Personal Leadership Assignment 2022

Running head: PERSONAL LEADERSHIP PLAN
PERSONAL LEADERSHIP PLAN
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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TASK A: CRITICAL REFLECTION ON OWN EFFECTIVENESS AS A LEADER
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background to yourself
I am a professional working in a business organization. I have been a bright student all
throughout my life although I lost track a little bit while I was in college. I am the only child in
my family and my parents are very supportive. I want to become a businessperson in future and
have my own company.
1.2 Background to organization
The organization where I am working deals in export materials. It was founded in the
year 1949 and has since grown as a company. The organization has several units spread across
the country and mainly focuses on the export of chemicals to numerous countries.
1.3 Leadership focus Areas
The report aims to focus the leadership areas of traits and resilience.
2.0 Critical Reflection on Traits
Throughout the span of my professional career, I have learned that a leader needs to
possess certain leadership traits. Leadership traits refer to the personal attributes or qualities that
shape efficient leaders (Dinh et al. 2014). Several leadership traits could be even transferred
across various industries. The main requirement is that the leader must possess certain traits
(Lord et al. 2017). I have worked in the organization for two years and in these two years, I have
acquired a few leadership traits if not all. Honesty is one trait that I have acquired inherently. I

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have realized that although the current business scenario demands us to be tactful and sometimes
sly, it is honesty that works for the long run. The trait of being a good communicator I have
learnt through observing others and working with people of all types. To become a good leader,
it is important that I am able to listen to my employees carefully (Johansson, Miller and Hamrin
2014). Listening, I believe is one of the biggest needs of being a good communicator. Apart from
that, I have understood that without being resilient, it is impossible to achieve success even as an
employee let alone as a leader. With a dream of having my own company and leading people, I
need to have that resilience at this level so that I imbibe these traits easily when I become a
leader (Forbes.com 2019). In my organization, I have observed that our manager regularly
interacts with us regarding the important decisions of the company. Although it is important to
consult everyone regarding any decision of an organization, the leader must have the ability
make own decisions.
To become an effective leader, I thus believe that possessing the above traits is extremely
crucial. While some traits like honesty, compassion or good communication are inherent, traits
like decision-making ability, ability to inspire others, confidence are gained with experience. My
experience at the organization has helped me gain some of the traits of a leader including good
communicator, having commitment and passion and good decision-making skills. However, I
have found that some areas are still there where I need to improve.
2.1 Critical Reflection on Resilience
As I have already discussed in the previous section, resilience is one of the most
important qualities of being a leader. Leaders in today’s world I have observed are being
bombarded with roadblocks, failed attempts at success and letdowns. While we all are aware of

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this, we consistently tend to ignore it, ignore the need for resiliency in our lives and
organizations (Hudgins 2016). The prime reason for this could be our perception of resiliency
from a personal point of view. When I think of resiliency, the image that comes to my mind is
that of my mother not giving up in the face of many adversaries. She is blind on one eye but she
has never let it come in her way of achieving her goals and dreams. However, whenever we think
of resiliency, the image of a leader never comes to our mind. We never think of a leader who
went through an exhausting year and came out with flying colors (Maxwell, Locke and
Scheurich 2014). In my experience, personal resiliency is important but it is even more important
as an element of effective leadership.
In my two years as a business trainee in the organization, I have realized that the true
character of a leader is not the way we perform in good times but the way we demonstrate
courage, emotional strength and professionalism in times of extreme stress (Stagman-Tyrer
2014). I have found myself in a similar testing situation when I had to manage people from
different backgrounds and produce results within a week. Although in the end, I was able to
produce the desired result working with the team, I was emotionally exhausted. It was the time
when I had almost given up. I realized that it is impossible to display resilience unless one goes
through testing or difficult times. The experience taught me that a true leader is the one who
faces all the challenges and comes out stronger (Reitz and Chaskalson 2016). In fact, I could now
say that without challenges, the resilience of the leader could not be tested. When the challenge
becomes harder, the easier it becomes for us to develop a resilient posture as a leader.
3.0 Recommendations

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After critically evaluating the two leadership focus areas along with providing a
background to me, it is clear that I have to improve in many areas. I received verbal feedbacks
from my colleagues regarding my strengths and weaknesses as a leader. One of my colleagues
told me that I need to be more presentable as a leader. I understood what my colleague wanted to
state because leaders have to be charismatic. A charismatic leader is the one who has the ability
to influence, persuade and motivate his followers. Some other colleagues pointed out my
inability to make strong decisions when it is needed the most.
Based on the feedbacks given by my colleagues and the analysis I carried out, I could
think of the following recommendations to improve myself.
First, I need to understand the reasons behind what makes a successful and great leader. I
will make a list of the greatest leaders from different spheres and learn extensively about them.
Amongst these will be leaders who are or were known for being honest, ethically sound,
excellent communicators.
Second, I will conduct self-assessment to identify the core characteristics that I possess
more clearly. I will undertake several online tests to reveal the qualities I have such as observant,
adventurous, or impulsive. Apart from undertaking these tests, I will also ask my friends, family
and colleagues to come up with words they might or would use to describe me.
Third, in order to improve my leadership skills and develop a leadership plan, I will
identify the core values that I consider to be in my priority list. It is important to identify the core
values because these values define the reasons behind our decisions, our integrity and ethics as
well (Allen, Miguel and Martin 2014). Although I knew what my priorities were but I was not
aware of them prior to preparing this plan.

