Developmental theories applied to leader development

Leadership development has been extensively investigated in the literature, the researchers succeeded in building a theoretical body of knowledge with evidence-based applications in the workplace (Ramachandran et al., 2011). On my way of searching the self-development theories, I realized the difference between the leader development and leadership development concepts. When an organization devotes its efforts to develop leaders’ capacity, it results in developing the organizational capacity as a whole. But the concept of leader development refers to the individual self-development, like skills, knowledge and capabilities required to perform the specified formal activities. It usually takes the form of job rotation off-site workshops and training (Reichard & Johnson, 2011).

This report provides a self-reflection that involves leader self-development plan required to achieve my career goals. I worked as a customer service agent and escalated to become a manager. The career reflection of the intentional change model developed by Boyatzis will support me in developing the leader core skills required to achieve my long-term goals. The following section provides a critical analysis of the career development theories, the leadership theories and the change model and self-reflection of the five discoveries with examples.

Going through the literature, I have considered many theories that could be applied to leader development, but the constructive-developmental theory by McCauley et al. (2006), as cited in Day et al., (2014), represented a mixture of different theories of adult development. I realized that self-awareness is getting more complex by the time and they span around two major features of the development. The first feature is orders of development or psychosocial development that enables the individual to understand himself and the external environment. These orders develop from the simpler methods of sense-making to more complex. The second feature refers to the process of development from the one order to higher order due to environmental changes that require a more complex sense-making skills. The constructive-developmental theory mentioned 6 distinct human development stages, according to the human relation to the social environment

Referring to the intentional change model, it was found that personality change could lead to significant benefits. Dispositioning the personality was found to be useful to individuals who felt happy and enjoyed physical and psychological health. I could understand that facilitating the intentional change is well beneficial and it has to be associated with the proper context. In addition, coaching was commonly found to be associated with the intentional change theory; there is a certain sequence of discoveries that should be followed to attain the benefits of the intended change. These discoveries start with discovering the ideal self-discovery that includes the individual passion and core values. These factors are used in formulating the personal vision statement.

Contemporary leadership challenges and its future development

Then the second discovery is discovering the real self and mapping how they coincide or differentiate by determining the skills gap that represents the weaknesses. Synchronizing the real-self and the ideal-self are the strengths (Boyatzis, 2011).

Then, the third discovery is to prepare a self-development plan towards the ideal self by changing the current behavior towards the ideal self. Then, the fourth discovery is to develop the neural pathways to help in change implementation and finally, to engage in relationships that ensures trust and supports achieving the ideal self (Boyatzis et al., 2013).

Also, I realized that a body of knowledge is contributed to enhancing emotional intelligence. It considers the individual attitude towards the change that has a significant impact on the intentional change results. If the individual lacks the desire to change, it is impossible to happen. Although, the motivational factors have proved significant impact on the intentional change, especially the intrinsic factors of motivation that represent major consideration in change. On the other side, the extrinsic motivation factors have been proofed to have a significant impact on the changing goals, but it should be carefully managed in order not to lead the individual to feel that he is forced to change (Martin, Oades, & Caputi, 2014). Hence, the 5 stages of self-discovery process represent the framework for the leadership development experience (Slavich & Zimbardo, 2012).

Investigating the contemporary leadership challenges and its future development revealed important points due to the arguments of different theorists. For example; Day (2011), as cited in McCleskey (2014), argued that some leaders developed over time, by engaging in leadership development programs. Although, modern leadership requires new approaches to develop leadership expertise. The situational, transactional and transformational are described according to Odumeru & Ogbonna, (2013)

• Situational leadership

The advocates of the situational leadership theory tend to match the leader to the situation or the leader orientation to the followers in order to fit with the follower maturity level. The situational leadership theory argues that effective leadership should be accompanied with a rational understanding of the situation and an equivalent feedback.

