Project Leadership Personal Learning Portfolio for MAN6304 Course

This assignment presents a personal learning portfolio focusing on project leadership. The portfolio comprises five entries reflecting on the student's experiences and insights. The entries explore the student's leadership style, primarily coaching leadership, and analyze scenarios involving team management, delegation, and conflict resolution. The student reflects on challenges encountered, such as managing team members with conflicting ideas and handling project setbacks. The portfolio also examines the student's power dynamics within a project context and the importance of clear communication and ethical considerations. Furthermore, it highlights the evolution of the student's leadership approach, incorporating elements of charming leadership and emphasizing the need for assertiveness and strictness when necessary. The portfolio concludes with reflections on future leadership strategies and the importance of setting clear expectations and consequences. References are provided in APA 6th edition format. The document is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib. Desklib is a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

Project Leadership
Individual Personal Learning Portfolio
Contents
Portfolio Entry 1-...................................................................................................................................2
Portfolio Entry 2-...................................................................................................................................3
Portfolio Entry 3-...................................................................................................................................4
Portfolio Entry 4....................................................................................................................................6
Portfolio Entry 5....................................................................................................................................8
Reference-.............................................................................................................................................9

Portfolio Entry 1
I have always been someone who believes that anything is possible one only needs the proper
encouragement and knowledge to make it happen. Thus I can proudly opine that mine is a
leadership that follows the path of coaching leadership (Western, 2019). On the first day of
this project our senior head had briefed our team on everything that there is about the project
that we were about to take part in. We were then asked to unanimously vote for someone to
be the team lead for the project. Having had previous experience in projects like this and also
having a Belbin test score of 55 I was voted as the team lead. On day one we reached the
project site very late after a hectic journey and thus everyone was tired. They also had their
morals down for we had missed one day of our concerned time frame. Thus I took it upon
myself to gather everyone around and discuss the plans for the day after. Since working on
that day was out of question we all sat down for some refreshments and discuss what the
different way in which this project can be approached (Farh, C. I., & Chen, 2018). Many
approaches were put forward, some were good and could be taken forward to completion
while there were some that were too farfetched to be carried out. One of my sub ordinates had
a plan that disregarded all the information that we have been provided both from the
organization that was our employee at and also the client who had approached our concerned
organisation about the project. I felt that this was a grave mistake and intended to correct him
on it. After the meeting was wrapped up I asked the team member who had put forward that
disastrous idea to stay behind. I explained to him why his plan was a bad idea (Cable, S., &
Graham, 2018). He did not believe me and opined that it was wrong of him and the team to
vote me in as the team lead. I kept my cool and explained to him in no uncertain terms that
his plan on its own merit was good and could be applied in future projects (Steinke, 2019).
But applying it to the one we were currently working on will be wrong on many grounds.
Firstly we were advised by our organisation to do it a certain way and also because we had
the information that the client had provided us with all the information about their preference
for the project. Thus it will be unethical for us to ignore such commands and work on what
we prefer (Ljungblom & Lennerfors, 2018). My sub-ordinate was not too happy with my
decision and insisted that his way was the correct way to get the work done. Next day when
we started working I had delegated the work by dividing the entire team into groups of three.
I had planned to see the progress of the work when we were going to meet for lunch mid-day.

