Leadership in Action: Personal Learning and Career Goals

This report delves into the significance of leadership learning and its impact on individual development, focusing on the development of management and communication skills. The introduction highlights the importance of leadership in inspiring and motivating individuals. Task 1 provides a brief summary of the author's learning experiences, including the identification of learning styles and career aspirations. Task 2 outlines the development activities undertaken to enhance communication and management skills, emphasizing the importance of off-the-job training and mentoring. Task 3 presents a personal development plan with specific skill targets, resources, and timelines. Task 4 offers a critical reflection on the learning process and the outcomes of the development activities. Finally, the report provides a conclusion summarizing the key findings and the importance of continuous learning and professional development. The report is a student's self-assessment of leadership qualities and a plan for future growth.

Leadership in Action

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1: BRIEF SUMMARY..............................................................................................................3
TASK 2: IDENTIFICATION OF DEVELOPMNET ACTIVITIES....................................................3
TASK 3 : PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN...............................................................................5
TASK 4 : CRITICAL REFLECTION..................................................................................................6
TASK 5 : EVALUATION OF PERSONAL LEARNING....................................................................7
TASK 6: WAYS TO DEVELOPE CONTINUOUS LEARNING........................................................8
CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
The report discusses about the value and relevance of leadership learning in an individual.
Leadership is a state of action that is done through leading groups of individuals. A leader inspires
and motivates the person to commence learning into him/her (Sonnino, 2013). This can be done by
developing activities that will help in embarking the significance of knowledge specific activities.
Apart from personal leaning, professional development is also discussed in the report. Professional
development plays an important role in shaping career of an individual. The research also conducts
self assessment of the individual so as to evaluate the relevance of personal learning and
professional development.
TASK 1: BRIEF SUMMARY
As a student of management program, I learned that learning plays a very important role in
career development. It is very crucial to analyse different types learning styles. Throughout the
course lectures, I was taught to acknowledge various types of organizational skills (Body and Ceri,
2016). As a management student, I must be able to reflect management and administrative
capabilities to my future workplace. I was able to develop the art of evaluating career priorities. In
the next five years, I want to see myself as a marketing manager of John Lewis. It is a leading retail
partnership company which deals in clothing, house wares, food and various direct services.
After a brief analysis of my career needs, I realised that I must adopt a learning style that
will assist me in developing my professional and personal skills. Learning styles are a set of
theories that aim to provide an individual with contextual knowledge about different learning. I
found that every student requires an independent learning style that can groom his/her respective
knowledge. For my personal learning I prefer Kolb's learning style (Farh, 2012). As per David
Kolb, experiential learning is the most appropriate learning for an individual. He stated that
effective learning occurs when the person undergoes an experience that leads him/her to make an
observation. After observing, he/she can analysis their own current position in terms of personal and
professional development. This further helps in identifying a result to improve the future career
goals of an individual.
My aim is to make sure that I implement Kolb's learning style in myself. It will help me in
identifying my capabilities and will provide me guidance in making relevant learning objectives
(Knapp and et.al., 2014). Kolb's learning style will also let me identify present potential and provide
me with a self assessment. It will be helpful in making me adhere with contextual knowledge
required by a successful and efficient manager at John Lewis.
TASK 2: IDENTIFICATION OF DEVELOPMNET ACTIVITIES
After a self assessment, I identified that I require certain development activities that will

