Personal Development Plan (PDP) for LCBS5028: Knowing Yourself Module

This document presents a Personal Development Plan (PDP) created for the LCBS5028 module, 'Knowing and Developing Yourself for Professional Success' at Leicester Castle Business School. The PDP encompasses a detailed self-assessment, including reflections on the Marshmallow Team Challenge, identification of personal values, and analysis of StrengthsFinder results. The student identifies their top strengths, such as restorative, adaptability, consistency, and harmony, and discusses how these strengths can be leveraged and potential weaknesses recognized. A SWOT analysis is included, outlining strengths, areas for improvement, opportunities, and threats. Furthermore, the PDP outlines the student's career goals and aspirations, providing a framework for their future professional development. The assignment also includes the student's completed Career Values Inventory and feedback forms.

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LCBS5028
KNOWING & DEVELOPING YOURSELF FOR PROFESSIONAL SUCCESS PERSONAL
DEVELOPMENT PLAN (PDP)
This PDP contains exercises that we will complete during the module. These exercises are designed
to help you think about your skills and how to make the most of your time at Leicester Castle
Business School.
This module is accredited and this PDP forms a major piece of your
module. Submission Dat

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What is a personal development plan?
The aim of creating a personal development plan is to document a process of self-analysis,
personal reflection and honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses. This should enable you
to evaluate your current position and where you are right now and consider your future
development.
The purpose of the Personal Development Plan (PDP) is to encourage you to learn and plan by
becoming more aware of your capabilities and the opportunities around you at the Leicester Castle
Business School. The PDP can be applied in a range of contexts, changing the way you approach
your studies, make choices in both your academic and personal life and prioritise your actions.
You should consider this as a live document that captures your current situation at DMU, your
goals and aspirations both whilst at studying at the Leicester Castle Business School and longer
term.
What do I need to do?
This PDP is divided into three parts. In each area we expect specific examples to illustrate your
point.
1. Knowing Yourself: What did I learn about myself?
2. Developing Yourself: How does what I learned about myself help me to shape my goals?
3. Promoting Yourself: How do I use the knowledge from parts 1 and 2 to develop
strategies for promoting myself for my future career?
You are required to complete the PDP workbook. You should carefully review what you have
learned during the Knowing and Developing Yourself module (including the prescribed readings,
theories and conceptual frameworks) and apply this in the PDP document.
How do I submit my assignment?
Submit on Turnitin a zip file containing the following separate documents:

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● The PDP workbook
● Your Strengthsfinder/MBTI results report
● Your completed Career Values Inventory
● Completed feedback forms
Please use only a zip file to upload these separate documents. Do not use a file of the .rar type, as
they require special software to open.
How will my assignment be graded?
The submitted plan will be marked using the following grading criteria:
Coherence (30%)
Are there clear and logical links between the 3 different sections of the report:
1. Knowing Yourself: What did I learn about myself?
2. Developing Yourself: How does what I learned to help me to shape my goals?
3. Promoting Yourself: How can I use this knowledge to develop strategies for promoting
myself?
4. Do the goals formulated in Developing Yourself clearly build on the learning discussed in
Knowing
Yourself?
5. Do the promotion strategies in Promoting Yourself clearly build on both sections 1 and 2?
Engage with course materials (30%)
● Has the student effectively used the content of the module to construct the plan?
● Does it show how core theories, models and frameworks introduced in the module have
impacted on learning and informed plans?
● Is there clear evidence of engagement with classroom experiential activities?

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Wider Reading and Reflection (30%)
● Does the plan show evidence of wide and relevant reading?
● Are the prescribed module readings used to support the plan?
● Is there evidence of independent research, using additional written or audio-visual sources
beyond what was provided in the module?
● Is there evidence that the student has not only understood the readings but also evaluated
and applied what has been read to learning and goal setting?
Quality of writing and referencing (10%)
● Is the student able to communicate effectively his/her plan and the rationale for this?
● Is there a structure to the plan?
● Does it have a conclusion?
● Are external sources acknowledged and correctly cited in the text?
● Is there a reference list?
● Is the writing style professional and clear, with accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation?

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MARSHMALLOW TEAM CHALLENGE
Questions Responses
What did you learn from this activity?
(consider how team collaborated and
worked As a team and your role within the
team
-From the activity, I learned that when people work as
team creativity usually thrives. This is evident by the
way team members brainstormed ideas and prevented
stale viewpoints that could have been raised if I was
working as an individual. The combination of these
ideas from team members was enough to solve
diverse problems arising from the project even
without consulting our supervisor.
-Furthermore, what I learned from the team was
totally different from what I expected and therefore it
assisted me to expand my knowledge and developed
my new skill set that is useful in my future career.
How will this help you when working in
teams as part of your MSc?
When working in a team as part of MSC, the
teamwork skills will help me to build trust and
establish a very strong relationship with my
colleagues. The establishment of a strong relationship
will promote a conducive working environment and
eradicate misunderstanding and miscommunication
that might occur. In addition, despite occasional
disagreements that may exist during the activity, what