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Fourth, I will create my own vision statement. Creating a personal vision statement will
reflect my core values and personal traits. The vision statement will answer many things about
what I want in life and what I want to be. In addition to that, it will also help me realize what I
actually want to achieve and contribute to the society.
Fifth, for creating a leadership development plan for myself, I will set certain goals with a
set time. I will prepare three leadership development goals that will challenge me and three
manageable goals that will be easier for me to achieve. I will make use of the SMART goals so
that I could set goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Specific
means the goals that will relate to my aim of developing me as a leader (Shaw et al. 2015).
Measurable means the goals could be measured in terms of the time taken and accomplishment.
Attainable means the goals will be not impossible to achieve, that is, I will not set goals that are
difficult for me to attain. Realistic refers to the goals being relevant and achievable. Timely
means the goals will be achieved in a given timeframe.
Sixth, after I set my goals, I will develop an action plan to achieve those goals.
Developing an action plan will help me to organize my SMART goals systematically. With the
help of the action plan, I will be able to put the goals in order of importance, which will make it
easier for me to identify the most important goals that I want to achieve to become a good leader.
With the above recommendations on developing a personal leadership plan, I believe that
I will be able to let go of my weaknesses and enhance my strengths further to become a strong
leader. The analysis has also helped me to identify the traits of a leader. Resilience is something
that I found to be the most important for a leader because it shows our never-ending zeal for
trying and winning.

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TASK B: CHANGE MANAGEMENT
1.0 Critical reflection
Currently, I work in an organization that is undergoing a parental change in that it is
going to be owned by a different organization. The organization that will overtake our company
has a good reputation within the industry both locally and globally. The change means that the
organization will undergo a restructuring, which means the stakeholders including the employees
will be working under a new executive. The change process in any organization takes a toll on
not only the managers but also the employees. I being an employee have found that the change
process is very complicated and requires extreme precision and time. In addition to being an
employee, I also have the responsibility to lead a team and convey the changes that will take
place within the organization and in what way it would affect them. Initially, it was very difficult
for me to comprehend the change because I had no idea what changes will it bring when the
owner of the organization changes. In the change process of any organization, it is the
responsibility of the manager to balance the requirement to maintain the operations and the need
to react to the new events. In the organization where I work, the manager has found it difficult to
welcome the change smoothly. He has struggled to manage the documents of the process and
even the announcement of the change was not made to the employees immediately. It was
delayed due to miscommunication by the manager and the owners.
I have also been troubled by the sudden announcement because I had to make immediate
plans for conducting sessions with the members under me and make them understand about the
change. The first thing that came to my mind was the reason behind such a change. I was
clueless as to why the organization suddenly decided to merge with another organization.

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Nonetheless, I was given the responsibility to convey the message to my team and so I did but I
could not resolve their queries regarding the process. In the meeting of the supervisors, the
manager provided us an explanation about the sudden change in the organization. The manager
explained that the change has been made in order to rid it of the deficiencies it has been facing
for a long time. Whenever there are deficiencies detected within the existing organization, it
looks for a change. The meeting helped me understand the actual reason for the change process
undertaken by our organization I found that whenever there are deficiencies within an
organization, a change is needed to eliminate such deficiencies like problems in communication,
regularity in the policies and confusion amongst others. One of the important things of the
change process especially parental change is that it does not affect the employees as much as it
affects the higher authorities. In contrast to this although, such changes heavily influence the
workforce as well. Mostly, parental change includes the change in the governance body, the
CEOs and the senior managers but employees have the concern regarding their new chiefs and
managers.
The change that is taking place in our organization involves a structural change in the
overall goals, mission, vision and strategies of the organization. I have been working in the
organization for the past two years but I never had the opportunity to actually understand what
structural change means although I have learned about it during my graduation days. Structural
changes are the changes that affect the structure of an organization especially in terms of the way
the company is run (Al-Haddad and Kotnour 2015). In structural change, the hierarchy,
management systems, the chain of command, structure of the job and administrative procedures
are affected. The circumstances under which, structural changes take place include mergers and
acquisitions, market changes and job duplication and so on. In our organization, the prime reason

