This portfolio will yield a product for you to share with prospective or current employers in order to enhance your employment possibilities and promotion potential. The course project promotes your development and personal commitment to the required knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required for understanding, assimilating, and demonstrating professional public safety leadership. In preparing your portfolio, you will have the opportunity to review leadership from a historical and an operational perspective and will be able to 1.evaluate your own leadership style and effectiveness.    Completion of the course-long personal leadership project solidifies foundation KSAs in order to:  2.evaluate decision making in relation to historic and current issues in public safety through case studies and simulation 

3. explain the relationship between successful leadership, organizational development, and technology and the way these factors affect decision making  

4.discuss the importance of ethics, globalization, systems thinking, proactive leadership, and leader-follower relationships to successful leadership in public safety 

 5.identify and discuss the major leadership theories and concepts applicable to public safety  

6.explain the importance of leadership in organizational processes and change  

7.cite examples of successful leadership styles and techniques in progressive public administration 

8. complete case study reviews and an operational simulation based on major public safety issues

9.  identify future public safety challenges and potential solutions  

10.synthesize your learning experience in your major discipline to apply the knowledge and skills to practical individual and organizational challenges  

The Leadership Development Project Process

  The project is a course-length process managed using specified development steps that correlate with specific course materials. Aspects of this process will be addressed in the course conferences each week. The first of the two project deliverables is the personal leadership history report.  

 Personal Leadership Portfolio  

The final course deliverable, the Personal Leadership Portfolio, is created by incorporating targeted leadership knowledge development, self-assessment assignments, and homeland security or public safety leadership analysis. The portfolio represents a personal understanding and plan of public safety leadership based on the course research, module content, discussions, reports, simulation, and your leadership performance.  The process requires weekly demonstration of leadership knowledge development through conference discussion opportunities and leadership self-assessment assignments. The submissions are assessed for accuracy and completeness against project requirements and ensure that the development of leadership knowledge, assessment, and analysis provides a maximum foundation for the sequential portfolio development. The completed personal leadership portfolio correlates with professional homeland security and public safety leadership best practices, resulting in a tangible product that can become a base for future leadership development.  

> Assessment Sequence  The project is made up of sequential steps that constitute the required actions of semester-long portfolio development. The process assessment utilizes a recommended portfolio document structure.  

1.   Gather—the gathering of course and outside leadership materials and resources. 

2.   Research—narrowing the focus of academic and anecdotal leadership topics to professional homeland security or public safety leadership topics. 

3.   Organize—establish an information-handling process in order to coordinate resources, sources, and gathered data. Monitor for policy topic research completeness through use of an information-handling and organization process.

 4.   Analyze and evaluate—compare, contrast, and judge resource material to develop cogent documentation. 

5.   Assess—assimilate personal leadership history report results with cogent documentation, demonstrating the nexus between personal leadership history and data with academic and anecdotal resources. This step may also include assessing past leadership opportunities for lessons learned. 

6.   Apply—based on steps 1-5, determine personal leadership styles and traits and how the determination can be applied in a professional homeland security or public safety setting. This step will also include personal leadership strengths and challenges for future development. 

7.   Create a personal leadership development plan for your future in public safety. 

 > Personal Leadership Portfolio Document Structure and Content Topics  The body of the Personal Leadership Portfolio shall be at least 12 pages, excluding other material such as the cover page, table of contents, abstract, graphics and tables, and references.  The paper shall be presented in APA (6th edition) format, all margins should be 1”, 12 point font, and be in either Arial or New Times Roman font style. In the following descending order of preference, information sources must be either peer-reviewed articles, government reports, or other sources approved by your instructor. Internet information sources from other than authoritative sources are discouraged. See the Personal Leadership Portfolio grading rubric for more information. The personal leadership portfolio shall cover all of the following topics:  

1.presentation and discussion of academic and anecdotal resource materials  

2.deconstruction of current homeland security or public safety leadership  

3.identification of acceptable and effective professional homeland security or public safety leadership principles  collation of data from personal leadership self-assessment assignments  

4.comparison and contrast of self-assessment data, to include applicability, with best practices and identified leadership principles  

5.presentation and discussion of future personal leadership development and opportunity

   The completed personal leadership portfolio correlates with professional homeland security and public safety leadership best practices, resulting in a tangible product that can become a base for future leadership development.