Answer

Through this course reading, I have learned that leadership is the art and science of motivating people to achieve a common objective or goal. The term could also describe having social influence that optimizes and brings together efforts of other people with the intention of achieving set goals. I think and believe that leaders should set direction, share a vision, and motivate their followers into creating something new and innovative that benefits the organization or the society. I further understand the need for leaders to possess certain characteristics such as strong communication skills, innovative thinking, management skills, motivational skills, interpersonal skills, self-discipline, and self-confidence (Yang, Shuwen & Haider, 2019). As evidenced in the leadership test results, I am a leader who focuses on the tasks that need to be prioritized and accomplished. I value meeting deadlines, giving instructions, handling emergencies, adhering to instructions, giving directions, developing challenging goals, using proficiency to gain legitimacy, and enjoy being seen in charge. Additionally, I prefer being effective in whatever activity I undertake. These personal goals and values shape my personal aspirations about leadership. It is upon this line of thinking about leadership that I seek to formulate my professional development plan.

Defining my Leadership

The leadership tests, as performed using FIRO-B, MBTI-II, and Skillscope define my leadership. FIRO-B model has made me believe that leadership should focus on inclusion, expressed control, and wanted control. Apart from these attributes, leaders should show and express inclusion. By embracing these characteristics, leaders are able to practice the art of motivating followers to achieve common goals. Apart from defining leadership, I have learned an important lesson on leadership that matters to me—the lesson of being in control. This lesson matters because leaders are often held responsible for the actions of their followers. They take credit for the good or the bad committed by their followers. For instance, when a follower makes a mistake, the leader is often blamed for the failure of a project. On the other hand, when the team performs well, the leader is praised for the good performance. Therefore, a leader needs to take control of the followers and ensure they are accountable towards the realization of the bigger goal. This lesson shapes my aspiration on leadership, going forward. Given that my highest expressed need is to control, I would aspire to learn more on control and sharpen my understanding of this element of leadership.

The MBTI-II self-assessment tool has further enabled me to understand leadership. The MBTI-II model showed that I have slight extraversion, moderate sensing, slight feelings and moderate perception. These personal attributes are desirable considering my line of work as an interior designer. Being an artistic field, I thrive by being a leader who takes initiative, being expressive, gregarious, active and enthusiastic. The work teams too tend to be extroverted, thus I have developed the elements of sensing, feeling and perception over intuition, thinking and judging. These skills matter as they increase my capability to dispense leadership duties in my area of specialization.

Personal Developmental Needs

The FIRO-B results have helped me identify 6 individual needs. Three of these needs will entail building on my strengths while the other three will involve working on improving my weaknesses. Three of these strengths are; average wanted inclusion, medium expressed control, and average wanted control. I will have to improve these individual needs to become a better leader who has more control over the followers and situations in the workplace. On the other hand, I will have to work on strengthening three weaknesses—expressed inclusion, expressed affection, and wanted affection. All these elements represent the developmental needs that I need to work on to become a better leader.

The skilscope model acknowledges that I have strengths such as being an active seeker of information, negotiating with others, maintaining fair, and promoting open interactions that are not exploitative. I also relate well with all staff, peers, and people outside my workplace, I take ideas from others seriously, I am articulate and willingly admit when I lack skills and knowledge in a given area. I will need to learn and practice more to improve my strengths. On the other hand, my weaknesses include being bad at managing conflicts, ineffective change manager, not accustomed to managing large and long term projects, intolerant to idiosyncrasies, I am over optimistic, I lack the ability to define problems effectively, I could be irrational at times, and I tend to press for immediate results. These weaknesses are my derailers. Therefore, I will need to network with successful people in interior design and project management to learn new skills.

Proposed Solutions and Strategies

I need mentoring and coaching to capitalize on my strengths. I believe that having a mentor who is an accomplished leader will help me nurture the right amount of skills to enable me have a reasonable balance of the six individual needs. For instance, the mentor will help me improve my score in expressed inclusion, wanted affection, and expressed affection. Mentoring refers to the relationship developed between two individuals with the aim of developing one’s capabilities. Usually, it entails pairing a junior colleague, also known as a mentee, with a senior colleague so that the former learns from the latter. The mentor will guide me into having better scores of wanted inclusion, wanted control, and expressed control. Having a coach is an equally effective approach to developing my weaknesses and reinforcing my strengths. Coaching is a delivery method where a coach provides one-on-one instructions and guidance to learners to help them improve their performance in certain areas (Mooney, 2017). This method is best used to eradicate performance deficiencies. It could also be used as a motivational tool for those already performing well or need some improvement in certain areas.