• Transformational leadership

The transformational leader influences the followers towards the importance of organizational goals. He uses the employees’ self-interest to achieve the desired goals through the evaluation of the followers’ level of needs according to Maslow’ pyramid of needs. By using the interpersonal communication, the transformational leader persuades the followers to do the required tasks.

• Transactional leadership

The transactional leadership uses the exchange process between the leader and followers to fulfill the organizational goals. The reward given to the employee is functionally related to their achievement of the required performance level they agreed on and committed to deliver. The exchange process enables the leaders to fulfill their desired goals, accomplish the assigned tasks, motivate the followers and direct their behaviors towards achieving the desired goals.

Personal Development Planning

Personal development planning is a tool for achieving my long-term career goals and defining the best ways of achieving them. That is why I plan for the next five-year career development.

My ideal self-development requires fully possessing the leader self-development characteristics of the five categories of individual characteristics, represented in becoming an achievement striving (energy and internal locus of control, need for achievement), career growth (feedback seeking and career experience), mastery orientation (learning goal orientation, intellectual maturity conscientiousness, self-efficacy and openness to experience), and work orientation (job motivation, organizational commitment and job involvement).

Therefore, in order to develop my leadership skills, I have to use my interpersonal competencies. I am highly self-motivated to develop my leadership skills, also my organization motivates me among the other leaders through training and performance management. I cannot pretend to fully have the leader self-development characteristics of the five categories of individual characteristics.  I can classify myself to have certain characteristics, represented in need for achievement, career motivation and organizational commitment. Although, I lack the mastery orientation characteristics, including openness to experience, self-efficacy, meta-cognition, openness to experience and intellectual maturity. Also, I lack the career growth characteristics, including seeking feedback and career experience (Reichard & Johnson, 2011).

I can achieve and continuously measure my real skills depending on the multiple resources of feedback, including the 360-degree, psychological tests, behavioral feedback that help in providing real feedback on various values, traits and motives. According to Kemp (2015) and Halton (2017), this process is complex for measuring the leader real skills. It requires a high level of self-awareness. The highest emotionally intelligent leaders tend to seek both positive and negative feedback to know their real self. That is why I follow them and manage to be open to criticism to benefit from the effective feedback.  

• Personal SWOT analysis

I will use the SWOT analysis to analyze my leadership skills by uncovering my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. According to Mind Tools Ltd. (2014), knowing my strengths enables me to concentrate my efforts on my best skills. Also, knowing my weaknesses allows me to avoid making certain actions and act on developing them. Both of my strengths and opportunities help in identifying my long-term career goals. Although, my weaknesses and threats need to be managed in order not create obstacles in achieving my career goals. In conducting the following SWOT analysis, I used on my self-judgment and considered the opinions of my friends and colleagues that helped me to decide where they think I excel.

• Strengths:Planning, monitoring, information management, reviewing, thinking strategically, presenting information, problem-solving, evaluating, consulting and promoting technology in management.
• Weaknesses:Effective communication, decision-making, leadership, quantitative analysis, delegating, reporting, motivating subordinates and supporting others.
• Opportunities:Developing and implementing the organizational vision that integrates goals, values and priorities. Also, to strive to improve the customer service by creating and encouraging a creative and collaborative culture.
• Threat:Work life balance.

Setting my clearly defined goals are very important to guide me through the next steps of self-development. These goals have to be measurable according to Cornelius (2012) to be able to position my progress in leadership progress. I set my goals, as follows and for the complete goal setting activities, please view appendix (1).

Goal 1: Depth of leadership knowledge in the customer service management.

To be achieved by identifying the key issues affecting the customer, problems, complaints handling and their level of satisfaction.

Goal 2: Broaden my leadership skills.

To be achieved by exercising leadership and motivating the followers to incorporate their vision in the process of strategic customer service planning, considering the elements of service quality management within the department activities; by motivating creative thinking and innovation and influencing the followers towards the spirit of service by using motivational techniques.

Goal 3: Improve my core business skills.