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for the parental change leading to the structural change is acquisition (Alvesson and Sveningsson
2015). Owing to this, there will be changes in the hierarchy of the organization and we will have
a new CEO, new senior manager and other new supervisors. The change will affect the
functioning of the organization as well because duplicate departments will have to be eliminated.
In my view, this will take much time and it is very complicated as well. For the employees, the
change will affect their current designation in the company. Employees from both the
organizations in fact, will be reassigned to their new posts or else, they might be terminated as
well. This is one thing that I fear because suddenly terminating an employee will heavily affect
the future of that employee.
2.0 Recommendations
From the above reflection, it is clear that I have little knowledge about the change process
happening in our organization and in general as well. However, I could say that the little
knowledge that I had prior to joining the organization, has helped me in managing the change
thus far. In order to improve my knowledge about the process to enable change more effectively
in future, I need to learn more about organizational change.
I must learn about the change process more deeply and the several frameworks or
theories related to it. An organization goes through various changes, some might be evolutionary
and some might be revolutionary. While evolutionary change refers to the changes that occur in
the long-run. Such changes are gradual, incremental and focused narrowly. Revolutionary
changes are rapid, dramatic and broadly focused. The change that is occurring in our
organization is revolutionary change because it is sudden and rapid.

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I will have to keep a track of the small organizations in my locality that are undergoing changes
so that I could comprehend if the change process is the same for organizations at all levels. I will
analyze whether the changes are evolutionary or revolutionary.
Several theories are there that help explain the way to embrace, accept and manage
change. Lewin’s Change Theory is one theory that explains the change process within an
organization very lucidly. He gave the famous “unfreeze, change and refreeze” in the field of
organizational change (Cummings, Bridgman and Brown 2016). Unfreeze refers to the changing
of the previously built systems, functioning and the overall structure. After this, comes the
change stage where the required change is made. Then, lastly is the refreezing stage where the
newly made changes are maintained until next change is required or deemed.
I have found in the change process that is undergoing in our organization is that the
employees belonging to different cultural backgrounds might face the most termination. This is a
concern because it will reflect badly on the organization. For this not to happen in the future
when I become the leader, I will value culture the most. When and if I find the need to change, I
will prioritize culture the most.
Furthermore, I will start the change management process from the bottom, letting all my
employees know about the change. I recommend this as opposed to other views to start at the top
because I believe the employees at the lowest level have the right to know about the changes first
as they are the ones doing the bulk of the work. It is however necessary that the top managers are
also made aware of the change.
The other recommendation that I will consider is involving every layer of the
organization in the change process. In the ongoing change process in our organization, I have

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learned the lesson that we should never consider any employee as insignificant and undeserving
to know about the change process (Van der Voet, Groeneveld and Kuipers 2014). I will not
commit the same mistake and will involve all the layers in my organization to ensure that no one
later disturbs the process of change.
In addition to that, I will also use the recommendation to make the emotional and rational
case together. It means I will not make any changes in the organization solely based on the
strategic business goals as I am observing this company doing. I have learned that it is important
to appeal to the emotions of the people while simultaneously thinking about the business goals.
The example of Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO is worth noting here. Whitman along with
her senior executive members activated a strong emotional connection with the employees by
following the cultural traditions and history of the company.
From the change process that is undergoing in our organization, I have understood that it
is crucial to keep the employees and each other staff engaged in the process. I will thus take the
recommendation that engaging all the members of the organization from top to bottom engaged
in the process. Engaging might be in the form of allotting crucial responsibilities to midlevel
workers and frontline employees as well.
Thus, as evident, I will be able to enable change effectively if I follow the above
recommendations.

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References:
Al-Haddad, S. and Kotnour, T., 2015. Integrating the organizational change literature: a model
for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 28(2), pp.234-262.
Allen, S.J., Miguel, R.F. and Martin, B.A., 2014. Know, see, plan, do: A model for curriculum
design in leadership development. SAM Advanced Management Journal, 72(2), pp.26-38.
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Routledge.
Cummings, S., Bridgman, T. and Brown, K.G., 2016. Unfreezing change as three steps:
Rethinking Kurt Lewin’s legacy for change management. Human relations, 69(1), pp.33-60.
Dinh, J.E., Lord, R.G., Gardner, W.L., Meuser, J.D., Liden, R.C. and Hu, J., 2014. Leadership
theory and research in the new millennium: Current theoretical trends and changing
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Forbes.com (2019). Council Post: Why Resilience Is Necessary As A Leader. [online]
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Hudgins, T.A., 2016. Resilience, job satisfaction and anticipated turnover in nurse
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Lord, R.G., Day, D.V., Zaccaro, S.J., Avolio, B.J. and Eagly, A.H., 2017. Leadership in applied
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Reitz, M. and Chaskalson, M., 2016. How to bring mindfulness to your company’s
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Shaw, R.L., Pattison, H.M., Holland, C. and Cooke, R., 2015. Be SMART: examining the
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