BUS214: Leadership Skills

Assignment 3: Leadership Development Action Plan

Description

This assignment was designed to guide your leadership development activities going forward. Through self-

reflection and key leadership concepts, you will create your own leadership vision and assess your leadership

strengths and weaknesses to shape your leadership development. To provide a rich experience, students are

required to work collaboratively with a mentor who is suited to inform and provide advice in developing

knowledge, skills and thinking. The result of your reflection, chosen leadership development activities, and

mentor-mentee interaction will be your leadership development action plan. This plan will be submitted as a

formal report, please see formatting guidelines for further detail. Many of the following parts require

significant thought and effort. The more effort you put into each step, the more beneficial this process will be

to you.

• PART A – Your Leadership Vision

• PART B – Establish a Mentorship

• PART C – Develop Core Leadership Skills

Formatting Guidelines:

• Word count is between 1,200 – 1,500 words (max)

• Any sources used must be cited using APA style (6th edition) and included on a references page.

• Each section should be clearly identified with headings, and each question answered in its own separate

paragraph.

Submission Details:

• Submit your final paper in D2L under Assignments.

Date Due:

• See D2L / Course Outline

Course Weighting:

• Worth 20% of the final course grade

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PART A: Your Leadership Vision

Creating and understanding your leadership vision can provide insights about your motivation to lead and will

help to guide your development efforts in a direction congruent with your long-term goals. As we have learned,

people who have achieved or accomplished great things, first had a vision.

Your vision is rooted in your own set of values, concerns, and dreams. A vision addresses questions such as:

“Who do I want to be?”, “What do I want to create? “What kind of contribution do I want to make in my life – to

my employer, my school, my friends and family, my community, my world?

Specifically, write a leadership vision that reflects:

1) who you currently are as a leader,

2) personal values and moral principles,

3) who you aspire to be as a leader (future state),

4) specific goals that will help you achieve your potential.

5) Complete the following after you have had a discussion with your mentor about your career vision.

a. Describe the ways your career vision has altered since your discussions with your mentor

b. What advice, if any, did your mentor provide you with regarding the development and/or the

achievement of your vision?

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PART B: Establish a Mentorship

What is a mentorship?

Good mentoring involves a collaborative working relationship which focuses on achieving mutually defined

goals with the view to develop your knowledge, skills and thinking (Zachary & Fischler, 2009). One of the roles of

a leader is to develop followers, and mentoring is one method of developing people. The benefits of mentoring

are well researched (e.g., Kram, 1985; Zachary & Fischler, 2009) and have been demonstrated to have positive

impacts on the mentee (protégé) through active learning and being able to give back to the mentor through a

reciprocal learning relationship.

Who is a mentor?

You are required to develop, or continue developing, a collaborative partnership with a mentor. Typically, a

mentor is a more experienced person that shares knowledge, provides guidance and support, sponsors your

career success, and serves as a role model. If you do not have a mentor or are looking for another mentor,

consider the following:

• Your mentor should be someone you admire and respect.

• It is ideal if your mentor has worked in or is currently working in the discipline that is congruent with

your leadership vision.

• Consider people who have already contributed to your development. For example, your mentor could

be an instructor, teacher, coach, community member, previous or current colleague or supervisor, etc.

Your mentor can not be an immediate family member. Also, if you ask a Camosun instructor to be

your mentor, make sure that they have not already agreed to mentor another student for this

exercise. Instructors can only work with one student each for this exercise.

• Regular communication with your mentor is important. This could mean weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly

conversations. A conversation could occur in person, via Skype, FaceTime, telephone or a variety of

other communication methods. The schedule by which you meet with your mentor will be established

by you and your mentor.

Once you have established a mentorship, complete the following:

1) Who is your mentor? Include your mentor’s name, position, and current organization. If your mentor

does not currently work, state his or her previous position and organization

2) Provide a brief summary of your mentor’s work experience

3) List the reasons that you selected this mentor

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4) What do you hope to gain from your mentorship and why? Utilize Kram’s (1985) Mentoring Functions,

located in Appendix A, to identify three specific functions that you hope to receive from your mentorship

and how

5) Similar to all relationships, mentorship can be viewed as a reciprocal learning relationship (Zachary &

Fischler, 2009) in which both parties’ benefit. Identify two benefits you hope to provide to your mentor

6) Keep a log of your interactions with your mentor. Included in this log will be the date of interaction,

topics of discussion, and a note about the date of your next meeting. The goal of this exercise is for you

to establish a new or continue to build a long-term mentorship. You must meet with your mentor a

minimum of three times before the end of the semester. Include a summary of the log as an

Appendix in your report.