polish my communication and management skills. Every week, I made sure to create a reflective
log about lectures taught by my professor. Reflective log assisted me in self assessment. After self
reflection, I made sure to discuss about my improvements and weaknesses to my professor, by the
end of each week (Fullan, 2012). By discussion, I was able to exactly locate my weaknesses and
areas which require urgent improvement. The assessment guided me in identifying my weak points
that were disrupting my personal as well as professional growth. At various instances, I was facing
issues while communicating important information among my peers. This led me to think whether
the issue faced was critical or not. I found out that due to mis-management, I faced lot of chaotic
issues that were responsible in hampering my communication. Thus, I decided to improve my
management and communicational skills, so as to become an effective manager at John Lewis.
My first priority is to develop my managerial skills. These abilities play an important role in
organizing and managing goals and objectives of the company. In order to work at a big retailer like
John Lewis, I must be able to manage bulk of tasks in one go. This is very helpful for my personal
future goals. Ability to manage and organize my work priorities will help me to achieve my job
responsibilities. For improving my managerial skills, I feel off the job training and mentoring on
leadership will be the most appropriate development activity (Trehan, Kevill and Easterby-Smith,
2013). It is relevant that a manager is entitled to lead the employees and make sure that they
perform to their highest capacity. To do this, I will have to ensure that I understand different
leadership styles. Apart from this, I should be able to perfectly mange time associated with different
tasks.
Another priority is to improve my communicational skills. The ability to communicate
messages from the sender to the recipient is known as communication. In an organization, every
minute thousand of information is transferred from one employee to another. For a manager
communication is the key to success. Moreover, improvement in my managerial skills will also help
me to further polish my communicational skills (Kellie, Milsom and Henderson, 2012). Manager is
appointed to communicate policies and actions taken by the top level management to the
employees. He/she are the middlemen who are designated to perform the task effectively handle the
communication channel in an organization. A manager is required to forecast, plan, organise,
command, control and coordinate responsibilities and task in an organisation. Thus, in order to
perform above exercises a manager must access systematic communication in order to effectively
achieve them.
The above developmental activities are particularly important for my career development
due to the following reasons:
 Communication is important for an individual development. It makes persons informed and
liberates feeling of belongingness in the organisation. Thus, it alters individual's positive

attitude which is a key for employee participation.
 Management assists the controlling process in the organisation. Controlling is among the
major duties of a manager which he/she is entitled to perform (Townsend, 2015). By
controlling certain aspects in organisation, a manager is able to clearly organize his/her tasks
and duties.
Thus, by looking at the above advantages, it is clear that it is crucial for me to embark these
development activities in order to become an effective and efficient manager in future.
TASK 3: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Personal development plan is the process which helps in creating a 'plan' based on the
personal reflection of an individual. It is made to evaluate the current potentials of the human being.
These current proficiency play an important role in setting future targets which are required to be
achieved by the individual (Achieve Your Ambitions: 7 Step Guide with Example Personal
Development Plan, 2016). The plan also includes the time duration in which the individual is
recommended for achieving his/her future proficiency targets. A personal development plan is a
statement which depicts an individual’s future career.
My Personal Development plan:
Skills Current
Proficiency
Target
Proficiency
Resource Timing When to
start
People
who can
assist
Priority
1:
Manager
ial Skills
I lack in
delegating
authority and
mentoring. I
understand the
theoretical
concepts but
miss the
practical
approach.
I must be
confident
enough to
achieve the
level of
managerial
skills
required in a
professional
manager.
 Off
the
job-
Classroom
Lectures and
Case studies
 Ment
oring
By the end
of this
academic
year.
On 30th
January
Professors,
classmate
and friends.
Priority
2:
Commun
ication
Skills
Competent
only in
handling
classroom
projects or
Must be able
to properly
exercise
effective
communicati
Vestibule
training and
workshops
Within three
months.
On 15th
February
Professors,
classmate
and friends.