I had fixed this time frame for two reasons, first it kept people of their toes and no one will
get chance to laze about and second cause group projects like this help bring the team
together and build loyalty (Noguera, Guerrero-Roldán, Masó,2018). Two hours into the
project I found out that my team member had followed his own idea on the project and
suffered a major setback. He along with the two other members on his group had come to
report it to me, but instead of admonishing him I went to see how their project can be saved
and turned into the client’s vision for I believed in learning from one’s mistakes help them be
better later in life (Marson, 2019). With the help of my team we finally finished the project
not only on time but also got compliments for a job well done. Later the team mate who had
made the mistake thanked me for being a good leader. He said that he was thankful that I did
not report him and helped him understand his mistake. He said that I had not only gained his
respect but also his loyalty (Western, 2018). And even though I thought I am a follower of
coaching leadership his words made me feel that I may have a few points of charming
leadership in me as well (Hermann, 2005).
Portfolio Entry 2-
Even though I had the responsibility of a project that ranged in the price bracket of seven
figures, but my power was not as much as being this project’s head would suggest. The
sixteen people involved in this project including me were all reporting to our supervisor in
the organisation. My power was limited to the people reporting to me on site (Huang, 2015).
The rest of the people had their work delegated to them by me and I was in charge of making
sure everything went ahead smoothly according to the plan, be it in case of keeping the work
environment correct to following all the ideas and suggestions given to us by both the
organisation and the client were fulfilled to the t (Duffy, 2016). When I had first divided the
team into partners of three and delegated the work for I saw that this way the teams will be
equally divided and I would be able to oversee the entire thing (Johnson, Adkins & Pepper,
2018). And if need be I will be able to help the concerned team needing help with ease. The
entire project was supposed to be completed in two weeks but we had wasted the first whole
day for we had to attend a meeting in the organisation where the introductory process was
done for the team. And then the weather took a turn for the worse and it ended up being a
hectic journey. Had I been in command of more power I would have arranged for the
introductory ceremony the previous day, instead of the day of the project (Corman, 2018).
Another that needs to be mentioned is that the team mate who refused to give up on his idea

was someone I think needs to be mentioned about. He had strong opinions and had the client
not given us proper orders to make the project stand completely on those said ideas then his
ideas would have been a good fit for the project. I remember mentioning this point to him as
well for I believe in making things clear is the best way to deal with a situation. I had myself
faced a boss who was someone who could not take any criticism constructive or otherwise
(Milosevic, Maric & Loncar, 2019). And had promised myself that when I will be a team
leader I will make it a point to make my team know when they were right and when they
were wrong so that they can learn from their mistakes and make better decisions in the future
(McCutcheon, 2019). Thus when my team came to me with the problem that was a result of a
big blunder done by the said team mate who executed his idea on the project even after I had
strictly told him not to do so I had to step in and solve the problem. For if the mistake had not
been corrected when it was not only the superiors in our organisation would have found out
about it but also the client, this would have very bad for us and the organization (Germain,
2018). For not only did we stand a chance to lose our jobs but also the company that we
worked in would have lost its reputation as well. Thus the only solution was to find a solution
and work as a team. I should mention here that one of the other members who had seen my
action against this conflict later told me that she too intends to a project manager who will
sort all the situations with ease and save the day. When finally the project went off without
any glitch I had informed our managers of the kind of brilliant ideas that my team mate had
suggested but not the part of them trying to execute the same. The superiors had appreciated
his talent and he was later promoted to the ideation team. Needless to say till date my original
team is very loyal to me and we all have been supportive of the each other. But if need be we
even pointed out the other’s faults as that is what a good team member does (Kurtulmuş,
2019).
Portfolio Entry 3-
I should mention this primarily my leadership technique is that of a coaching leadership but
some of my team mates have mentioned a point to me that I find essentially curious. They are
of the opinion that my style is more charming leadership than coaching. As I found it in the
project that I headed that many times my polite nature is taken advantage of. I need to be not
only more assertive but also strict with my team members (David & Cîmpean, 2018). As a
project leader I cannot have people questioning my authority and trying to execute their ideas

on their own completely disregarding my orders. Thus in order to make sure that things like
that does not happen in the future I intend to be a tad bit strict in my dealings with people
who do not know me or how I work. But other than that I love my job for this is the only one
that lets me work in the entire project and share my ideas and opinions (Tanskanen, Mäkelä
& Viitala, 2019). By delegating the work thus given to my team I will be able to work in
almost all the aspects that are part of the project. Thus this will give my more experience than
what I would have gathered had I only been working on one aspect of the project (Nicolaides,
2019). But if there comes a time when I will not be awarded the position of the project leader
I intend to be the kind of team members I hoped I would get. People who will understand the
task and work accordingly and not try and force their inputs into places where it might take
catastrophic turns (Cummings, et al, 2018). I would also ask appropriate questions if I am
unable to solve any problem and if accidentally I make a mistake I intend to take full
responsibility for it and ask my team leader to help me sort out the situation. Furthermore I
will be loyal to my project leader and try and do my job to the best of my ability (Wenu &
Tan, 2019). Thus when the next time I am awarded the position of being the project manager
in intend to have a proper sit down where I will not only mention the project that the
organisation has given us but also the pros and cons of the project (Dawson, 2018). It is then I
will in no uncertain terms explain that none of the rules that have been mentioned are
negotiable, no one can turn up late at the sight and no untoward behaviour towards anyone on
the work force will be tolerated, be it people from the team or others teams involved in the
project with us. And no one is to go off script for if they get caught they will be strictly
punished, even asked to leave the project (Minervini. 2019). I would rather have them learn
from other’s mistake than making it on their own, but if they have any problems I will not
only have their backs but also help them out of any binds they might find themselves in
(Abdullah, Foley & Suryaputra, 2018). In other words I intend to be the example that I would
want others to follow had I been their team lead or team members.

