Why you need a leadership plan if you are leading and managing a project

Leadership is practiced every day in professional life. Although scholars have not arrived at the universal consensus about what constitutes leadership, there are ongoing attempts to delineate several leadership models/types/theories. A leading writer on leadership, Northouse (2018), defines leadership as “a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common good”.

Every person in a senior management role has a tryst with her/his leadership style(s). “The challenge for today’s leaders is managing the turmoil of the present while creating a sustainable future and protecting – or in some cases re-establishing – the identity of their organizations” (Canwell & Isles 2012). To protect the identity of organizations, it is the leadership style(s) that reciprocates leaders’ actions in the business decision-making process, ability to manage time, people, and resources, and interpersonal skills that include communicating to individuals in return to gain their support for the realization of strategic and operational objectives/goals.

No matter where are we placed on the management ladder, we intentionally or unintentionally embrace our leadership style(s) that reflect our very own personality. While demonstrating leadership, leaders use their leadership toolbox to use different leadership styles.

As every individual is unique in terms of what she/he feels, experience, and perceive in the world around her/him, leaders need to embrace “global leadership competencies [that] encompass personality traits, knowledge, and skills, as well as behaviors” (Cumberland?et al 2016) in a socially constructed reality.

What leadership competencies a leader possesses and how these competencies a leader can demonstrate in the age of globalization decides the success. The competencies are ascribed from birth and also acquired by obtaining knowledge, professional and life experiences.

Knowing the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) type is a tool to understand what leadership competencies a leader possesses and how these competencies a leader can demonstrate in the age of globalization.?As this article is about drafting a well-thought-out leadership development plan, it is pertinent to situate the plan on some premises so that it will reflect the personality that you possess and own.

I use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) type to set the premises on which I discuss the plan. For example, let’s select ENTJ (extravert, intuitive, thinking, and judging) type as your personality as per MBTI. It is generally said that ENTJ type personality is associated with:

“Frank, decisive, assume leadership readily. Quickly see illogical and inefficient procedures and policies, develop and implement comprehensive systems to solve organizational problems. Enjoy long-term planning and goal setting. Usually well informed, well-read, enjoy expanding their knowledge and passing it on to others. Forceful in presenting their ideas” (The Myers & Briggs Foundation 2020).

Alter (2017), in his article Your Leadership Development Plan is Your “Secret Sauce” argued that we have to consider certain duration (three, five, or ten years) when we want to bring the business/project on profitable terms by situating the leadership development plan in the chosen timeframe. This can help leaders to “drive excellence and sustained growth”, he added.

Your chosen timeframe in which you place your actionable leadership development plan can ideally be three years. In this period, you can seek to remove weaknesses based on your MBTI personality type. To do this, I have selected transformational and situational leadership models to help you remove weaknesses in your leadership. I apply the theoretical perspective of these models to attain Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound (SMART) goals based on values. Because values guide your leadership.

In this article, I will use the ENTJ personality type as a subjective self-reflection to develop the leadership development plan provided below as it gives a platform to place the personality attributes, traits, strengths and, weaknesses altogether.

There is a number of examples where business and political leaders have shown magnificent results by writing their leadership development plan at the beginning of their career. The plan invariably helps to measure the initiatives/steps/behavior required to achieve the milestones in the career.

The leadership development plan is, therefore, a recipe that contains time-bound SMART goals to be achieved using leadership models. Writing an actionable leadership development plan eases the journey to climb the leadership progression ladder. In this article, transformational and situational leadership styles have been chosen in the case of the leadership development plan to elaborate on the argument.

Writing a leadership development plan at the outset of a professional career not only familiarises one to decide the pathway one needs to choose, but it can shorten the progression required to reach the top level of management from the mid or bottom level.??

References

The Myers & Briggs Foundation 2020, The 16 MBTI??Types, viewed 18 April 2020, <https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/the-16-mbti-types.htm>.

Alter, S 2017, Your Leadership Development Plan is Your “Secret Sauce”, Journal of Property Management, vol.?82,?no. 1,?pp. 18-22.

Canwell, A & Isles, E 2012 ‘The leadership premium: How companies win the confidence of investors’, Deloitte Global Services Limited, viewed 20 April 2020,<https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/global/Documents/HumanCapital/dttl-hc-leadershippremium-8092013.pdf>.

Cumberland DM,?Herd, A,?Alagaraja,?M & Kerrick, SA 2016, ‘Assessment and Development of Global Leadership Competencies in the Workplace: A Review of Literature’,?Advances in Developing Human Resources, vol. 18, no. 3, pp. 301–317.

16personalities.com 2020, Commander Personality ENTJ-A / ENTJ-T, viewed 18 April 2020, <https://www.16personalities.com/entj-personality>.