group
activities.
on in my
future job.
The manager job responsibility of a manager is to exercise effective administrative and
communication. Thus I choose these two are specific proficiency that I must be able to achieve in
order to become a successful manager. Both the above proficiency are measurable and achievable in
the time line decided by me. This is because the fact that I can measure the progress of my
managerial and communicational skills.
As per Kolb's, learning must be based on experience and self reflection. However, I thought
to select activities that will embark effective lifelong learning in me (Doran, 2013). Thus, I choose
off the job training methods like classroom lectures, mentoring and case studies to improve my
managerial skills (Off-the-job Methods, 2016). Apart from this, I have also selected vestibule
training and workshops to enhance my communication. Vestibule training is a type of near- the job
training i.e. students are given the exact situations situations faced by the management in an
organization. The choice of development activities is justified as the activities aim in improving
particular skill of an individual. Like off the job training methods helped me in getting a complete
zest of information about managers and their responsibility. The lectures provided by the professors
were designed to enhance managerial skills specifically.
At many instances, there were guest lecturers available to provide expert knowledge about
certain field. From the guest lecturers, I was able to learn skilled and expertise knowledge. The
main purpose of opting off the job development activities was to become more confident about the
future job. Cast studies provided me with an environment where I was able to place myself at the
situation mentioned in the study. This helped me in improving my knowledge about various
challenges and issues faced by a manager in the organisation. Mentoring given to be was precise
and very relevant in terms of learning. My mentor was focused as to what should be taught and
what shouldn't. Apart from the above, vestibule training was the key of improving my technical
skills. It is very obvious that each organization follows a different communication channel. And the
technology used by them also differs from one another. Workshops helped me in getting a practical
knowledge given to me by industry experts (Knapp and et.al., 2014). Thus, it was feasible for me to
understand different types of technological tools associated with communication. Altogether, the
personal development plan prepared by me was appropriate in helping me to improve my present
skills and performance.
TASK 4: CRITICAL REFLECTION
My personal process of learning started with experiences which I learned from my class
lectures and training activities. I perceived and developed ideas to implementing the information

given to me in my class and training sessions. After this I decided to select the best method I found
where suitable only for my learning. Deciding helped me in analysing all the information I received
through my course work. After this the last step would be to act and implement my learning. I did
this by preparing a personal development plan and stated a time frame. This time frame will help
me in achieving my learning goals in that particular period of time. The outcome of this learning
process was that I was able to achieve my target proficiency in the set time line. As it was very
important for me to execute learning so that I could become an efficient manager for my future job.
After creating a personal development plan, I realised the significance of conducting a
critical reflection on the outcomes of development activities. In order to adopt managerial skills
first, I must have a complete knowledge about the lectures taught to me in classroom. In order to
that I made sure to properly concentrate on the subject taught by my professor (Fry and Altman,
2013). I have to be attentive in order to acquire all the required information to become a productive
manager in future. Although, I tried my best but I experienced that in order to acquire these skills
one needs to have a practical approach. I also tried to get in touch with a mentor, who propagated
leadership style in me. Although it is very necessary to understand the core concepts of different
leadership style, I felt that it will be viable for me to get trained by a leader himself. It is critically
important for my professional development to be able to learn practical knowledge from a leader.
On the other hand, the case studies provided by my professors were very helpful. They
helped me identifying problems faced by individuals in specific situations. They supported me in
improving my analytical skills but also failed somewhere. The case studies provided were outdated
and thus leaked the latest theoretical touch to them (Moon, 2013). It can be argued that the case
study provided variety of situational analysis they were taught from the past years. And I feel that in
an organisation one does not always faces same situation. There must be wide varieties of case
studies available so as to be effective for student’s personal and professional learning.
In contrast to this, I also received vestibule training. The main aim of this program was to
improve my technical knowledge by various communicative tools like mails and telephone.
Although the training was important for me to understand the operations behind these technology, I
realised that in today's era every individual knows how to communicate through email and
telephone. It was evident that the vestibule training would create new ideas and tools to help me
learn something new (Olsen, 2015). In contrast to this, I also managed to participate in various
workshops that aimed to improve communicational problems faced by students. These workshops
provided brief idea about the do's and dont's of communication. It can be said that they lacked in
identifying the particular needs of students. I also evaluated that the workshops were lengthy and
thus could not be effective to their actual potentials.
Apart from this, I felt that in respect to these development activities, I must make sure to