Portfolio Entry 4
To the Project Mentor,
ABC Co. Pvt. Ltd.
Sub: An open letter emphasizing on the implications and handling of ethical issues in the
organization
We all know that everyday roughly 120 million people get absorbed into the workplace or
any organization somewhere in this country (Prichard et al,. 2018). Within the past year,
research had stated that almost half of these recruited workers have personally witnessed
some form of ethical misconduct and the survey had also predicted the fact that such
unethical behaviorism within the workplace are capable enough to dilapidate the entire
proportionality of the ease of working within a benevolent work climate (Farrell & Fraedrich,
2015). I as one of the managing directors of the company am not legitimately speaking about
the workers getting privy to the CFO committing fraud. More likely, unethical practices
within a work environment are more like lying to the supervisor or handing up of a falsified
expense report. I have tried to commute with you, as the project mentor of the project under
which you had been assigned as the guide-cum-supervisor for your entire team, the ethical
dilemmas that you had faced and had eventually alleviated although there lays some nook and
corners which might not have evoked leadership expertise and benevolence and this is the
reason this open letter has been presented and addressed to you from the higher authority’
end for the reflection of the same related to the critique that is highly beneficial in this
respect.
In a recent study and the workshop seminar that had been organized from our end in the
previous financial year highlighting the causes, effects and mitigation of employee theft
within the organization, it had been reported that 1 out of every 40 employees in the year
2015 had been caught stealing from their employer. What is more startling is that these
employees had been found to remain involved with theft for an average of 5.5 times more
than shoplifters (Wang & Calvano, 2015). Unfortunately this financial year had been quite
intriguing and unfortunate for the company as well since two of your team members had been
found to be engaged with similar endeavors while remaining within the organization.
Employee fraud is also on the up-stick whether it is checked and tempering or not recording
of the sales in order to skim or the manipulation of the expense reimbursements. Being a
team leader and a project mentor you must be having this knowledge, which I may so expect

from your end, that FBI had reported that employee theft has been considered as the fastest
growing crime in the UK today. Your team members had been found to produce false
expenditure report as a result of which, the company had to shelve almost £50,000 from its
own fund without even having this intuition that the organizational employee had been
involved in this endeavor. Only after carrying out a vivid investigation from the stakeholders’
and the suppliers’ end had it become clear about the actual finding. We know that you had
been strict from your end and had issued a suspension letter from your end being their project
mentor in terminating their project tenure once and for all. But, on the contrary, I would also
like to state that you had been slight lenient from your end whenever it comes to handling
your teammates. Provided you had been a bit more vigilant with respect to monitoring the
whereabouts and accomplishments and proceeding of your teammates, this type of scenario
would not have been forlorn in the organizational ground (Schwartz, 2017).
Secondly, one of your team members who had been either purposively from his end or due to
work pressure, had to retain inside the office campus for an extenuated night shift, had been
found to violate the company internet policies which had been tracked through our highly
observant cyberloafers which, as you know, is one of our hidden departments that is unknown
to the employees (Huo & Kristjánsson, 2018). The staff had been found to surf the Web and
download multimedia files of personal interest wherein he was supposed to work at that time.
The insights from his IP address reports that this was not the first time he was doing so. After
you had been notified of the same, you had induced subdue work pressure on to him and took
on making him work on web restricted computers of the company. Here also, you had been
strict and immediate in taking up of actions although here also your performance as a leader
comes at stake. As you are aware that without tremendous emergency, no staffs are allowed
to stay overnight inside the office premises, your teammate got the opportunity to do so but I
suppose you had missed the fact that he had purposively delayed the work and missed his
submission deadline. This would not have happened if you were strict enough in providing
deadline and target to every single team member of yours so that everyone completes their
day’s work on time.
Finally, another ethical dilemma that you and the company had faced so far was the
mitigation of the disruption of the work culture and etiquette within the organization due to
abusive behavior by one of your teammates with a team member of another project team. We
had found that the controversy was solely related to political discussion and which resulted in
the discussion and controversial proceeding of work culture politics which we as

