Leadership in Business: Professional Development Plan

Leadership in Business
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Executive Summary
A professional development plan is a tool of self-directed learning which helps a person in
assessing needs and actions to increase abilities. Leadership abilities are required by a
manager to succeed in his job of leading his team to attain organisational goals. Through the
following work I have tried to undertake a self-assessment of my own abilities to be an able
leader.
At the onset I have tries to assess my leadership abilities through self-assessment quizzes.
Self-assessment quizzes have been summarized in this work. Further, I have tries to assess
my strengths and weaknesses. Further I tried to procure feedback from my peers regarding
their perception of my abilities.
In continuation I tried to create a clear vision and objectives for a development plan and
proceeded to creat an action plan to achieve these objectives. Further, I decided the resources
required for the plan and made a mechanism for evaluation.
Lastly, I made strategies to review the plan and got feedback and recommendations from
supervisor for improvement.
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Contents
Executive Summary...................................................................................................................2
Introduction................................................................................................................................4
Outcome of self-assessment quizzes and key strengths and weaknesses..................................4
Assessment of more information on behaviour.........................................................................6
Leadership Vision......................................................................................................................7
Development Objectives............................................................................................................7
Action plan for professional development................................................................................8
Resources required to implement the plan...............................................................................10
Mechanism of evaluation and feedback...................................................................................11
9 Strategy to review and revise the professional development plan........................................12
10 Discussion of the plan with supervisor. Mentor recommendations and changes...............13
Conclusion................................................................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
Leadership is an ability through which a person is able to direct and influence his followers to
achieve pre-decided goals (Daft, 2014). A good leader is able to lead his people to
accomplish their work with cooperation and belongingness. A successful leader is able to
motivate his followers to wok under pressure and is able to solve their conflicts amicably
(Daft, 2014). For a manager in a leadership position in a business organisation, it is very
important to inculcate leadership abilities. For this purpose, professional development plan
needs to be made with objectives, vision and action plan. Following is my professional
development plan to increase my leadership abilities.
Outcome of self-assessment quizzes and key strengths and weaknesses
Through the self-assessment quizzes, I was able to understand importance of leadership skills
and my own ability to lead in complex situations. A leader is a person who can influence his
followers or subordinates into following his vision, advice, guidelines or way of work (Daft,
2014). For an able leader it is important that he assigns roles and tasks as per ability to his
subordinates and holds each person accountable for his performance (Campbell, 2018).As per
the results of my self-assessment of leadership abilities, if I was in a leadership situation I
would assess abilities of all my subordinates and assign tasks as per ability. This would help
me in attaining the goals of the organisation through a combined and coordinated effort.
Additionally, it is important for a leader to motivate his followers or team members to work
harder (Campbell, 2018). I would find ways to encourage them to work harder and I will keep
watch of their efforts. This will help in goal-oriented work in today’s modern complex
business situations (Daft, 2014).
It has been propounded in leadership theories that a friendly and participative leader is more
successful (Lussier, 2009). I have realised through my self-assessment that I would try to be
friendly with the members and try to make the working conditions pleasing. However, being
friendly and pleasant does not mean that members would be allowed to do whatever they
want. They would need to abide by the rules and working criteria of the organisation. This
would help in reducing chaos. However, I would try to show a democratic leadership style
and be helpful and considerate of their feelings.
Business world today is very complicated (Miner, 2015) . Situations facing a leader may be
diverse. Certain situations like cultural issues require patience and acceptance while certain
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