Personal Leadership (Term Paper Sample)

My Personal
Leadership Action Plan and Report
Student Name
Professor’s name
Date
Executive Summary:
Blake & Mouton (1985) say that Personal Leadership Action Plans have several factors that are involved in them. To start with, one needs to decide where to start as well as all the different aspects involved with the current location, position, and the associated responsibilities. After understanding and recording these factors, it is important to have a study of plans. Having these future plans written down allows one the opportunity to have comparative studies of both a negative and positive nature. These lists of negative and positive results can then be used in determining future direction and developing the action plan and implementing it to get you where you are aiming. After developing and implementing the plan, a system for monitoring performance and progress to ensure completion and success of the plan.
Pre-Planning:
My decision of going back to school for my Masters Degree would be an example of this activity. I am lucky enough to be working for an employer who reimburses the costs that are associated with tuition, supplies, books, and fees related to a degree in a field of study that applies to my current assignment at work. While this is a positive motivation by itself, there are several factors that must first be considered.
Learning ability
Time available to attend classes and complete coursework.
Family obligations
Travel percentage and availability of computer use
Costs associated with class work
Work schedule changes
Lacking to consider any of these factors can lead me to fail to reach the goal, which is obtaining my Masters Degree with a GPA that is acceptable.
Based on this process I was able to analyze comparatively and determine that the time was right to pursue a degree program in case it was based totally online. Having residence program was completely out of the question basing on my travel and time constraints. At this point in the process, I started searching for a program that would be able to meet all of my requirements.

My Leadership Development Plan:
As Quinn & Spreitzer (2006) puts it, personal growth perhaps is the most important aspect of my leadership development plan, at my age the opportunities available for my professional growth within my present manufacturing organization is to some extent limited. Unless I can be able to locate another organization that is in need of broad experience within the manufacturing community, I am to a certain degree limited to my current responsibility. Even though getting a Masters Degree will never hurt my professional prospects, it is the growth in self-realization that will enable me to contribute more to the process of continued growth and positive change of the industry; either as a leader in an organization, as a consultant to existing or new organizations or a teacher of future leaders.

Training, Education & Experience
Training to achieve continued growth needs inclusion of any external seminars that relate to both formal professional and also personal aspects that lead to a complete understanding of Learning Organizations and the impact they may have on professional growth in the manufacturing community. To add on that, continued growth within specific disciplines that deal with Quality and Lean Manufacturing would enhance my career opportunities within and outside the resident organization.
Education will be in the form of certified class work for both internal and external and completing of my Masters Degree which will perhaps continue into a Doctorate level at some point (Hopefully would lead to a teaching position when my legs give out).
My working experiences should continue in the same way. Currently, I have exposure to and interface with all levels and aspects of the organization. I am currently responsible for several different plants that are all involved in manufacturing diverse products in different locations all around the world. I work in close relationship with Vice Presidents, Directors, Plant Managers, peers, Business Unit Managers, the Shop Floor Workforce, and supervisors. The part that is the most beneficial of this current situation is that I get the chance to learn from each and every one of them each and every day.
Skills:
As I continually get exposed to the many aspects of manufacturing as well as formal training and education, I keep finding that my skill set keep growing. The main purpose for this is my tendency to learn from mistakes that I keep making. While some times I am capable of doing continued or repetitive mistakes, I always do my best and try to keep the re-occurrences to be as minimum as possible. An example of this occurred to me when I was a young boy. My father used to always tell me to look keenly within the worst things that happen and take away something good good that I can learn from it. One day when I was in a horse pasture poking around in a pile of horse manure with a stick, my father saw what I was doing but still asked me what I was doing there. I told him that I was looking for a pony. This skill from childhood days has developed over the years and now it is mixed with experience and I know there are no ponies found in the manure, nonetheless, I am also aware that you can grow good corn with the manure and feed it to ponies.
Monitoring Success and Failure:
Obama (2006) says that success is based on the ability to complete a task or goal with a positive outcome. As my intebtions are to earn my Masters Degree with a GPA that is high, it’s the actual act of earning of the degree that matters the most to me and will determine the success I get. At times, ego and pride, can interfere with the ability to complete a specific task. If a grade that is lower is awarded, it should in fact serve to motivate me to putting in greater effort rather than it causing me to drop out and give up. Mostly in the past taking my career was based on the available opportunities and not a plan, I can now confidently say that I have made many choices during the last several years basing on a solid plan that considered of all the various variables and aspects that had been placed before me. This has enabled me to be able to grow both as a person and as a professional.
Microsoft Proje...