Leadership Development Plan: Observation, Reflection & Application

This assignment presents a leadership development plan formulated through observation, research, and self-reflection. The student identifies a role model in a business development leader at Amazon, analyzing their leadership traits, communication skills, and relationship-building abilities. The plan includes a self-assessment utilizing diagnostic tools to evaluate confidence, teamwork, and emotional intelligence. Strengths like honesty and transparency are acknowledged, while areas for improvement, such as communication skills, patience, and decision-making, are addressed. The student aims to enhance product knowledge and emotional regulation. Ultimately, the goal is to cultivate a more effective and influential leadership style by integrating observed best practices with personal development strategies.

Leadership Development plan

Leadership development plan 2
Contents
Introduction to leadership.....................................................................................................................2
Importance of leadership..................................................................................................................2
Stage 1: Observation and research........................................................................................................2
Stage 2: Leadership development plan.................................................................................................4
Self-reflection....................................................................................................................................4
Diagnostic tools.................................................................................................................................5
Leadership development plan...........................................................................................................6
Stage 3: Feedback..................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................9
Appendices..........................................................................................................................................10

Leadership development plan 3
Introduction to leadership
Leadership is a critical aspect that has an important role to play towards the success of any
organization. It is the organizational leaders that can make or break the organization. Every
individual has certain leaders that impact them in their personal or professional lives. Leadership has
always been very important to me personally. Since school days, I have been actively seeking
leadership roles and they have largely helped me in shaping my career today. I was the captain of my
school’s football team for a span of two years. At present, I lead a team of four people in my
workplace. My leadership roles have helped me gain a deeper insight about my leadership abilities.
Throughout this course, there have been several leaders who have guided me and been a mentor.
Importance of leadership
Leaders of any business are bestowed upon with the responsibility to guide team members, ensure
they are motivated to work hard and offer clarity of goals as and when required. A team’s leader is
that go to person that individuals can reach out to in case of any issues or grievances. Leaders are
also responsible for ensuring a positive work culture and long term employee retention within the
organization. On a personal level too, leaders motivate, inspire and guide their followers towards the
correct path. At the end of it all, the accountability of accomplishment of organizational goals
remains with the team’s leader.
Stage 1: Observation and research
The chosen leader for this task is my role model, guide, friend and mentor. He is heading the
business development department at Amazon Inc. I had the opportunity to be associated with him
while I was interning with the firm as a part of my college curriculum. He has been working with
Amazon since the last fourteen years which goes to show his dedication and loyalty towards the
organization. Every leader has a different style of working (Fairhurst & Connaughton, 2014).
Being a head of the business development team, he has excellent communication skills. Through my
various conversations with him, I have understood the importance of being good at
communications. This skill helps him put his point of view in a calm, composed and accurate manner.
As a leader, these communication skills help in motivating his team member.

Leadership development plan 4
In this course, we learnt about charismatic leadership. This refers to the leadership that is attained
by the virtue of one’s individual personality and charisma (Barnes et. al., 2016). He is the perfect
example of such a leadership. His personality is extremely strong and yet comfortably calm. He
makes people feel comfortable around his presence. Yet, his demeanour and aura deserves respect.
The second essential attribute of his personality is his effective relationship building skills. There are
a lot of clients who have been associated with our firm solely because of him. He continues to
establish and maintain excellent relationships with all his clients and prospects. He goes an extra
step and puts additional efforts in getting to know his clients better. He encourages us also to wish
clients on their birthdays and try to establish a personal connect with them. He has taught be the
importance of relationship building by making me understand that clients do not associate with
brands, they associate with people. Therefore it becomes the responsibility of the client manager to
ensure complete satisfaction of the client by delivering excellence.
His leadership style is democratic and participative in nature. He encourages all team members
including new interns to actively participate in team discussions and share their opinions. This has
made us confident enough to present our views. Most importantly, he is trusted, not only by his
team members but also the senior management of the organization. His team consistently over-
achieves the given target and even the employee retention rate for his team is very high. This is
solely because he creates a positive working culture and atmosphere around him which motivates
employees to give their best.
As a leader, he is very flexible about his working style. He allows people to work as per their
convenience. As a leader of the sales team, he leaves complete discretion to his team members
regarding the clients they approach or how they wish to target them. This allows people the
freedom to work and hence derives their best performance.
He has personally been the leader that I look up to in the entire organization. He is a source of
motivation and inspiration. I have learnt a lot from him. He was the first leader who asked me
cultivate a habit of reading books. He explained the impact that reading has on one’s life. It widens
horizons and allows people to look at things from various different perspectives.
Last but not the least, his decision making ability adds the cherry on the cake. There are various
times when his sales team’s members are stuck in awkward situations with clients specifically during
negotiations. His team can reach out to him and simply trust his decision. He takes quick decisions
and finds a way to tackle different kinds of clients. Even during team discussions, he has
demonstrated his ability to take strong and clever decisions that have eventually led to better

