional improvement efforts.

In order to evaluate my communication skills I used several tools. I took several online communication assessment tests. I also requested feedback from people I know, like people I work with and college professors and colleagues. Some of their answers confirmed what I had already established about myself, but there were also certain issues that I had not identified. This refers mostly to how I manage conflict situations.

The communication skills evaluation activity revealed the fact that I have strong communication skills, but there is also room for improvement. Areas where I scored highest are represented by active listening, empathy, constructive feedback, motivation, and flexibility. I scored lowest on conflict management skills. People that evaluated me stated that I do not often address situations of conflict between people. This is obviously an important skill to develop, because conflicts are frequent in business environments.

Planning and Organizing Skills

Such skills are another important asset of great leaders. I have always been very good at planning and organizing things, and my skills have only improved until now. The subjects studied in college, especially those related to management have helped improve my prioritization skills. I think in order to have great results using planning and organizing skills it is important to prioritize. This is because the business environment seems to lead to an increased number of activities that leaders and their teams must work with.

The leader must also be able to teach his team members how to successfully plan and organize activities. I think I am very good at this, as I was team leader in most of the projects I did during college. The results I obtained during this period are a strong point I would like to present: all teams I led turned in the project ahead of time, I planned and organized the projects' activities, assigning them to the team members that were mostly qualified to each of them. Therefore, all team members did their job in due time, without having to work nights or to put in extra efforts into reaching this objective.I am sure I can have such results in an organization from the leadership position.

Time Management Skills

In order to be able to successfully plan and organize, leaders must have great time management skills (Nahavandi, 2000). By respecting the deadlines on all my projects, assignments, and different activities, I can state that I have good time management skills. However, I intend to improve such skills by taking time management courses in the attempt to make better use of my team's work.

Professional Goals

In order to develop as a strong leader it is important to set periodical goals on short, medium, and long-term. This is important because these goals serve as a verifying compass that can tell me if I'm on the established course or I am sidetracking. In establishing my goals I used the SMART strategy. This is because I wanted my leadership development goals to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. This adds clarity to goals, and allows for developing efficient strategies in reaching them.

However, another important issue that I want to emphasize is that the goals I establish must be flexible. In other words, they must allow m to make modifications to my strategies in order to adapt to environmental factors that have great influence on my professional development (Kouzes & Posner, 2012). I have established these goals in relationship to the current situation of the industry I intend to work in. But I cannot determine how the industry will look like in decades. Therefore, my goals must allow me to adapt to different changes within the industry.

Professional goals for the next year

Graduate from the university with my bachelor's degree

Take communication courses in order to improve my skills

Take time management courses

Search for jobs in my preferred industry, apply and interview for positions that allow me to use and develop my leadership skills

Begin employment in my preferred industry

These goals represent the necessities I have identified in the attempt of becoming a successful leader. I consider that in order to increase my motivation it is important to set smaller objectives in the beginning. Reaching these objectives will give me the satisfaction and motivation to establish more important objectives for longer periods of time.

During this period I also intend to conduct research studies on great leaders of the world. What interests me is identifying their values and motivations regarding leadership, but also the effect of their leadership on people. This will help me better determine the type of leader I should be. I think that every leader has a personal construct that fits better with certain leadership styles, but I also think that the leadership style can be educated and adapted.

Professional goals for the next five years

Continue working in my industry and improve my work performance

Start my MBA studies

Develop a network of relationships within my field of work and study

These are important objectives that I have established to reach in order to become an important leader. I think that a strong leader must have a strong professional background in his field of work. In addition to this, the leader must try to work in related fields in order to gain knowledge that would help the team. It seems that teams led by multidisciplinary leaders are the most successful. This is because such leaders understand the work necessities of each job of these team members.

This also requires that a leader has access to higher level studies in comparison with most people. I intend to start my MBA studies in order to benefit from higher education. This also builds prestige from peers and team members.

The business environment makes it very important to develop a networking base. There are situations where your skills and work experience cannot help you as much as your connections within the industry. I intend to build a strong network within my preferred industry, but also within the field of suppliers and other types of business partners. This is helpful for myself as a leader, but also for the companies I choose to work with.

Competency Development Plan

Important leaders focus on continuously developing their skills and competencies. This is because they identify situations where new skills are required, or higher level of their skills must be developed. These skills and competencies are identified through self-assessment but also from peer evaluation (Radcliffe, 2010). The focus and improvement of competencies strengthens the….....