My Personal Leadership Development Plan
Leadership is defined as creating a positive vision of the future; building relationships of trust; and inspiring, orchestrating, and empowering a group of followers to make that vision a reality. (MyEducator. com, 2018). A good leader should have a plan for their future to be successful. It is difficult to think introspectively about myself on specific traits I may or may not have that resemble leadership skills. However, I must start somewhere. This paper will go over what I have set for career goals as well as identify my core personality traits and detail a development plan to improve on my weaknesses. I have over twenty years of experiences in business with very few examples of leadership responsibilities. I will document my Leadership Development Plan below, I have a lot of work to do!
Career Plan
I have spent fourteen years in Accounting and eight years in Human Resources. These two areas are fundamentally different. In HR, I learned skills in listening and empathy. The single most important thing I realized is that people are not asking you to solve their problems for them. They simply want someone that will listen to them and provide insight they may not have been aware or provide a different point of view to help them. In Accounting, I have learned the importance of being detail-oriented and having specific processes in place. There is a lot of information being passed around and the tiniest of mistakes can result in hours of extra work. It also requires that I be aware of the larger picture and understand how those things apply to my work. I am currently a Senior Accounting Associate but in five years, I consider myself having the potential to be a Controller. I have all the requisite business experience and in May I will have finally finished the degree portion of that goal however there are still some personality traits that I need to work on.
My Current Personality Traits - Know
Leadership begins with self-discovery. That is the first step in the “Know, Do, Be” model of leadership. To get a more accurate representation of myself, I took The Big Five Personality Test (2018). This test is an assessment on the five major dimensions of personality. Each of these personalities play a role in our leadership styles at this moment in time. The first trait is Openness which describes a person’s tendency to think in abstract, complex ways. I scored a sixty-five percent which puts me in the moderate range. I’m not particularly imaginative nor conservative. The second trait is Conscientiousness which is a person’s ability to exercise control to pursue goals. I scored a fifty-six percent on this one which again puts me in the moderate range. I have long-term goals but can get easily sidetracked in the present. The third trait is Extraversion. This is how likely a person is to seek stimulation from the outside world, specifically the attention of other people. I scored a thirty-one percent here which is low. I do not depend on recognition from others to feel satisfied. The fourth trait is Agreeableness. This is the tendency to put others needs ahead of their own and to cooperate rather than compete. I scored a sixty-two percent here putting me in the moderate category, again. I balance out my own interests with those of others. The final trait to be discussed is Neuroticism. A person’s tendency to experience negative emotions and I scored high, a sixty-nine percent in fact. My intense fear of failure can be a source of motivation.
In the Trait Theories of Leadership, it was originally thought that leadership traits were dispositions that you were born with, so you were destined to be a leader or not (MyEducator. com, 2018). Certainly, with the personality traits I scored above, I would not qualify for a leadership role in any sense. However, as Vince Lombardi said, “Leaders are not born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal. ” For the purposes of this Development Plan, I am going to focus on the two traits that I feel most negatively impact my leadership abilities. Those two are Extroversion and Neuroticism. ExtroversionAmong all the personality traits, I think this one is the most misunderstood. We tend to think of extroverted people as being very social and confident while thinking of introverted people as shy or anti-social. Historically, Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi were introverts. (Schocker, L. 2013, August 13).
Imagine that, Introverts as Effective Leaders! I am not shy and do not have any anxiety about speaking to new people. The strengths that come from this is that I am deliberate in my choices and develop plans for my success (also tied to my high neuroticism). I also develop very deep connections with those I allow in, but I get exhausted in large groups and require my own space to recharge. The negatives for me are that I am passive in a business setting. I have valuable ideas but if someone is louder than I am or more intent on getting their way, I will usually acquiesce. Next week, I start the second round of seven-week courses. It will be on Systems Strategy and Problem Solving. This is a team-driven course that also requires weekly interactions with a business to help them identify and address problems and opportunities. The first thing I need to do is be more assertive in my ideas. I know I have good ideas and useful background experience to understand how to implement these ideas. I will actively work on taking an active role within my group to make sure my ideas are heard. I will also take a physical course at the Salt Lake campus next semester to ensure that I on broadening my social circles.
Neuroticism
This is the one personality trait that I do not have much to disagree with on where I scored. This is related to emotional stability. I worry about things; a lot. I worry about past events, future events, non-existent events and can be overly sensitive to what I perceive information to mean. The good news is, I am already acutely aware of this fact. This past week, we had some payroll issues come to surface that resulted in me stressing out about not being able to take care of my other responsibilities. I realized early on that I was passing along some of my stress to my team. Some things that have helped me in my business career are to have documented processes for what to do in certain situations. As a result, I was able to have a team member help complete these tasks. I work full time and took thirteen credit hours this semester. There was a period during the past seven weeks when I was doing homework every day for almost two weeks straight. Stress affects me. I kept using the excuse that I did not have time available to do anything for myself and I was lucky if I got eight hours of sleep. This week has been the same, finals and mid-terms and issues at work. I made a deal with myself that as soon as I finished this paper, I would give myself all day tomorrow to work on my Halloween crafts and put out my decorations. I am looking forward to that. I need to put more emphasis on my work-life balance. To that end, I am going to plan on doing my yoga and taking walks at least three times a week. I will also make dinner at least twice a week. I have been feeling extreme guilt that my family has shouldered so much to help me pursue my dreams.
Know, Do, Be The first step in my development plan was detailing where I want to be in my career in five years. The second step was understanding where I currently stand on the spectrum of the Big Five Personality Traits. The third step as identifying my two biggest weaknesses out of those traits and making specific plans on how to improve them. This is my Personal Development Plan – I know I have a lot of work to do so that I can be what I strive to be.