Leadership development plan 5
performance of the team. He is not just a head of the sales team but rather he is the backbone of
that team. His active involvement, complete awareness and sense of taking responsibility makes him
an excellent leader for his team members.
Leaders use power and influence in order to create a following. Every leader might have a different
power or a different sense of influencing others (Genovese, 2015). Yukl emphasized on eleven
different influence tactics. My leader influences through collaboration and consultation. He
encourages people to suggest ideas and recommend proposals and is always willing to provide
assistance. He is leading the sales department by the virtue of his official designation in the
organization. His senior designation embodies him with responsibilities as well as authority over his
team members. In order to influence and motivate team members, his strong personality and
flamboyance does the trick. His ability to inspire people through his actions is one of his most
efficient leadership traits.
Stage 2: Leadership development plan
Self-reflection
Through this course I also had the opportunity to reflect upon my own leadership abilities.
Leadership has always been an important part of my life. I have been the class leader in my school
several times. I was also the captain of the school’s football team for a span of two years. Currently, I
am leading a team of four people at Amazon. Each of my leadership experiences have taught me
something and each new experience has been a source of learning for me.
After a close encounter with my role model, I have also been able to clearly identify certain aspects
of my personality that I need to change. The first one on the list is my communication skills. Though
my communication skills are not poor but I believe that there is a lot of room for improvement. That
needs to be improved through reading and practicing. I somehow do not feel very confident while
approaching a new client. I find myself very nervous. Being a part of the sales team, I surely need to
work upon this attribute because as a leader, there would be my team mates who would look up to
me for effective sales performance. After seeking guidance from my leader, I realized that I need to
focus on enhancing my product knowledge. This in turn would give me the confidence to present our
products to new people as well. Product knowledge is one of the most important aspects of effective
sales management (Ingram et. al., 2015).

Leadership development plan 6
The second thing that I need to improve upon is the level of patience and persistence that it takes to
be a good leader. I often find myself losing patience and it adversely impacts my decision making
ability as well. It is imperative that a the demeanour of a leader is calm and composed rather than
panicking. Decision making still continues to be an essential aspect of leadership (Shapiro &
Stefkovich, 2016). Therefore in order to be an efficient leader I need to work upon my decision making
skills.
I also identified my strengths and I would surely utilize them better in order to ensure the efficacy of
my leadership. As a leader, my team mates trust me and they believe they can rely on me. This stems
from my honesty and my ability to accept my flaws and work upon them. This attitude also makes my
team members feel that they can accept their weaknesses and receive the support of the entire team
in order to overcome the same. Secondly, I believe in openness and transparency of communication.
This creates a positive working culture in the team and people work with mutual trust and
coordination.
As guided by my leader, I have started reading books and have even included the same in my
leadership development plan. I try to seek feedback from my team members, colleagues and seniors
so that I can gain a deeper insight about my leadership abilities. While captaining the football team, I
had an experience wherein the entire team was underperforming and the players were not even fit
enough to play. Upon some reflection, I identified that I was not able to lead by example. I reached to
practice late and this lack of discipline instilled the same in other team members as well. Through that
experience, I learnt that no matter which organization I work in, I need to lead by example. Therefore
as a leader, I continue to perform ground work, go on meetings, do cold calls and fix meetings with
clients. This is because I find it essential that team members must understand the sales process by
example and do the same.
Diagnostic tools
In order to reflect upon my leadership further, I took help from three diagnostic tools that were able
to judge me on the basis of confidence, team work and emotional intelligence. The confidence test
depicted that I slightly under-confident. My score was 45. Through the test, I realized that I tend to
be more confident once I am acquainted with people but I often get nervous around people that I
don’t know. Being in a sales and business development job, it is essential for me to overcome this
fear and raise my level of confidence.
The second test was that for team development and I scored a perfect 15 on 15 in that. This was also
one of the most positive feedbacks I have ever received that I always put the team first. I believe a
lot of this attitude comes from my inclination towards sports. However, this attitude helps me
manage my team effectively and I try to instil the same in the rest of my team members as well.

Leadership development plan 7
Team management and ensuring effective team coordination are essential attributes of being a
successful leader (Storey, 2016).
The last tool helped me understand the level of my emotional intelligence. This reflects to how
intelligently and efficiently can people handle their emotions (Sherry, 2018). The test judges on the
basis of self awareness, self management, relationship building and social awareness. I scored a high
score in relationship building and self awareness. However, I can work upon my score of self
management. This goes on to depict that my emotions are not always under control and can often
take a toll on my decisions. This is something I would surely work upon. All the three tests have
helped me understand my leadership abilities better. I also tried to identify my strengths and
weaknesses through self reflection. Based on the analysis from the same, a leadership development
plan has been formulated. I hope to effectively apply this plan and improve my leadership abilities.
Leadership development plan
After immense self-reflection, I have identified two key areas wherein I need to improve. The first
one being my level of confidence specifically towards strangers and the second one being the
inability to control my emotions and ensure effective decision making. The development plan to
improve upon the same is as below:
GOAL Strengths/Weaknesses ACTIVITY TIMEFRAME MEASUREMENT
Goal # 1 Improve self-
management and
control over emotions
Attend workshops for
self management.
Read books on self
management
Resort to Yoga or
meditation
Seek therapy
6 months
one book in
two weeks
Four times a
week.
After three
months
Indicator#1:
Improved control
over emotions.
Indicator#2: Ability
to take decisions in
the face of conflicts
or strong emotions.
Goal # 2 Improve
communication and
Consciously make
efforts to
2 months Indicator#1:
Increased sales and

