Leadership Plan

A leadership development plan depends upon knowing who one is as a person and building on the strengths, innate talents and gifts, and ideals that one possesses. It also depends upon educating oneself as to the leadership styles, behaviors, ethics, and responsibilities. This leadership development plan will discuss my aims, intentions and steps that I will take to become the type of leader I want to be.
Leadership Behavior
There are many different leadership models and styles. The Transactional leadership model focuses on identifying the incentives that will motivate followers and then offering those in exchange for something from the followers (Barbuto, 2005). The Transformational leadership model focuses on the role of the leader as facilitator of change among followers: the leader communicates to them a vision of what they should be seeking to become or achieve. The leader uses logic and reason to convey why the followers should change their routines or habits to achieve this vision. The leader motivates, inspires and supports by using social and emotional intelligence to drive the followers to the vision (Barbuto, 2005). The servant leadership model focuses on the leader putting the needs of the follower first and foremost. The leader identifies what the follower requires to fulfill his potential and then sets about making sure the follower has the requirement met. Servant leadership is a way for the leader to empower the follower and provide him with the tools to become self-motivated and a leader in his own right (Parris & Peachey, 2013).
The key to being a good leader is to be able to develop strong relationships with people and that can happen using almost any leadership style. However, every person should identify the qualities and gifts that make his or her leadership style his own—and for me I can see that my gifts and skills best align with the transformational leadership style. None of the leadership styles described above is exclusive of the other. Each can be integrated with the others to provide a synthetic model of leadership that allows the leader to achieve the flexibility required for obtaining a diverse array of followers. Building a coalition of trusting followers depends upon having the tools that each of these models presents to the leader. Thus, it will be in the leader’s best interests to understand each and see how they can be applied in any given situation. My plan is to develop my transformational leadership skills so that I can facilitate change among my followers and within my organization—change that allows us all to pursue the identified objective and achieve the goal we all desire.
Transformational Leadership
Communication, vision, understanding of the environment, cultural competency, and social and emotional intelligence are some of the main strategic variables leaders must possess to be influential as a transformational leader (Northouse, 2016). Transformational leaders are about promoting change. They have to give followers a good reason to buy into the change, however. That means they must explain it in rational terms so that the change appears as logical. People are logical and have the ability to reason. If they can see that the change is needed, they are more likely to accept it. As a transformational leader, I want to help people become their best selves. My leadership plan is to transform my followers into achieving the goal of our organization. I want to break down all barriers of resistance. As Armstrong (2011) points out, part of overcoming resistance is the practice of building trust.
People will trust their leader and the leader will trust them if there is transparency and honesty about what is going on. If people feel included in the change management process, they will be more inclined to accept it and to take ownership of it. If change is just forced on them without their consent or without even their ability to give feedback and to feel that their voice matters, it is going to meet with more resistance. To overcome resistance, a leader should strive to prevent it. A transformational leader must be able to supply logical, rational grounds for why a change is needed. People respond to logic. They may be emotional at first, but in the end logic wins out. So the leader has to have a logical explanation that holds up. Then the leader should invite feedback and make everyone feel that their opinion is important. This lets the followers know that they do matter and that even though the change will be hard the leader does not want it to be hard on them. Having a strategy of empathy is important to managing change.
Ethical Leadership
The leader is always going to lead by example: whether one is a transformational leader, a servant leader, a charismatic leader or an authentic leader. Everything the leader does will be observed and followers will model their own behavior on what they see with their own eyes. This is why bad leaders think that all they have to do is talk the talk and not walk the walk. They imagine that so long as they are saying the right words, they are being good leaders and that their actions do not matter. Followers will listen to what a leader has to say, but whether they actually follow depends upon whether the leader himself believes in what he says and conforms his own actions to the ideals and vision that he communicates. This is the essence of ethical leadership: a leader who lives according to the ethical principles that he preaches.
