Leadership Assessment And Growth Plan

A leader must be able to lead others, build trust, extend influence beyond the Chain of Command, lead by example, and communicate effectively. The ability to develop creates a positive environment, fosters Espirit de Corps, prepares self, develops others, and are stewards of the profession. Last but not least, effective leadership must achieve results.

Over the past couple of months, we discussed several traits, skills, and behaviors that have contributed to the success of both past and present leaders. Intelligence, integrity, charisma, and confidence are some of the traits that characterize many of these leaders. Interpersonal skills, oratory skills, and conceptual skills are some of the more important skills that helped to shape their leadership style. Some of these skills go hand in hand with the traits that are essential for strong leadership. Meanwhile, the behaviors that drive these leaders include inspiring and motivating others, collaboration, having a strategic perspective and trust. Combined, these traits, skills and behaviors make for effective leadership.

The book, “Remarkable Leadership”, is significant in our leadership discussion because its main focus is on bringing out the leader quality in all of us. The book’s premises rest on the belief that leaders maybe born but they can also be developed, thus leadership is learnt. The author draws reference on the fact that we are all born with some sort of talent/gift or we may have an interest in something that needs to be developed through training. The critical concepts in the books discuss the qualities and roles that leader should possess, which include being; an advocate for change, an effective communicator, a teacher/mentor, develop necessary relationship, being an innovator, know the importance of teamwork, and one who values learning continuously.

An effective leader must have a plan for success. This includes a personal plan of growth as well as a professional plan for improvement. This paper will attempt to highlight my personal strengths and weaknesses as leader, identify the areas needed for improvement, and identify the leadership skills and practices that I will use to become an effective leader. This paper will also give an outline of the goals that I consider a priority and a timeline for this development. The overall result will be an inclusive leadership plan of development that I will use to grow myself as well as any organization that I work for in the future.

Throughout history, the most important and influential leaders have been recognized for their positive or negative impact among various civilizations. Regardless of their outcomes, great leaders around the world undeniably share particular traits or skills that have enabled them to achieve their vision. Dr. Travis Bradberry’s 12 Habits of Exceptional Leaders, attempts to deliver a condensed list of essential elements that characterize great leaders. According to the author, great leaders possess a variety of 12 unique traits that individuals can follow to enhance their leadership skills. Although the author offers a clear summation of these elements, the article is vaguely credible as it fails to provide evidence and effective methods to

In order for someone to be an effective leader, one would have to bestow certain skills and characteristics or some can be obtained over a period of time. Various assessments and questionnaires are designed to measure and give insight on certain skills or traits an individual may have. Some of those assessments include the skills inventory, leadership trait questionnaire, style questionnaire, leadership questionnaire, least preferred coworker, path goal, LMX, and the authentic leadership self-assessment. By conducting these questionnaires and assessments, not

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

Leadership is a personal skill that has to be developed and improved upon daily, just like an athlete works on his craft. We all come from different walks of life and that is often a factor in the way our leadership styles are shaped. Our differences of race, gender, religion, home environment, and lifestyle all have an effect on the way we are led growing up. It is a skill that is mastered over time, while never being perfected. Like anything else in life, leadership skills are often developed from who we are, where we come from and the people in our life who have taught us their knowledge.

As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.

The questions regarding what makes a great leader, are they born that way, is there certain behaviors that can be taught, and can one switch from one style of leadership to another, are addressed from multiple perspectives. Three main schools of thought, trait theory, behavioral theory and contingency theory, work to explain the social phenomena of leadership. Though they pull from psychological theories, they each contribute valuable pieces that strives to solve the riddle of what makes or constitutes a great leader. However, this riddle may be far less complex, as John Quincy Adams once said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader” (Adams,

What is leadership development? Chief Learning Officer Magazine states that leadership development expands the capacity of individuals to perform in leadership roles within organizations. Leadership roles are those that facilitate execution of a company’s strategy through building alignment, winning mindshare and growing the capabilities of others. Leadership roles may be formal with the corresponding authority to make decisions and take responsibility. Or they may be informal roles with little official authority a member of a team who influences team engagement, purpose and direction; a lateral peer who must listen and negotiate through influence.

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

Leadership is a very broad topic; I never knew just how many different traits and skills that it takes to become an effective leader. Some of which I was familiar with, and others that I was not aware of, but now from taking this course, they all seem to be necessary for the role of leadership. The attached paper, will explain of some of the important theories and concepts that I thought were most important to be able to become and effective leader.

The word ‘leadership’ often times triggers a preconceived image of an ideal leader—typically accompanied by the aura that the effective leader should be at the top of the hierarchy, ready to produce the solutions to complex problems. However, this is not true of leadership, given that effective leadership is not achieved by position but rather through style and situational awareness. Examining leadership requires the consideration of the catalysts for different types of leaders. Popular leader development theories tend to focus on the natural servitude of the leader, his or her capability to manage, and leader behavior.

Leadership is something that can be taught (Northouse, 2015. There are some valuable theories, which will be discussed later in this paper, how a leader can develop into having a strong influence in any daily aspect of their lives. Also later in this paper it will be discussed the various styles of leaders that can affect the behaviors of the actions of each leader. Each leader can learn these attributes or some of them just have the natural capability of being a leader.