Reference no: EM132320446

Personal Leadership Development Portfolio Assignment -

Overview of Project - At the end of the course, you will submit a two-part paper in which you will

(1) Reflect upon what you have learned about leadership and

(2) Present an action plan to increase your leadership effectiveness.

This paper should draw upon what you have learned from your leadership project, your assignments, and the course in general. You will want to review your weekly journal entries as preparation for writing your final reflection, as these will often be reflections upon your personal leadership strengths and challenges. In Module 6, you will turn in a draft of your paper in order to receive feedback from your instructor. It is strongly suggested that you incorporate this feedback into the final version, which is due in Module 7.

Part 1: Reflection (2,000 to 2,500 words) - The first part of your paper focuses on what you learned about leadership through your leadership project and the course in general. In it, you should select the two or three most important things you personally learned about leadership and especially, your personal leadership strengths and challenges. In this portion of the paper, you are expected to incorporate both your understanding of course material (class discussions/activities, assigned readings/activities/videos, etc.) as well as your personal experience, just like you did in your journal entries. Although you are expected to refer to course readings and concepts, your reflection paper should read more like a personal essay, not a research paper. Feel free to draw from journal entries, self-assessments, and discussion board posts as appropriate.

Your grade on this portion of the paper will be determined by the depth of your reflection on leadership. More specifically, you will be graded on the extent to which your paper does the following:

• Demonstrates an understanding of course content
• Provides an application of course content to personal experience using examples from your leadership project and explicit links to personal experience
• Demonstrates critical thinking and synthesis
• Demonstrates a growth in thinking over the duration of the course
• Contains reflection that is insightful, personal, and perceptive
• Contains grammatically correct sentences without any spelling errors
• Contains writing that is clear, concise, coherent, and easy to understand
• Stays within the word limits

Part 2: Action Plan (750 to 1,250 words) - In the second part of your paper, you will create a personal leadership development action plan. First, articulate a personal leadership vision using the same strategies and characteristics you used to create a vision for your leadership project. What does "being a leader" mean to you? You will select one or two SMART goals that will impact you personally and professionally and move you closer to achieving your personal leadership vision.

Goals, in this context, are leadership skills that you want to develop (e.g., give feedback effectively, network strategically, develop flexible leadership style, overcome dysfunctional mental model, etc.). Be sure to select outcome goals, just like you did for your leadership project. Your paper should explain why these particular goals are important to and challenging for you personally and professionally (some of this can also be in the first part of your paper). It should also state what personal strengths you can leverage to address areas in need of development. Your plan should determine specific action steps (including specific situations/dates in which to act) that you need to take in order to achieve your SMART goal(s). It should anticipate challenges and include a contingency plan, as appropriate. A common mistake is to stay at too high a level of abstraction when specifying your action steps.

For example, don't write "Meet more people." Instead, write "(1) Sign up for monthly brown bag lunch and attend at least three in the next six months. (2) At each meeting, contribute at least one question or comment during the discussion. (3) At each meeting, introduce myself to at least one person I don't know. (4) After each meeting, send a follow-up email to the new person/people I meet. (5) After each meeting, mail a thank-you to the lunch organizer and main speaker that includes at least one comment about the discussion content and how it links to work in my department. (6) After attending three meetings, suggest a brown bag lunch topic to my manager or ask if I can lead one in the spring."

Your grade on the leadership development action plan will be determined by the extent to which you make a convincing case that:

• Your vision is personally meaningful
• Your SMART goal(s) is likely to further your vision
• Achieving your SMART goal(s) is particularly important for you personally
• Your SMART goal(s) is indeed SMART
• Your action plan is customized to build upon your personal strengths and make your challenge areas irrelevant
• Your action plan is so customized, detailed, and realistic that it convinces the reader that you will implement it

In addition to meeting the above criteria, the plan should contain grammatically correct sentences without any spelling errors. The writing should be clear, concise, coherent, and easy to understand.