Coaching and mentoring will help elevate my strengths and improve my weaknesses. However, I understand that I will encounter derailers in the process. Some of the derailers include self-doubt and overconfidence in my abilities and capabilities. For instance, there is a possibility that I will believe in my strengths to the extent that I will not want to change what I already know. This overconfidence will make me adamant to improve my strengths. The other derailer could be self-doubt in my abilities to master and effectively practice the new skills. These two shortcomings can be managed by nurturing a new outlook regarding the coaching and mentoring sessions. Jenkins and Allen (2017) propose that the best way to manage these self-imposed limitations could be by adopting an open minded thinking and developing an appreciation for new skills and knowledge.

Evaluate Personal Solutions and Strategies

The weaknesses of overconfidence and self-doubt are common among upcoming leaders. Self-doubt often arises from the lack of experience in leading others. This weakness is highlighted when faced with new challenges. On the other hand, overconfidence emerges when a person has been through a similar experience many times, thus reinforcing their belief in their skills. Both overconfidence and self-doubt are major derailers to nurturing effective leadership that will improve my performance in the six individual needs. Specifically, I will have self-doubt in practicing expressed inclusion, wanted affection, and expressed affection. On the other hand, I will tend to be overconfident in wanted and expressed control and also, in wanted inclusion. These weaknesses will deter the realization of the desirable leadership goals. As noted in the previous section, I will need to nurture an open mindedness attitude. This strategy will be effective in reprogramming the mind to capture new concepts that will influence the development of a new leadership style that is whole rounded and suitable in meeting current and emerging organizational needs. Because of this, I think the strategy of being open minded about the coaching and mentoring sessions will be effective in helping me become a better leader.

                The strategy will impact my highest expressed need of control. The impact will be seen in the way I remain focused on tasks, manage conflicts, become rational, check validity of information, have the ability to meet deadlines, improve focus on structures, increase my ability to give clear instructions, handle emergencies, firmly stick to the decisions made, give directions, develop goals that are challenging, gain legitimacy through proficiency and task skill, and enjoy being in charge and being effective in leading others. Developing these skills will enable me capitalize on my strength of controlling others, negotiating adeptly, and maintaining good interpersonal relationships. Apart from working on my ability to control, I will need to improve the weakness of feeling least comfortable in taking action. I understand that currently, I am least confident using a leadership style requiring others to take action. I also have a shortcoming in showing appreciation to my subordinates. I need to nurture these skills in order to effectively motivate and make the followers feel appreciated.

Implementation / Plan of Action

A game plan is required to develop these areas and improve my ability to provide a holistic leadership. The three main areas I need to change to become an effective leader are— control, taking action, and showing affection to subordinates. Whereas I only need to improve on control, it is mandatory to nurture new skills to facilitate my ability to take action, show affection to my subordinates, and being rational. The game plan for developing as a leader include—defining the type of a leader one needs to become, aligning business needs with vision of the employees, highlighting leadership development skills and goals, and identifying effective methods of development (Mooney, 2017). The first activity involves outlining the skills required of a good leader. In my case, good leadership is not only about leading followers, but also being happy. This means nurturing interpersonal skills that will make me a happy leader who relates well with my followers. The second plan is to align the vision of the employees with that of the organization, and the leader. Sharing similar expectations and visions is important in dramatically improving the professional development exercise. This can be done by engaging employees in one-on-one meetings. The third activity encompasses developing a list of skills and goals to be achieved. This activity has been aided by the FIRO-B, MBTI-II and Skillscope assessment tools which outline the specific areas that I scored well and those that I have problems. Some of the skills I need to focus on include being affectionate, and practicing control. Other skills that I need to improve as exposed by the Skillscope is conflict management, change management, being comfortable managing large projects, and being overly optimistic. The last step is identifying methods for professional development. This could range from undertaking formal training, apprenticeship, coaching, mentoring, and enrichment programs. Mentoring and coaching are the most preferred methods for this professional development.

Evaluate Outcomes and Challenges

                I believe the outcome of the professional development program will be enlightening and educative. Through the program, I intend to first, internalize leadership skills in areas of control, become rational, initiative and lead change (action), and show affection to subordinates. Additional areas that I will improve include working on my ability to manage large projects as it is directly tied to my area of profession, which is interior design. I anticipate large projects after my studies and such skills will be helpful in efficient completion. By having these attributes of a leader, I look forward to being charismatic, and gaining more influence over my followers. With these new skills, I will be able to delegate duties, take action whenever necessary, and show affection to my followers. A proper balance and practice of these attributes will enhance my ability to motivate my followers and lead them into achieving the highest possible outcome. Pursuing this goal, however, will be hampered by personal and professional challenges. This includes having a busy schedule. The coaching and mentorship sessions are supposed to be done during off days or when I am not working. Unfortunately, the mentor and coach will be equally busy, thus making it hard to schedule the sessions. In addition, it will be challenging meeting up for prolonged time periods. This means the sessions will have to be scheduled to accommodate the busy schedules of the mentor and coach. Professionally, I will need practice to create a permanent effect associated with the new changes adopted especially in managing followers and large projects (Donnison & Readman, 2018). This requires me to constantly practice leadership to embed these new leadership skills.