7) The following list of discussion topics is meant as a guide for you and your mentor to explore. This list is

meant as a guide only and some topics may not be appropriate to discuss whereas others may be.

a. Ask your mentor about her/his leadership or career vision. What was or is it? Does she/he feel she/he

has accomplished or will accomplish that vision?

b. Did her/his career go how they planned? Why or why not?

c. Communicate your leadership vision. What does your mentor think of that vision?

d. Does your mentor have any general and/or specific advice to offer regarding achieving your vision?

e. Ask your mentor how you can help them.

f. What would your mentor do to continue to develop professionally if they were you?

g. Ask your mentor what her/his biggest weakness in the workplace was or is.

h. What is your mentor most proud of in her/his career?

i. What hobbies does your mentor have or what does she/he do for fun?

From your interaction with your mentor:

1) Provide a list of five major takeaways you have learned from your mentor

2) How might you leverage the knowledge gained in these discussions to advance your career and

professional development?

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PART C: Develop Core Leadership Skills

Throughout the semester we have discussed many qualities and skills that contribute to leadership success.

Create a plan to develop two of the core leadership skills listed below. Select skills that you think will be most

useful to learn and practice for where you are at in your development. Even if you may think you are not a leader

in your current capacities, the idea is to develop yourself so that you will become one in the future. The

development of these core skills will contribute to your success as a leader.

• Administrative skills (managing people, managing resources, showing technical competence) [Select

one]

• Interpersonal skills (being socially perceptive, showing emotional intelligence, managing

interpersonal conflict) [Select one]

• Conceptual skills (creating vision, strategic planning, decision making, problem solving, change

management) [Select one]

• Understanding diversity and inclusion

• Understanding human behaviour and motivation

For each core leadership skill that you select, you must:

1) Seek advice from your mentor about how to develop the skill.

o Summarize your mentor’s advice for developing your two selected skills. These summaries

should be two separate paragraphs

2) In two separate paragraphs, identify three practical steps to develop each selected skill:

o Utilize your mentor’s advice, conduct your own research, and gather others’ opinions and

experiences to identify three practical steps for developing each of your selected skills. Be as

specific as possible

o Provide justification for these practical steps (i.e., how will these steps aid in the development

of your selected skill)

o Develop a plan for executing these practical steps (i.e., how will you actually accomplish these

practical steps). Executing these steps may occur after the semester is over

Conclusion – Conclude your action plan with three important take-aways you have had from this experience.

This could be something your mentor shared that resonated with you, something you and your mentor

discovered in your conversations, a deeper self-awareness of a strength you have, or anything that leads to a

deeper appreciation for leadership and/or your ability to be a successful leader.

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Appendix A

Kram’s (1985) Functions of Mentoring

Function Definition

Career Functions

Sponsorship
Involves actively nominating the protégé for promotions or desirable

lateral moves.

Exposure and

Visibility

Involves assigning responsibilities that allow the protégé to develop

relationships with key figures in the organization.

Coaching
Enhances the protégé’s knowledge and understanding of how to

navigate effectively in the corporate world.

Protection
Involves shielding the protégé from damaging or untimely contact with

key figures of the organization.

Challenging

Assignments

Involves the assignment of challenging work which enables the

protégé to develop specific competencies and experience a sense of

accomplishment in a professional role.

Psychosocial Functions

Role Modeling
The mentor’s attitudes, values, and behaviour provide a desirable

model for the protégé.

Acceptance and

Confirmation

Enables the protégé to experiment with new behaviours due to the

previous establishment of a basic trust which encourages the protégé

to take risks.

Counseling Enables the protégé to explore personal concerns with the mentor.

Friendship
Social interaction that results in mutual liking and enjoyable informal

exchanges about work and outside work experiences.

References

GovLeaders.org. (2014-2018). Leadership Development Action Plan Template. Retrieved from

GovLeaders.org: https://govleaders.org/leadership-development-action-plan.htm

Kram, K. E. (1985). Mentoring at Work: Developmental Relationships in Organizational Life. University Press of

America.

Lois, Z. J., & Fischler, L. A. (2009). Mentee’s Guide: Making Mentoring Work For You. San Francisco: Jossey-

Bass.