organizational heads are strictly against. This heated discussion even went so further that the
entire environment of the floor got distracted and the senior manager of the floor had to
intervene. Although both the employees had been given warning regarding the same, you
could have taken a stern decision related to the close monitoring of your team members and
willing to teach them the fact that such behaviorism is strictly prohibited inside the work
floor. Maintenance of decorum inside the office premises is very much necessary and this is
the responsibility of the team leaders to observe that this is maintained strictly (Sims &
Quatro, 2016).
Finally, on a concluding note, I would suggest that you change your leadership style a bit and
approach rather transformational leadership goals and attitudes to certain extent so as to
bestow this notion on to your team members that it is very much necessary for all your team
members to maintain etiquette and decorum with ethical perseverance inside the office
premises (Grace & Cohen, 2015).
I hope you will consider this open letter as a note of suggestion from my and the entire
organization’s end.
Hoping to see the requisite changes in you at the earliest.
Managing Director.
ABC Co. Pvt. Ltd.
Portfolio Entry 5
As a team leader and also a team member myself, I would rather take up the opportunity to
form a drafted action plan regarding the opportunities and the stances that my team might as
well encounter whole taking up the next project. So as this financial year had been concerned,
we had made some serious steps and progression towards reaching the organizational goals
and meeting almost all the deadlines on time but some aspects of the project management had
been reflective with respect to some critical issues that our team had to go through. Firstly,
finishing work on time during pressure situation is a very critical moment because winding
up of work and coordinating with the entire team all at the same time had become too hectic
at some point of time. With respect to this, in the upcoming project, I decide to prepare a
draft and action plan stating all the necessary project objectives and discussing the same with
my team members regarding their individual roles and preparing a timeline according to their

feasibility regarding the tentative completion date and time from their end (Cameron &
Green, 2015). This might work pretty well regarding the timely completion of the assigned
tasks and towards the betterment of the organizational accomplishments. This change
management is very much necessary as of now because as the action plan would suggest, this
would help in bridging the probable gap within the business environment. Furthermore, I
have also understood the fact that maintaining a common social media group comes handy
whenever there is an urgency to circulate any information or news among the team which is
far more feasible than informing a single member and then letting other members know one
by one from the first person (Hornstein, 2015). This eventually makes the coordination
system far easier and smooth at the same time.
Henceforth, on a concluding note, I support this fact that these key points need to be
administered in our team as and when our next project gets initiated so as to impart a
successful change, development and improvement in the organizational accomplishment and
team centric endeavors all at the same time.
Reference-
Abdullah, A. G., Foley, J., Suryaputra, I. G. N. A., & Hellman, A. (Eds.). (2018, January).
Character education based on six value system. In SHS Web of Conferences (Vol. 42, p.
00055). EDP Sciences.
Cable, S., & Graham, E. (2018). “Leading Better Care”: An evaluation of an accelerated
coaching intervention for clinical nursing leadership development. Journal of nursing
management, 26(5), 605-612.
Cameron, E., & Green, M. (2015). Making sense of change management: A complete guide to
the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.
Corman, M. D. (2018). Leadership Ineffectiveness: The Interactive Effects of Leader
Personality, Job Demands, and Job Resources on Ethical Climate and Employee Turnover
Intentions.