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Why do future employers look for team
working skills?
I have learned will also help me encounter big
challenges that may exist in my future role. Working
with colleagues from diverse cultures and background
I have learned how to appreciate attitudes and
cultures of everyone.
Employees look for team working skills in order to
recruit a candidate that can work collaboratively with
other members from diverse backgrounds, races,
religion and gender. A research conducted by Mach,
Dolan & Tzafrir (2010) also shows that a person who
has effective team working skills has also 90 percent
ability to solve problems. Therefore, employers also
look for team building skills in order to develop a
workforce with reduced conflicts resulting from
organizational cultures and different habits and work
styles of employees.
VALUES
Questions Responses
What are your top 3 values and why are they
important to you?
My top three values include integrity, competitiveness
and creativity. These values are important as they
assist me to prioritize what I consider important for

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my self-interest.
How will knowing these values help you
during your studies and in your future career
I will know my top three values helps me if am able
to make a decision and deliberate choice that I should
focus to grow my career. I addition I consider these
values as guiding principles of my behaviour (self-
discipline) and therefore they assist in the planning of
personal and professional career development plans
that matches who I want to be in future.
What steps could you take to ensure you live
by these values? Think of some actions you
can take
The steps that I could take to live by these values
include assessing tasks or daily activities to see
whether they still match with my values, applying the
values as key motivators and integrating the values in
my conversation.
STRENGTHS FINDER
Name your top five from your strengths
profile
1.Harmony
2.context
3 consistency
4.Restorative
5.adaptability
What surprised you when reading the report?
Identify any words or phrases that you agree
with and why
What surprised me was to find out that “context” was
my strength which is very agreeable because I am
always on my phone searching for past history in
order to create a vision for the future.

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I can agree with the phrase “heads on the cloud”
which is usually labelled to people who are futuristic
and “wet blanket” which is labelled to those who are
deliberate.
What can you do to invest in these talents to
become strengths?
Identify some specific action. Least at least
I can invest the talents through –
1. Practice- through practice am likely to add more
combination of knowledge and skills which in turn
transforms talents to strengths.
2.Hardworking- The hardworking involves finding
out diverse ways from mentors of putting my
strengths to practice and also assigning myself some
challenging tasks that require more endurance.
3. Touch of alchemy- The touch of alchemy involves
imagining how my life will be in terms of health, job,
relationship and business if am living up to my
potential. Through imaginative of future, I can be able
to utilize my potential by searching for job experience
(maybe through internships and casual works) and
working hard in school to attain admirable
qualifications that employers are looking for.
How can others see these strengths as a
perceived weakness (sometimes known as a
basement)
Others perceive my strengths as a weakness
especially my consistency and restorative as
overbearing. For example, my ability to figure out

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what is wrong and finding a solution (restorative), my
colleagues see it as overbearing and seeking for
recognition or fame. In addition, some also perceive
my strengths(harmony) as micromanaging due to my
trait of not conflicting people but looking for
consensus.
What have you learned from your strengths
profile
From my strengths I have learned that my personality
type is Conscientiousness and able to fit well in
diverse cultures due to my nature of bringing
harmony, restoring conflicts and adapting to changing
environment. In addition, I have also realized that I
can become a transformation leader as my strengths
and personal type indicate that I have what it takes to
be a leader.
Consider what you discovered about yourself
and how these might relate to you as a person
and your career interest
From what I have discovered from strengths finder, I
possess the strengths that can make me a person who
I want to be in future if well utilized. In addition, the
discovery also shed light on a key area that I need to
improve in order to enhance my future career.

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Attach your strengths insight report and highlight those words and phrases that relate to you.
Attach your prioritised student action items and highlight those key actions

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Developing yourself
Setting future goals and Aspiration
SWOT Analysis
Before setting your personal development plans, you should conduct a personal analysis: Eg - What are my
strengths and weaknesses? What external opportunities or threats might affect any plans I might make?
Strengths
- Restorative ( meaning am effective problem-solver
and decision-maker as am able to make decisions and
effective decisions in some dilemma situations)
- Adaptability (ability to adapt to change easily. For
example, once I change the environment I usually take
the shortest time possible to adapt to new changes)
-consistency (Eager to learn new things)
-harmony (-Network and relationship builder)
- A good communicator (including both active
listening, oral and written)
- Social including Interpersonal (ability to have
social-awareness and interact with others effectively
Areas of improvement
-Poor Planning and organizational skills
( especially Time management is very poor as I
have received several warning regarding being
later)
- Poor in managing stress (I normally get stressed
easily if things did not go through as I planned)
-public speaking (sometimes I struggle to address
a huge crowd of people. In addition, I have
remained silent in most of the meetings and
contributed minimally.
-Not a risk taker (long term oriented).

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and intrapersonal (ability to have self-awareness)
-Tech savvy ( excellent computer skills and am also
familiar with basic software’s used in diverse
workplaces)
-team player (I have an ability to work autonomously
and within a team)
-goal and task-oriented (am a quick learner and can be
able to retain information)
-hardworking
-determined
-focused
Opportunities
- The current growth of social and professional
networks associations (I can get a good mentor to
assist me to achieve my goals )
-High level of education (my education level is
marketable in diverse job markets and therefore I can
secure a job easily after my graduation)
- I can leverage my strong networking and relationship
building skills to achieve my dream goals.
-my career path that am pursuing open doors for more
opportunities.
Threats
-Competition ( the job market is already flooded
and the level of competition is very high from
other graduates which are a threat to my career
development)
-changing demand of the job market (with the
growth of technology and invention of robots and
other artificial intelligence technologies, more
attention is shifted to tech careers which in turn
affects the demand of my career path)
-undersupply of jobs and oversupply of business
and its related field graduates.