Ethics refer to the principles that help to clarify what is right and wrong in terms of how people or organizations behave (Holmes, 2007). A good ethical system or framework is important for an organization to do well because if a bad ethical framework is used, the decision makers will find that they can justify their actions by giving bad reasons for why they are doing bad things, which is what happened at Enron. An Ethical Egoism framework, for instance, would allow strategic decision makers to justify behaving badly if they thought it would benefit themselves in some way. Leaders must make an effort to implement an ethical framework such as the deontological system of ethics or virtue ethics. This is the type of outlook that will keep the organization on the right track to a truly integrative and positive mission.
Motivational Gifts
Perceiver
My motivational gift of perception is rooted in my ability to maintain a high set of standards while seeing that improvement can be made all around me. I do tend to live out loud and voice my feelings on injustices. This is a good thing when people are looking for a bold leader—but when people are looking for supportiveness and acceptance, it can be a challenge. My motivational gift as a perceiver is to be able to see how things are and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the desired goal.
This is definitely not a bad gift to have—but the communication process is where one can get into trouble. As a transformational leader, the message has to be communicated in a way that is positive, supportive, and facilitative of the end goal. If the hearer feels threatened, or mistreated, or judged by the leader’s words and perceptions, it is going to lead to resistance. A transformational leader has to be working actively towards eliminating resistance—not towards causing it.
Thus, as a perceiver, it is my job to harness those perceptions and use them to create encourage messages that can be communicated using social and emotional intelligence. Social and emotional intelligence are the keys to taking perceptions and transforming them into communications that others will accept in a welcoming and glad manner. When a leader demonstrates social and emotional intelligence he is basically saying that he understands human nature and is willing to work with it rather than to work against the egos of others. It is better to be sympathetic and empathetic than to be judgmental and make people feel that they are being condemned. When one displays sympathetic and empathetic tones and gestures it is easier to mold one’s followers into the type of people they have the potential to become.
Teacher
I also have the motivational gift of being a teacher. Teachers are able to explain difficult or complex concepts in simple terms so that followers can understand. This is an important gift to have as a transformational leader. These leaders must be able to provide followers with a logical explanation for why they should be working towards a vision or goal supplied to them by the leader. The teacher must be an effective communicator and have a supportive personality.
However, one of the drawbacks of teachers is that they can be argumentative, and this is because they have a rich intellectual abilities and they enjoy the argument as it allows them to flex their intellectual muscle. Not everyone enjoys this, though, and argumentative leaders can make some followers feel uncomfortable. For this reason, it is important for me that as a teacher I educate followers in a respectful tone and not engage in arguments that make followers uncomfortable.
Encourager
Encouragers are gifted with the ability of giving nurturing support to followers. They typically have strong support networks of friends and they give positive motivation. In spite of my gifts as a teacher and a perceiver, I am also gifted as an encourager. I know that I have to foster strong relationships with followers and help them to become the best possible versions of themselves, and to do this I have to feel comfortable around others and allow them to feel comfortable around me. Though I do this already, I can perceive slight problem areas in my own personality that I could work on to improve my gifts as an encourager. This is in regards to giving practical advice. Sometimes it is easy to see a person’s shortcomings and tell them that they need to do x, y and z to reach their goal. Yet, what they actually need to do first is a, b and c, even though these feel like baby steps. They are important because they help the person build up the resolve to achieve the higher goals—and as an encourager it is necessary to help the person take the easy steps first and build up the person’s confidence. This is why giving practical advice is important and this is where I need to develop my leadership.
Servant Leadership
Agapao Love
Agapao love is about doing the right thing for the right reason at the right time. It is often easy to do the right thing for the wrong reason—i.e., because one believes it might make one look good, or it might improve one’s resume. But doing the unselfish act for another person’s benefit without regard for how it impacts oneself is the definition of servant leadership. My aim is to increase my agapao love so that I can act unselfishly towards others and help my followers become their ideal selves.
