In this Work Product Assessment, you will use information from the documents provided to demonstrate your ability to engage in personal and professional leadership planning.
Read “On Becoming a Critically Reflexive Practitioner.” Pay particular attention to pages 407–412 and pages 418–424. The author argues that critically reflexive practitioners have the ability to "engage their own learning" and surface tacit knowing—thus enabling them to build self-awareness, enhance critical thinking skills, and rethink their conceptualizations of the world.
Consider the differences between critically reflexive means of learning, and traditional objectivist means of learning. Consider the implications of critical reflexive practice and praxis on the education and development of leaders.
With this information in mind, respond to the following prompts and questions:
- Authentic Leadership Self-Assessment
- Identify, through critical self-reflection, two strengths and two weaknesses that you have as a leader (or follower), with respect to a focus on the topics of authentic leadership and personal mastery. Be sure to provide some organizational context for each strength and weakness and disguise all names and organizations. (Approximately 300 words)
- Explain how and why these leader or follower behaviors are indeed relative strengths and weaknesses, relative to documented leadership best practices and theoretical frameworks about the topics of authentic leadership and personal mastery. (Approximately 400 words)
Note: For Part A, you must draw upon your experiences as a leader and/or a follower and analyze them as they relate to the topics of authentic leadership and personal mastery to achieve a praxis-oriented response (integrating theory with practice).
- General Leadership Self-Assessment
- Identify, through critical self-reflection, at least two strengths and two weaknesses that you have as a leader (or follower), with respect to any documented best practices or theoretical frameworks about leadership and/or followership that you choose. Be sure to provide some organizational context for each strength and weakness. (Disguise all names and organizations.) (Approximately 300 words)
- Explain how and why these leader or follower behaviors are indeed relative strengths and weaknesses, relative to documented best leadership practices and theoretical frameworks about leadership and/or followership that you choose. (Approximately 400 words)
Note: For Part B, you must draw upon your experiences as a leader and/or a follower and analyze them through the lenses of the chosen leadership best practices and theoretical frameworks to achieve a praxis-oriented response (integrating theory with practice).
Self-awareness is an important part of any process of self-improvement. In Part I of this Assessment, you used critical self-reflection to identify specific leadership and/or followership-oriented strengths and weaknesses.
In Part II of this Assessment, you will continue a process of self-reflection and you will identify three leadership-oriented goals that relate to your personal core values and principles, and that also relate to the strengths and weaknesses you articulated in Part I.
Understanding the relationship of core values and principles to goals is important because, unless important leadership goals derive from your values and principles, you are unlikely to buy into them, and others will perceive your goals as inauthentic and not worth committing to help you achieve.
- Setting Leadership Goals
- Read “On Setting Leadership Goals.” Consider the relationships between values, principles and both S.M.A.R.T. and B.H.A.G. types of goals. Then, consider your leadership strengths and weaknesses and respond to the following prompts.
- Complete the “Dynamic Leadership Personal Values Survey.”
This questionnaire will help you to identify and rank your key values. Be sure to answer all questions honestly, so that you can obtain the most accurate results. After taking the survey and reflecting on your results, determine the three character traits for which you scored highest. Then, rephrase them as values that are relevant to you in your professional life. For instance, if one of your strongest character traits is “critical thinking,” your value statement might be: “I value thinking critically about situations in my life.” (Note: The survey is not to be submitted.) - Using the information completed in step one above, complete the “Leadership Goals Template” as follows:
- For each of your top three values that you identified in your “Dynamic Leadership Personal Values Survey,” identify three principles that emanate from each value (you will have a total of nine principles). For instance, if your value statement is “I value thinking critically about situations in my life,” your principle might be “It is important to fully understand a situation before making a decision.”
- Finally, determine three goals that align with the three most important values, and the single most important principle associated with a particular value, that you have identified. For example, if your principle is, “It is important to fully understand a situation before making a decision,” then your goal might be: “Evaluate career opportunities in my city.”
For one of the three goals, set a very hard-to-reach, stretch, or B.H.A.G. goal.
Note: The leadership strengths and weaknesses you identified in Part I of this Assessment can help you determine, for now, how “feasible” a goal is.
Well-thought-out plans are critical for success, both for yourself and your organization. As psychologist and author Dr. Fitzhugh Dodson said, “Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” (Dodson, n.d.).
In Parts I and II of this Assessment, you identified your leadership strengths and weaknesses and reflected on the important values and principles that have helped you develop leadership-oriented goals.
In this final part of this Assessment, you will take the three leader and/or follower goals that you have set for yourself and outline a general action plan that will help you achieve them.
- Complete all three parts of the “Leadership Goals and Action Plan Worksheet”:
- Part A: Values, Principles, and Goals
- Part B: Leadership Action Plan
- Part C: Reflection on Leadership Action Plan
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