Professional Development Plan: Leadership, Strengths, and Analysis

This report presents a student's comprehensive professional development plan, focusing on their leadership attributes and current role as a human resource manager in a multinational organization. The plan details the student's leadership style, which is participative in nature, and analyzes their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) as a leader. It includes an analysis of feedback received from colleagues and friends, highlighting both positive aspects and areas for improvement, particularly in decision-making processes and emotional intelligence. The report also incorporates a gap analysis, identifying shortcomings in effective leadership, and provides recommendations in the form of an action plan to enhance leadership skills and career development. The student reflects on their experiences, including past decisions, cognitive biases, and the impact of their leadership style on team dynamics and communication. Furthermore, it explores the importance of task allocation, employee involvement, and the impact of teamwork and collaboration on organizational performance.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Professional Development Plan
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Introduction:
The leadership or the importance of the efficient management in the business world
is observed to be significantly high. With a precise focus on the increasing level of
competition in the modern business world, almost all the organizations that may be small
scale or large scale, are facing the need of incorporating the scientific management inside
the business organizations. One of the major attribute of an efficient leader is seen to be the
capability of managing the business operations of the organizations in an efficient manner.
The success in managing the business operations in an efficient manner, is considered to be
in achieving the maximum profit with the consumption of the least possible amount of
resources. With a precise focus on the organization’s increasing urgency in introducing
efficient management, it is pretty evident that the managers of the modern business
organizations have the idea of the impact that the uncertainty in the business environment
can have, over the business conduction of their organizations.
Hence, in order to manage the detrimental impact of the uncertainty of the business
environment, the improved skills and unique competencies of the managers becomes
significantly crucial. However, depending on the personality and the preferences, the style of
leading varies in a significant manner for different leaders. The paper is focused in the
elaboration of my leadership attributes and also discusses regarding my current job position
which is the human resource manager for a multinational organization. Apart from this, the
plan specifies my strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats as a leader. Adding to this,
the paper also includes an analysis of the feedback that I received from my colleagues and
friends. In addition to this, the paper provides a gap analysis which includes my
shortcomings in acting as an efficient leader and on the basis of the findings, some of the
important recommendations in the form of an action plan is attached with the paper.

2PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Current Position:
As mentioned earlier, I currently work for a multinational organization in the
position of the human resource manager. The company operates in the retail industry. I
started working there from the year 2015 and before that I had 7 years of experience in the
mentioned field. I am responsible for a range of activities in the organization starting from
the recruitment, performance measurement along with talent acquisitions. In addition to this,
I am currently asked to formulate an attractive rewarding policy for the employees of the
organization and along with that, I have responsibility of restructuring the pay structure of
the organization as the company is affected by the scarcity of the employees as result of high
turnover rates of the employees.
Prior to joining the organization, I have completed my masters in business
administration with specialization on human resource. Apart from this, I have worked for a
local bank the position of the human resource for two years ad along with that, I served a
manufacturing company for three years from 2010 to 2013. However, my first job was in a
company that has expertise of importing construction materials and I was asked to conduct
the record keeping operations in that organization. Later I was the head of the record
keeping department for the organization.
For majority of my career, I have worked in the position of the human resource
manager which helped me to know the responsibilities of the position in a significant
manner. Hence, there are certain operations in my job role, which I am able to conduct in an
effortless manner and with perfection. However, some of the shortcomings are still there in
me which I need to overcome in order to be able to perform in apt manner in the mentioned
job position.

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Disclosure and Feedback received regarding the style of leadership:
My style of leadership is participative in nature. I think that the establishment of the
participative management inside the organizations helps the employees to have a better
environment to operate. In addition this, the above mentioned style of leadership plays a
crucial role in the efficient management of the conflicts inside the organization. However,
the style of leadership do inspires constructive conflict amongst the members, however, that
is restricted till the extent it does not harm the unity of the teams and the cohesion amongst
the groups. One of the crucial contribution of the mentioned form of leadership is observed
to be the scope of having a better working environment. The team dynamics is significantly
important for the modern managers in promoting a better working environment and that is
considered to be crucial in increasing the productivity of the organizations and improving
the quality of the operations.
One of the major contribution of the participative management is the establishment
of the effective communication amongst the members of the teams. The increased
interaction amongst the employees which is influenced by the participative management,
enables the members of the teams to have a better understanding amongst themselves and
that becomes crucial in achieving improved team work. The interaction amongst the senior
and the junior members of teams help juniors to meet their developmental needs in an
efficient manner. Hence, the formation of a better working environment notably contributes
to the learning of the junior employees.
Feedback and Observations:
Throughout my career, I was asked to take some crucial decisions while serving as
the human resource manager. Even after taking so many decisions that have turned well for

4PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
the organizations, I do feel anxious while taking a decision which forces me to think again
and again about the decision. Though it increases the time consumed to take the decision,
but it makes sure that the decision is reviewed from all the aspects. During the early stages
of my career, I did make some wrong decisions and while evaluating them, I have found that
I take wrong decisions whenever there is insufficient motivation or I am stressed. Apart
from this, the cognitive biases also had major impact on my inaccuracy of taking decisions
(MAKING 2015). Later on, I worked on it and produced some crucial decisions for my
current organization and the previous one. Howeverm, I do feel that the inappropriate
decisions are mainly influenced by the faults that I conduct while following the important
steps of the decision making.
I need to restructure the process that I follow in order to take a decision and that has
the possibility of making sure that I be able to able to take the right decisions. The
restructuring of my decision making included a precise focus on a 5 step procedure which
starts rom understanding the decisions to the testing of the solutions. With a precise focus on
the formation of the decisions, I was able to understand the fact that the decisions are formed
depending on two cases where the first one is automatic and the second one is slow. The
decisions that are taken by me in an automatic manner are majorly instinctive and emotional.
On the other hand, majority of my decisions are taken in accordance to the second system
where I take considerable amount of time to take the decisions as they are undertaken after
certain amount of logical debates. In addition to this, I evaluated the problems that are
affecting my decision making and identified the underlying clauses. On the basis of the
findings of the search, I started thinking by joint evaluations for achieving the appropriate
decisions.
One of the major shortcomings of my leadership is the emotional intelligence. I am a
leader who is significantly aim oriented and understand the impact of the emotions in a

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significantly limited manner. However, an effective leader is expected to have the quality of
emotional intelligence. With a precise focus on the various aspects of the self-awareness, I
have the quality of assessing my skills and competencies in an effective manner which plays
a crucial role for me in managing my team. However, I am significantly emotional and that
affects my style of leading as well. I have a considerably low scale if self-control and along
with that, however my visionary leadership is one of the key factors that helps me in
managing my teams in an efficient manner. The above mentioned skill enables me to
anticipate the future scenario and prepare the operations of my team in an effective manner
so that the impact of the uncertainty of the future is limited on my team. As mentioned
earlier, I prefer the participative management style of leadership which helps me in the
effective management the conflict amongst my team members.
In addition to the point of efficient conflict management, the above mentioned
leadership style helps me in establishing an effective communication amongst the members.
However, I have certain amount of limitations while managing a team through changes and
that is one of the important aspect of my leadership that needs significant amount of
improvement. I have a tendency of making a mess in managing a particular team while
implementing changes and that is pretty evident with one of my colleague’s comments when
he claimed that I do not follow any sort of authentic literature while managing the changes
inside the organization and only go by my intentions while managing the changes. I do value
the teamwork in a significant manner and that is petty evident with my style of leadership. I
do think that the impact of team work and collaboration is significantly high on the
improvement of the overall performances of the organizations and with a precise focus on
the increasing intensity of the competition in the modern business world, my style of
leadership significantly contributes in building a strong relationship amongst the members of
the teams (Mullenweg 2014).

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Attributes of Leadership:
One of the primary attribute of my leadership in organizational context is the
effective allocation of the tasks. During my operations in the position of the human resource
managers, I have always made sure that I allocate tasks to the members of my team in
accordance to their expertise. This had the potential of making sure that the operations of the
employees inside the organization is flawless. Considering the increasing intensity of the
competition in the modern business world, the preferences of the customers towards the
quality and quantity is observed to be notably high. Under such situation, the flawless
operations of the employees has the potential of creating considerable amount of value for
the customers which provides notable amount of competitive advantage to a particular
organization in the market competition. However, I do prefer to change the roles and
responsibilities of the employees more often than not. This helps me in preparing backup for
a particular employee and that is notably crucial for the sustainability of the organizations in
the emergency situations.
Apart from this, the man management is one of the important aspect of my
leadership and is a key to my success as well. With the participative management in
application, I do prefer to provide the freedom to the members of my team regarding their
operations inside the teams. I do communicate the strategic objectives of the organization to
them, but I prefer them to conduct the formation of the operational activities with a precise
focus on the strategic objectives so that it be easy for them to implement the activities. This
helps me in a significant manner in increasing the involvement of the employees towards the
organization and at the same time, plays a crucial role in the effective reduction of the job

7PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
stress and the dissatisfaction of the employees owing to the issue of work life imbalance
(Kim 2014).
SWOT Analysis:
Strengths:
One of the crucial strengths of mine in leading my team is my urge of being the best
always. My aim oriented nature helps me to always strive forward with my team and that in
modern business context is significantly crucial. The style helps me in a notable manner in
case of increasing the production for the organizations or in the improvement of the quality
of the performances of the employees.
Apart from this, my capability of managing the communication inside the
organization in an effective manner enables me to create a better environment inside the
organization and along with that, it plays a crucial role in the efficient management of the
detrimental impact of the conflict inside the organization as well.
Weakness:
My incapability in leading the teams in an efficient manner while implementing the
changes inside the organizations, can be considered as one of the major shortcomings of my
leadership.

8PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
The incapability to understand the emotions of my employees in an effective manner
limits me in improving my leadership inside the organizations and that becomes
significantly risky for me, as that has the potential of increasing their level of frustration.
Opportunities:
The incorporation of the innovative and creative thinking amongst the employees or
the members of my team has the potential to provide notable amount of success.
The scope of improving my leadership in implementing the changes will be of great
significance for me in my future assignments. With a precise focus on the increasing
occurrences organizational changes, the improvement in leading my team through applying
the established frameworks of the organizational changes is much required.
The frequent conduction of the employee engagement activities is one of the prime
need in my leadership and the scope of improving the working environment inside the
organizations with the application of the employee engagement activities is observed to be
notably high as well.
The effective formation of the rewarding policy and the pay structure for the
employees of the organization is an important aspect of my leadership in the organizational
context to provide the much required motivation to the employees of the organization.
Threats:
In case measuring the performances of the employees, the various sorts of rater bias
such as the leniency bias, central tendency bias, halo and horns bias restricts me from
measuring the performances of the employees in the accurate fashion.
I am significantly emotional in nature and as mentioned earlier, that affects my
leadership in a notable manner. My decision gets affected with the impact of the emotions.

9PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Gap Analysis:
Incapable in managing the teams in an efficient manner while implementing the
changes.
Incapable to avoid the impact of the rater bias while evaluating the performances of
the employees.
Incompetent in managing the emotions in the organizational context.
Action Plan and Recommendations:

Running head: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Goals Activities Success factors Timeline
To avoid the rater bias. To conduct the evaluation of the
performances of the employees on
the basis of the defined ratings for
different qualities.
The achievement of the ability to rate the
performances of the employees without any sort
of impact of the leniency bias, central tendency
bias, halo and horns bias.
12 Weeks
To manage the
organizational change
in effective manner
To follow the approaches of
change management such as
Korter’s framework or the Kurt
Lewin’s framework.
The ability to implement the changes inside the
organization with the accurate application of the
Ktter’s model of change or the Kurt Lewin’s
model of organizational change.
24 weeks
To improve the
emotional intelligence.
To precisely focus on the
surrounding environment of the
employees and the events or
actions that a particular employee
is subjected to
The ability to manage the operations of the
employees with a precise focus on the emotions,
beliefs and values of the employees.
6 Weeks
To provide the
motivation to the
employees or the
members of my team.
To formulate the rewarding policy
along with the pay structure of the
employees in an effective manner
with the inclusion if the extrinsic
and intrinsic rewards.
To increase the number of
employee engagement activities to
strengthen the bond between the
members and motivate them
towards higher growth.
The ability to create a lucrative rewards plan with
the inclusion of the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards
and to create a pay structure that aligns with the
industry standards.
12 weeks
To incorporate the To increase the conduction of the The ability to motivate the employees in taking 24 weeks

1PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
innovation and the
creative thinking
amongst the members.
activities such as brainstorming
and Osborn checklist.
part in the discussions and in contributing with
the innovative solutions and creative thinking.
To help the employees
in improving their
skills and the
competencies.
To evaluate the performances of
the employees in order to identify
the developmental needs of the
employees and meet them with the
best possible solutions.
The ability to identify the developmental needs of
the employees and providing the scope to the
employees in taking part in the training sessions
to meet the developmental needs.
12 weeks