Humility
Humility is the quality of character that allows one to get over one’s own pride and to put others first. Humility is the antithesis of vanity and pride, which can become vices if not controlled. Ethical egoism is rooted in vanity and pride, but servant leadership is rooted in humility. In an effort to become more humble I make an attempt to never take vain or prideful pleasure in my own accomplishments but rather choose to remember that I am noting without God’s gifts and blessings. If I am successful it is only because God has enabled me to achieve so much. God is the ultimate support, the ultimate leader in life, and thus I can never take full credit for what I do because I know that it is really God’s grace working through me. That is how I stay humble and how I am able to put the needs of others first as a servant leader. I know that it is no real accomplishment in life to pursue vain titles and accolades for they are meaningless when compared to what God can give to one simply by operating within His grace and using His gifts to bring others into His light.
Altruism
Altruism is the act of selflessness—the act of putting others first. Altruism is concerned with making sure others have what they require. Altruism aka charity is at the heart of the servant leadership style. Transformational leaders all have to be servant leaders at some point, because they are all concerned with helping their followers reach their potential. This means they must set aside themselves for a time and make sure their followers have the tools to achieve success. In my own leadership, I make an effort to embrace an altruistic mentality at all times. Altruism is about being other-centered rather than self-centered, and that is the core mantra of my life—being other-centered.
Vision
Vision is the ability to see what the end goal should be. When leaders are in the fog, the whole team is in the fog. It is directionless and does not know which way to go. It spins in circles, chasing after its own tail. The leader with vision knifes through the fog and clears it away like the sunshine risen: it provides light for others to see and make sense of their environment. The transformational leader needs to have a vision so that followers know what to work towards. In my own leadership, I practice developing a vision and communicating it every day. What is the vision for today? I ask myself. How could I explain this vision in a logical way to someone else? I practice doing this on my drive.
Trust
Trust is absolutely essential in forming relationships with followers. They must be able to trust the leader and the leader must be able to trust the followers. The way to build trust is through effective communication. The leader must be able to communicate with followers and share information with them while asking for and receiving feedback in return. This communication process is what builds trust. People get to know one another and to depend on one another. I build trust in my leadership by communicating with all my followers even if only for a brief moment or two every day. I try not to let a day go by without making sure that I get to spend a few minutes engaging all of them and developing the bonds of a trustful relationship.
Empowerment
Empowerment is the ultimate goal of servant leadership. The servant leader and the transformational leader both focus on empowering other workers and bringing them into their ideal selves. This is done by being supportive, making sure all their needs are met according to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and human motivation model, and assisting them in becoming self-actualized according to Rogers’ theory of congruence. Bringing the self-image and the ideal image into congruence is the best way to achieve this effect. I try to make sure my followers have all their needs met and I am constantly asking them if they need anything or what I can do for them.
Service
Service is the art of being there to assist others and to be there for them. When a leader is at the service of his followers, he has become a true servant leader. The Biblical representation of this aspect of leadership is Christ, Who put Himself at the service of others, healing, teaching and meeting their needs. His example is the example I try to follow throughout my day.
Strengths and Weaknesses
My strengths are in my ability to identify problem areas and see what people need to do to improve. I can cut through the confusion and focus in on what the major obstacle is to a person’s path forward. I can bring it up with the person in a careful and respectful manner, but my weakness is that I am often impatient with the person to accept what I have to say. I need to learn to slow down and keep my expectations from getting too high. Not everyone is going to be convinced right away that what I have to say is the truth, so I need to take my time and continue to come back to the point and use logic and reason—never emotion—to explain why the problem really is a problem. At the same time, I need to develop a deeper sense of empathy and sympathy so that I can build up my emotional and social intelligence. Doing this will help to cut down on the amount of time I spend trying to convince the other person of the truth of what I am saying.
To develop my emotional and social intelligence, I am going to spend more time simply observing people, how they talk, how they react, and what their body language and emotions are signaling. By understanding body language, emotion, and psychology at a deeper level, I will be able to improve my own social and emotional intelligence skills and use these to promote a faster and more receptive acceptance of what I have to say to my followers.
