Personal Development Portfolio: Improving Leadership Skills

This personal development portfolio explores the student's journey toward becoming a more effective leader. The portfolio begins with an introduction to leadership skills, emphasizing the importance of communication, planning, and resource management in today's business environment. It then delves into the student's biases and assumptions regarding leadership, highlighting past apprehensions about communication and the adoption of a rigid approach. The student contrasts these with the need for effective communication and situational leadership. The portfolio details current practices, such as the implementation of reward and recognition programs to motivate employees and the adaptation of a situational approach to meet changing market demands. The student identifies areas for self-development, particularly focusing on improving communication skills and adapting leadership styles to different environments. The portfolio includes references to relevant leadership theories and research.

Running head: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT PORTFOLIO
Personal Development Portfolio
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Introduction
Leadership is one of the key skills that are needed in this modern work environment
in order to successfully run a business in the market. Leadership requires a wide variety of
skills that include management, planning, and resource mobilizing and effectively
communicating with the entire workforce (Clinton 2017). Improving on the skill set of the
self and understanding the weaknesses and strengths of the self is essential in order to
transform into a successful leader. One must abide by the organizational goals and work
towards them in order to be a good leader because the primary task of the leader remains in
bringing benefits to the organization by proper utilization of the workforce that is under them
(Goleman 2017). The key areas of interest for me are the identifying the required type of
leadership that is required for the organization and maintaining proper communication with
the workforce so that the workplace environment is friendly and motivating.
Biases and assumptions
Previously I was a person who was very apprehensive in communicating with people.
The attitude of mine held me from interacting with more people and I believed that if I keep
working hard then the entire team would get motivated and work harder. However, this
assumption was wrong because being a leader it is always necessary to empower the
workforce and motivate them and in order to do that it is necessary to communicate with the
entire team. The necessity of team bonding is huge and it can be possible if the leader
effectively creates a positive work environment.
I am a person who sticks to certain rules while working and personally dislike any
shifting from those set of rules. However, this approach towards leadership leads to many
problems and is in complete contrast to the situational approach to leadership. A leader has to
be adaptive to the changes that arise in respect to the workplace and work according to that

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(McCleskey 2014). If an individual, plans to stick to prejudices and assumptions then it will
be hard to run an organization or a team successfully.
Current Practices
The employees are motivated in order to gain the maximum output from them and the
program of reward and recognition has allowed a healthy competition in the workplace
(Elnaga and Imran 2014). Employees work in tandem with the organizational goals and in the
process they work harder to get the rewards for good performances. The situational approach
has been adapted in order to work with the changing demands of the market and this has
enabled the organization in gaining better results as work practices are not backdated and
evolving with time and requirement.
Areas for self development
The communicating skills are to be developed on my part so that I can interact with
the members of the team more effectively. Better communication will lead to the increase in
the unity of the workforce and they will share their concerns and issues freely with me. I need
to work. My leadership skills should not fail with a change in the environment as the
founders of contingency model have pointed out in their findings. I should be able to adapt
changes and make sure that the perfect analysis of the situation is done by me and I work
according to the requirements of the place.

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Reference
Clinton, J.R., 2017. The making of a leader: Recognizing the lessons and stages of leadership
development. Two Words Publishing, LLC.
Elnaga, A.A. and Imran, A., 2014. The impact of employee empowerment on job satisfaction
theoretical study. American Journal of Research Communication, 2(1), pp.13-26.
Goleman, D., 2017. Leadership That Gets Results (Harvard Business Review Classics).
Harvard Business Press.
McCleskey, J.A., 2014. Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), p.117.