Self-Leadership Personal Development Plan

Abstract

The purpose of the self-leadership development plan is to analyse oneself completely through self-awareness and gain a deeper understanding on the different leadership theories that could be acquired to develop and enhance one’s leadership potential.  The self-assessments exercises and tools are used to help gain a better insight on the personal strengths and weaknesses and utilize the strengths to overcome the weaknesses to improve the leadership skills.  This document summarizes the results of the personal self-assessments (Self-Leadership Questionnaires – SLQ1, SLQ2 and SLQ3, the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, the Gallup’s StrengthsFinderTM tool and Big Five Personality Test) and thereby developing a leadership plan by assessing the strengths and finding the areas of improvement using the different leadership theories.

Self-Leadership Personal Development Plan

 The awareness of my personality and personal values has helped me identify the opportunities for both personal growth and professional development.  There had been a lesser self-analysis and self-awareness all these years as I was very much career oriented and could not spend much time to identify my weaknesses due to busy schedules and less time to focus on myself towards improving my leadership skills.  This course has helped me more towards the self-analysis through the different self-assessment tools and tests.

Discussion

Personal Self-assessments Results

 The personal self-assessment surveys have helped me to understand my personality and has showed me the path for self-improvement by gaining a better picture of myself.  I have taken the assessments to analyse and assess myself through Self-Leadership Questionnaire 1 (SLQ1), Self-Leadership Questionnaire 2 (SLQ2) and Self-Leadership Questionnaire 3 (SLQ3) (Neck, Mans & Houghton, 2017).  Refer to Table A1, Table A2 and Table 3 for the scores of SLQ1, SLQ2 and SLQ3 respectively.  The SLQ1 focusses self-leadership strategies, including self-punishment.  Based on the score in SLQ1, I have secured an overall score of 69 which indicates a very high overall level of the leadership strategies.  I already possess some positive self-leadership tendencies.  This also indicates that I strongly believe in exercising self-influence methods. 

Based on the self-assessment results and score in SLQ2 which is detailed in Table A2, I have made a score of 72 which indicates that I possess some self-leadership tendencies those which I believe are my current self-leadership tendencies. 

Based on the self-assessment results and score in SLQ3 which is detailed in Table A3, I have scored a total of 41 which indicates a very high level strategy of my current tendencies concerning several constructive thought-focussed self-leadership strategies. 

Martin Seligman and his colleague Christopher Peterson have identified 24 character strengths, clustered within six virtues which are associated with positive personal qualities and related to beneficial outcomes for individuals (Soskik, 2015).  Character Strengths and Virtues are regarded as the backbone of the science of positive psychology.  There are six character strengths, which were defined by Peterson & Seligman (2004).  The character strengths are – wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence.  The opposition to the “Ugly 8” vices, (Sosik, 2015) are “character strengths”.  Table A4 has my scores with regards to the “Ugly 8” vices wherein I have scored under hubris and fear of man.  Based on the VIA online survey, I assessed and examined my character strengths.  The top positive traits in me are kindness (humanity), gratitude (transcendence), fairness (justice), social intelligence (humanity) and appreciation of beauty and excellence (transcendence).  The least character strengths in me are bravery (courage), humor (temperance) and perspective (wisdom and knowledge). 

I have taken the online assessment at the CliftonStrengths and my top five themes were found to be – Restorative, Relator, Learner, Includer and Achiever.  Refer to Table A5 for the shared theme description,

The Big Five Personality self-evaluation has helped me to analyse and understand my scores pertaining to the dimensions – Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Emotion Stability.  Table A6 provides the details of the self-rating pertaining to these five dimensions.  I have scored a little less on Conscientiousness and Extraversion compared to the other dimensions.  Refer to Appendix B and Appendix C for the graphical representation of the Big Five Personality test results.

Strengths and Areas for Improvement

The different personal self-assessment surveys has helped me to examine and analyse my current self-leadership strategies.  I do agree with the results and these assessments have distinctly provided me a greater insight about myself. 

Based on the results of “the Ugly Eight” Vices of Self-Excess in Leading with Character – hubris, self-will and fear of man are the vices that I have scored one point in each and need some self-improvement.  Based on the VIA survey, my highest character strength is kindness. I have always been empathetic by trying to understand others feelings and their emotions. This strength has helped me build confidence in others.  Kindness has been linked to a variety of helping behaviors including volunteerism and it correlates of mental and physical health (Sosik, 2015).

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Gratitude is my second highest character strength which has really helped me during certain tough situations in life when I have encountered unexpected failures.  Recognizing the presence of others and the help they have provided, could be a motivational force in any relationship.  Gratitude allows leaders to recognize the fact that their leadership outcomes are accomplished through their followers (Sosik, 2015).

My third character strength according to the survey results is fairness. This trait has helped me treat everyone equally without any bias.  Fairness has been linked to the development of a strong moral identity where being trusted and seen as reliable becomes part of the self-concept (Sosik, 2015).

Based on the Big Five Personality evaluation results, I need to improve on the areas of conscientiousness and extraversion.  I have to improve myself to take obligations to others seriously and be more efficient.  Though am not a completely extrovert person and tend to open up more only with the group of people that I am comfortable with, I believe that I will have get along with the new people that I tend to meet every day.