Cummings, G. G., Hewko, S. J., Wang, M., Wong, C. A., Laschinger, H. K. S., &
Estabrooks, C. A. (2018). Impact of Managers’ Coaching Conversations on Staff Knowledge
Use and Performance in Long‐Term Care Settings. Worldviews on Evidence‐Based
Nursing, 15(1), 62-71.
David, O. A., & Cîmpean, A. (2018). Managerial coaching and rational leadership.
In Coaching for Rational Living (pp. 325-341). Springer, Cham.
Dawson, D. (2018). Measuring individuals’ virtues in business. Journal of Business
Ethics, 147(4), 793-805.
Duffy, G. L. (2016). LEVELING UP. Quality Progress, 49(6), 38.
Farh, C. I., & Chen, G. (2018). Leadership and member voice in action teams: Test of a
dynamic phase model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 103(1), 97.
Ferrell, O. C., & Fraedrich, J. (2015). Business ethics: Ethical decision making & cases.
Nelson Education.
Germain, M. L. (2018). Case Studies and Practical Advice. In Narcissism at Work (pp. 121-
150). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Grace, D., & Cohen, S. (2015). Business ethics.
Hermann, M. G. (2005). Assessing leadership style: A trait analysis. J. Post, 178-212.
Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change
management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-
298.
Huang, Y. T. (2015). A Discussion of leadership styles and performance Management in
MNEs. Journal of Accounting, Finance & Management Strategy, 10(1).
Huo, Y., & Kristjánsson, K. (2018). Why is there lack of growth in character virtues? An
insight into business students across British business school. Cultivating moral character and
virtue in professional practice, 207-221.
Johnson, R. D., Adkins, J., & Pepper, D. (2018). Project-Based Organizational Maturity in
Architecture, Engineering, and Construction: A Theoretical Premise for Practical Purposes.

In Developing Organizational Maturity for Effective Project Management (pp. 55-77). IGI
Global.
Kurtulmuş, B. E. (2019). Leadership and Ethical Behavior. In The Dark Side of
Leadership (pp. 75-82). Palgrave Pivot, Cham.
Ljungblom, M., & Lennerfors, T. T. (2018). Virtues and Vices in Project Management
Ethics: An Empirical Investigation of Project Managers and Project Management
Students. Project Management Journal, 49(3), 5-16.
Marson, N. (2019). Leadership coaching. In Leading by Coaching (pp. 135-169). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
McCutcheon, M. (2019). Some People Don't Want What They Say They Want: 100
Unconventional Interventions in Group Psychotherapy.
Milosevic, I., Maric, S., & Loncar, D. (2019). Defeating the Toxic Boss: The Nature of Toxic
Leadership and the Role of Followers. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies,
1548051819833374.
Minervini, A. (2019). Mussolini Speaks: History Reviewed. The Massachusetts
Review, 60(1), 194-204.
Nicolaides, A. P. (2019). Executive Coaching: The Process of Using Personality Trait
Assessments during Leadership Development (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University).
Noguera, I., Guerrero-Roldán, A. E., & Masó, R. (2018). Collaborative agile learning in
online environments: Strategies for improving team regulation and project
management. Computers & Education, 116, 110-129.
Pritchard, M., Avey, J., Conroy, S., & Emerson, T. (2018, June). The Relationship between
Worldview and Moral Recognition in Business: Examining Patterns of Ethical Acceptability:
An Abstract. In Academy of Marketing Science World Marketing Congress (pp. 553-554).
Springer, Cham.
Schwartz, M. S. (2017). Business ethics: an ethical decision-making approach (Vol. 10).
John Wiley & Sons.

Sims, R. R., & Quatro, S. A. (Eds.). (2016). Executive Ethics II: Ethical Dilemmas and
Challenges for the C Suite. IAP.
Steinke, P. L. (2019). Uproar: Calm Leadership in Anxious Times. Rowman & Littlefield.
Tanskanen, J., Mäkelä, L., & Viitala, R. (2019). Linking Managerial Coaching and Leader–
Member Exchange on Work Engagement and Performance. Journal of Happiness
Studies, 20(4), 1217-1240.
Wang, L. C., & Calvano, L. (2015). Is business ethics education effective? An analysis of
gender, personal ethical perspectives, and moral judgment. Journal of Business Ethics,
126(4), 591-602
Wenu, A., & Tan, C. (2019). The Applied, Knowledge, and Work-based oriented Project
Management Coaching Framework (AKW-PMCF). The Journal of Modern Project
Management, 6(3).
Western, S. (2018). OUTSIDER-LEADERSHIP: IN SEARCH OF LACK. Global
Leadership Perspectives: Insights and Analysis, 218.
Western, S. (2019). Leadership: A critical text. SAGE Publications Limited.