adopt a habit of creating feedback for myself. In order to do that I tried to reflect my learning from
these development activities and to implement them in myself at the end of each day (Gamrat and
et.al., 2014). I felt inspired from the theoretical knowledge and the work of researchers in this field.
It made me feel confident about myself. Despite this, the support from my fellow classmates and
professors motivated me to yield excellence. Their encouragement and teachings made me mentally
strong and confident as well.
TASK 5: EVALUATION OF PERSONAL LEARNING
Learning is very important for the personal as well as for the professional growth an
individual. From the above personal development plan, I was able to achieve the target to improve
my communicational as well as managerial skills within the end of academic year. I learned the
basic managerial skills like organizing and delegation of responsibilities (Nicholls, 2014). As per
the future aspect of becoming a manager, I must know how to properly delegate responsibility
amidst employees. Controlling the organizational factors was also taught to me through these
development activities. I tried not to become impatient at times and managed to stay calm and
compose while making any decision. I also understood the importance of decision making. The
manager is assigned to supervise different roles and responsibilities at various times. He/she must
be able to understand the skills and capabilities of the employees before making any decisions. I
found that it is also relevant to maintain cordial relationship among the superior and subordinates.
This was an unplanned activity which I could learn from the development exercises proposed
above. The learning process helped me to identify various unplanned learning which I was able to
grasp. I also felt that unplanned activities embraced a positive sense of morale in me.
The guest lecturers provided by the industry expert informed me to be very cautious about
time management. In an organisation, not all activity can always go as per plan. I realised that the
manager has to be prepared for various challenges or duties that may come his/her way (Leong and
et.al., 2014). I never realised that I must be prepared of the uncertain events that may occur in an
organisation. The mentor also guided me to undertake responsibility of mentoring my juniors. I
found out that apart from managing the major job responsibilities; the manager also has to mentor
the employees who require his/her guidance and expertise. Despite this, the vestibule training
helped me improve my technical knowledge about various new tools. I was surprised to know that
the manager is required to be technically sound with all the advancements made in the practical
field. He/she is required to ascertain new updates in software and technology field as and when they
arrive in the market. I never realised the complexity part of a manager's job. After learning through
the training and development activities, I was able to understand the core responsibilities need to be
performed by a company’s manager.

After evaluating myself, I was able to learn all the planned development activities as well as
the unplanned one's also (Sonnino, 2013). My learning experience was very motivational and
enlightening. I was able to learn a lot more knowledge about leadership in an organisation. I found
that the whole experience was very interesting. By only reading from books I could have profited
as much like I did through my learning experience. The whole process was overwhelming and I am
excited to exercise my learning in my future job. This means, I must constantly evaluate my
learning to identify as to what I could learn and could not.
TASK 6: WAYS TO DEVELOPE CONTINUOUS LEARNING
After self assessment and evaluation on the personal development plan, I decided to choose
three ways to continue my learning. The activities like self development learning, forming matrix
teams and on the job training activities will assist me in exercising lifelong learning:
 Self development activities aim to enhance managerial learning in the individual. I choose
this activity in order to encourage myself to learn more and more about the various aspect of
a successful manager. Self development activity can be done through books, internet
modules, workbooks, and DVD's (Self Development, 2016). I realised that these are easily
available in the market. However, they limit the individual with theoretical knowledge.
Thus, there are less chances of the information to be reliable for specific learning.
 Matrix teams are task forces or groups that are organized in order to achieve a target
similar to all the group members. It is necessary to constantly stay in touch with knowledge
and individual who share same passion for learning like me (Reeves, 2012). All the
individuals in a matrix teams are required to share their motivation and knowledge among
the other group members. This activity is also helpful in enhancing social skills among the
society which are considered an important aspect of communication. However, this is a
tedious and time consuming task. In order to participate in matrix team, I have to pay extra
attention and time apart from my job timings. But I am sure my communication and verbal
skills will improve.
 On the job training activities will help me in improving my managerial skill and abilities
while serving a job. These training can be conducted through coaching, job rotation and live
projects. These training are effective in improving the productivity of the employees
(Patterson, 2014). I will be able to understand the competent environment of organisation
through job rotation. Training alongside peers and colleagues will also improve my
participation and employee relationship in the organisation. In contrast to this, learning
environment of the future job may not as much conductive as my expectation. And also
performance depends on the guidance given to me. Thus, these chances may hamper the
quality of learning which I want to perceive in future.

CONCLUSION
From the above research, I am able to identify my strengths and weakness for my future job.
The report provides in-depth research about the importance of personal and professional
development. I found that it is very important for me improve my efficiency and skills to improve
my performance. Career development is another crucial aspect that is discussed in the report. It is
essential for an individual as student to create carer plans in advance to ascertain current potentials.
I designed a personal development plan to identify my current portfolio in terms of achieving future
goals and objectives.

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