Balancing Work and Family and What Scripture Says
Balancing work and family is important for a leader because a leader is not just someone who leads in the workplace. A leader is also a person who leads at home. One can easily end up putting the kids on the back burner or neglecting one’s spouse because one has a job to do at work. But this is unfair. 1 Timothy 3:5 states clearly, “For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?” This shows that God expects much from a leader in his own family and He does not want His leaders to neglect their own households. Thus a balance is needed.
To achieve this balance, I plan to make a schedule that allows me so much time for leadership in the workplace and gives me the rest of the time to be with family and take care of their needs. I plan to only focus on work during work hours and to set phone aside, computer aside, and all work-related tools aside when it is family time. No distractions are permitted to get in the way of family time, and that is why having a schedule is important. It allows me to make sure I am not making excuses and saying that this time it is okay. The schedule is fixed and posted and everyone knows it and my family can help to hold me accountable. Timothy is clear: “An overseer must manage his own household well and keep his children under control, with complete dignity” (1 Tim 3:4). If he cannot even do this, he has no business attempting to lead others. He must be a leader first and foremost of his own family.
My Role in a Global Society
Global society is diverse and consists of people from all different backgrounds and of all different ethnicities. As a leader in a global society, my role is to embrace diversity and inclusivity and to make sure that all followers are welcomed and respected. I cannot allow prejudice or bias to creep into my own perspective or to allow it to exist within the organizational culture. To ensure that everyone is accepted and respected, I must promote a culture of respect and tolerance and promote cultural competency among all my followers.
I must also set the tone and example of what it means to become culturally competent by learning about other cultures myself. The more culturally competent I can become, the more informed I will be about how individuals from other backgrounds, other nations, and other cultures view the world. I will be able to understand their beliefs, their values, their attitudes and the cultural dimensions that have shaped their outlooks. Using the Hofstede model of cultural dimensions at Hofstede Insights website is one way to achieve this in short order. I will recommend to my followers that they all visit the website and spend a week getting to know another culture and then do it again the next week, again and again until all the cultures of the world have been examined and understood. This will help build the right culture of acceptance and respect for diversity that is needed in a global society.
Prioritizing My List of Personal Action Steps
My list of personal action steps in light of my present understanding of God’s plan for my life consists of the following:
1. Continue to pray for guidance and enlightenment every day and night so that I can be the best version of myself that I can be.
2. Continue to lead followers by using servant leadership and transformational leadership styles.
3. Continue to develop my social and emotional intelligence skills by watching how people interact and by reading more literature on psychology, social psychology, and the humanities, which contain a great deal of insight on human nature in general.
4. Make sure my family is getting enough attention. I want feedback from my family to see whether they feel they are being ignored or slighted by me as I focus on leadership in the workplace. If they feel slighted, I need to adjust my schedule and make more time for them because they need to come first.
5. I need to make sure my workplace culture is one that is culturally sensitive and open to diversity. I need to recommend that my followers focus on developing their own cultural competence.
6. Continue to focus on crossing all my “t’s” and dotting all my “I’s” as a leader and God will continue to show me the way forward. It is through His grace that I am in a position to lead and to empower others. Thus, so long as I stay true to Him, He will stay true to me.
References
Armstrong, A. (2011). 4 key strategies help educators overcome resistance to change. Tolls for Schools, 14(2), 1-8.
Barbuto Jr, J. E. (2005). Motivation and transactional, charismatic, and transformational leadership: A test of antecedents. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 11(4), 26-40.
Holmes, A. (2007). Ethics: Approaching moral decisions. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks: CA: Sage Publications.
Parris, D. & Peachey, J. (2013). A Systematic Literature Review of Servant Leadership Theory in Organizational Contexts. Journal of Business Ethics, 113(3), 377-393.