Leadership development plan 8
confidence communicate with
new people.
Read books on
communication
Participate in
communication
workshops.
Prepare well for
every meeting.
One book in
one week
Once in three
months.
Every meeting.
number of client
visits
Indicator#2:
Increased sense of
confidence and no
feeling of
nervousness.
Indicator#3:
Improved client
relationships.
Stage 3: Feedback
This course helped me seek feedback from my role model as well as other colleagues and team
members. The leadership development plan above was a draft which was changed after
considerable feedback from my leader. I was told that the time lines are really short and they need
to be more realistic so I did the same. Secondly, I was told to add reading books and I did the same.
Through these feedbacks I have been able to understand my leadership style better. I am a
participative leader. A participative and democratic leader believes in team work rather than
delegating orders to team members (Iqbal et. al., 2015). I wish to take cues from all the feedback
that I have received and improve upon my leadership style. The checklist from the leader is attached
in the appendices. A critical feedback plays a significant role in the life of any individual (Hodge,
2015). I am grateful to my leader for being open and transparent regarding the same.

Leadership development plan 9
Conclusion
Leadership is a critical part of individuals, organizations and societies at large. Effective leadership
plays an important role towards accomplishment of organizational goals. A leader is bestowed upon
with several responsibilities. This includes guiding the team, mentoring them and ensuring a positive
team culture. Motivation of team members is also the responsibility of the team leader (Brassfeild,
2015).
This course has enabled me a gauge my strengths and weakness as well as truly understand the
meaning of effective leadership by observing my role model and gaining their feedback. I need to
work upon my level of confidence and ability to control my emotions while taking critical decisions. I
lead a team of four people currently. I have long term plans in the organization and I hope that my
efforts to improve my leadership will take me to the next rung in the ladder of success.

Leadership development plan 10
References
Barnes, C.M., Guarana, C.L., Nauman, S. and Kong, D.T., 2016. Too tired to inspire or be inspired:
Sleep deprivation and charismatic leadership. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101(8), p.1191.
Brasfield, D.A., 2015. The effects of leadership traits in change management on operational
excellence (Doctoral dissertation, Capella University). United States.
Fairhurst, G.T. and Connaughton, S.L., 2014. Leadership: A communicative
perspective. Leadership, 10(1), pp.7-35.
Genovese, M.A., 2015. The Future of Leadership: Leveraging Influence in an Age of Hyper-Change.
Routledge. United Kingdom.
Hodge, M.E., 2015. Performance feedback in organizations (Doctoral dissertation, uga).
Pp.85-86. United States.
Ingram, T.N., LaForge, R.W., Williams, M.R. and Schwepker Jr, C.H., 2015. Sales management:
Analysis and decision making. Routledge. United Kingdom
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review, 5(5), pp.1-6.
Shapiro, J.P. and Stefkovich, J.A., 2016. Ethical leadership and decision making in education:
Applying theoretical perspectives to complex dilemmas. Routledge. United Kingdom.
Sherry, M., 2018. Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Job Performance. Journal for Studies in
Management and Planning, 4(4), pp.105-113.
Storey, J., 2016. Changing theories of leadership and leadership development. In Leadership
in Organizations (pp. 33-58). Routledge. United Kingdom.

Leadership development plan 11
Appendices
Leadership Development Plan
Feedback Checklist
YE
S
NO UNCLEAR
Are the goals set out clear and achievable? ✓
Are the activities set out clear and doable? ✓
Are the goals aligned with the strengths or weaknesses
set?
✓
Are the activities aligned with the strengths or
weaknesses set?
✓
Is the timeframe for the activities and goals reasonable? ✓
Are the measurement indicators appropriate and
measurable?
✓
Would I do the same as the student? ✓
Overall, is the development plan
feasible/reasonable/appropriate? (e.g. does the proposed
plan address the strengths and weaknesses?).
✓
Feedback and Suggestions

Leadership development plan 12
Reduce the time lines of the leadership development plan to a realistic value. It is unrealistic
to gain confidence in one month. Therefore use realistic timelines.
Please add reading books as a strategy to work upon your weaknesses. They can be used to
improve communication skills and enhance confidence. Reach out to me if you require any
assistance with the workshops on leadership. We can shortlist the available workshops after
two months basing upon tangible difference in your leadership abilities.
Wish you the best of luck.