Environmental Factors

Self-leadership strategies could help more women to believe more in themselves and pursue their dreams.  Women have to constantly motivate themselves in pursuing their dreams and not settle for anything less.  They need to be equally ambitious and goal-oriented as that of men and for sure this requires a strong support from their family to be become more successful at work.  I believe that women face more problems at work in order to reach the next level in their career.  Most of the women who are working and are in the intermediate roles are more likely to stand alone with less or no support to progress forward in their career.  They lose their self-confidence and self-esteem gradually.  I believe that women have to create more self-awareness about their personality, strengths and weaknesses.  They should be strong in their decision making and not give up their career despite all the challenges and stereotypes that they face at work.  They ought to voice out their opinion boldly and break the stereotypes that have been there for ages at the workplace.  I believe that I could make utilize my character strengths and positive self-leadership strategies at work to progress forward in my career.  Self-talk before attending any important discussions or meeting would definitely help me stay focused and keep my anxiety level in control. 

Personal Development/Action Plans

Self-awareness and critical analysis of myself has aided me to gain a new perspective to improve myself better.  Leadership skills could be maximized when we get to know more about ourselves, our personal characteristics and also the impact of our actions on other people who are around us.  My highest virtues are humanity, transcendence and justice whereas the least virtues are courage, temperance and wisdom and knowledge.  My highest virtues have helped me overcome any tough situation and protect myself from the excesses of power, privilege and prosperity.  I will have to focus on the character strengths that I have scored less and currently lagging in.

Self-observation and self-monitoring would help me in determining the conditions under which I exhibit certain behaviors.  It would indeed help me manage my behavior in my everyday life and also regulate my behavior to accommodate social situations.  It cannot be denied that women are more expressive and display their emotions without any hesitation.  Emotions play an enormous role in leadership.  I have always been empathetic at work by understanding the issues and problems of my fellow workers.  Through self-observation and self-monitoring, I could control my emotions and tend to be empathetic when needed rather than being empathetic most of the time.

Emotional intelligence is the key to one’s personal and professional success.  I need to incorporate much effective coping strategies when dealing with people and stress.  The levels of coping behavior gets varied based on the problem and the environment.  By being compassionate, I would be able to understand any situation from others point of view and help them in any possible way that I could. 

Expressing gratitude has kept me happy and also made me more optimistic and self-satisfied. I believe that fairness in turn builds the trust and confidence of others.  This is an important quality which the leaders should possess for an effective leadership and it also helps to earn respect by the followers.

Conclusion

 Each leadership style has its own advantages and disadvantages.  There is no specific leadership style that is best suited for an organization in all circumstances.  Based on the existing structure, goals and needs of the organization, the required leadership style could be acquired.  Organizations’ structure, goals and sub-ordinates nature to be analysed to decide the leadership style that needs to be executed.  The characteristics of temporary organizations impact the effectiveness of leadership.  In case of temporary organizations, the environmental uncertainty

References

Neck, C.P., Manz, C.C., & Houghton, J.D. (2017). Self-Leadership: The definitive guide to personal excellence. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. 

Peterson, C., and Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 29-30.

Sosik, J. J. (2015). Leading with Character: Stories of Valor and Virtue and the Principles They Teach. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, Inc.

Appendix A

Personal Self-Assessment Results

Table A1

Self-Leadership Questionnaire 1 (Neck, et al., 2017, p. 31-32)

Scores

A.

Self-observation

15

B.

Cueing strategies

9

C.

Self-goal-setting

15

D.

Self-reward

15

E.

Self-punishment

7

F.

Practice

15

X.

Total score, including self-punishment (A through F)

76

XX.

Total score, excluding self-punishment (A through F, except E)

69

Table A2

Self-Leadership Questionnaire 2 (Neck, et al., 2017, p. 63-64)

Scores

A.

Distinguishing natural rewards

15

B.

Choosing pleasant surroundings

15

C.

Building naturally rewarding activities into your work

12

D.

Focusing on the pleasant aspects in your work

15

E.

Focusing on natural rewards rather than external rewards

15

X.

Total score (A through E)

72

Table A3

Self-Leadership Questionnaire 3 (Neck, et al., 2017, p. 87-88)

Scores

A.

Evaluating beliefs and assumptions

14

B.

Self-talk

15

C.

Mental practice

12

X.

Total score (A through C)

41

Table A4

The “Ugly 8” Vices of Self-Excess (Sosik, 2015, p. 178)

Vice

Score

Hubris

1

Excessive love of praise

0

Anger/impatience

0

Unbelief

0

Deceit

0

Self-will

1

Fear of man

1

Jealousy

0

Table A5

The Gallup’s StrengthsFinderTM

Top 5 Themes

Shared Theme Description

1.

Restorative

Adept at dealing with problems

2.

Relator

Enjoy close relationships with others

3.

Learner

Great desire to learn and want to continuously improve

4.

Includer

Accepting of others

5.

Achiever

Have a great deal of stamina and work hard

Table A6

Big Five Personality Self-Evaluation

Dimension

Self-Rating

Openness

5.0

Conscientiousness

4.0

Extraversion

4.0

Agreeableness

5.0

Emotion Stability

5.0

Appendix B

LEAD501_FA19-Based Personality Profile

Appendix C

Personal Personality Profile Self-Rating