To be achieved by becoming open to environmental change and new information, following the adaptive behavior to timely respond to the customer needs, managing new conditions and unexpected obstacles and reacting rapidly to new situations and offering a timely resolution.

Goal 4: Improve decision-making skills.

To be achieved by effective management under pressure, using modeling techniques in data analysis to achieve the best decisions and maintaining focus and remaining persistent under different conditions.

• Defining my career objectives

Depending on the SWOT analysis, I will use my strengths and opportunities to create my mission statement to set my short, medium and long-term aspiration.

• Career mission statement

According to Mind Tools Ltd. (2014) and Dyck (2017), I should consider certain factors in defining my mission statement to ensure it covers my objectives and goals. I have to decide what I intend to achieve, their importance, the values at the core of my decisions, their significant contribution to self-development, their impact on my emotional feelings and how I would like others to perceive me.

Accordingly, my career mission statement is “To become a high caliber customer service line manager through developing leadership, communication, decision making and core skills within five years”.

• My short-run goals (12 months) are:
• Accomplish management training courses.
• Gain the accountability of the customers.
• My medium-run goals (2-3 years) are:
• Take the responsibility of leading a challenging project.
• Involve in managing cross-functional projects that result in significant outcomes and enhance my business exposure.
• My long-run goal (5 years) is:

Build the core capabilities of the line manager.

Changing my behavior or gaining new skills requires considering my current advantages and opportunities. Practicing my current skills needs an enabling culture to apply my strengths and seek the opportunities. Also, most of learning and development comes from on-the-job learning rather than formal training. According to Cornelius (2012), the 70-20-10 development plan assumes the following:

• 70% On-the-job learning
• On the job learning, involves role conversation by discussing with the colleagues the connections between my required activities and my current skills to be able to catch the learning opportunities in my daily activities.
• Stretch opportunities, by getting involved in multi-task projects and work committees.
• 20% Learning through relationships
• I can develop my leadership skills by learning from my line managers and the feedback from my colleagues.
• Joining networking groups and learning circles within my same managerial career in customer service to exchange ideas and practices.
• 10% Learning through formal training and education

The formal learning and training will add to my leadership skills and allow me to apply what I have learned in my daily life. This could be done by joining workshops, online learning, regular reading and attending conferences.

Utilizing emotional intelligence (EI) in service management is highly important. According to Mayer and Salovey (1997), as cited in Ramachandran et al. (2011), the EI involves four interconnected abilities, represented in perceiving emotions, using them to understand emotions, thinking through emotions, regulate my emotions and others’ emotions as well. Serrat (2017) and Sadri (2012), argue that the EI model five domains cover the personal and social competencies. The personal competencies, involve self-awareness, self-regulation and self-motivation and social competences, involve social awareness and social skills.

Being a manager, I need to apply my emotional intelligence skills in decision-making. For example, when making decisions, I often face complex problems that cannot be easily and timely solved, also, they might leave a negative impact when they are solved due to the delay in providing the solution. Being a high achiever, I am seeking to take emotionally intelligent decisions that suppress my own desires and interests for co-creating value. According to Hess & Bacigalupo (2011) and Batool (2013), emotionally intelligent decision makers accept the consequences of authority delegation and the outcomes of shared decision-making. Although, this is the ideal case, I still lack the delegation skills that are capable of motivating the followers and empowering them. I hope to be able to develop such an important skill during the next 6 months.

In addition, my developing interpersonal skills are highly important to effectively consider and timely respond to people’s needs in different situations. According to the Division of Personnel Department of Administrative Services, State of New Hampshire (2008), interpersonal skills are tactful, sensitive and compassionate that show respect to others. My oral communication skills, including information presented to people require effective listening and clear delivery of information, ideas exchange and managing open communication.

On my way of fulfilling my high-strength needs, the interpersonal relations and supervision represent the hygiene factors of satisfying my social needs. Also, the increased responsibility, career growth and challenging work represent the motives to my self-esteem and self-actualization levels. According to Dobre (2013), the high achievers are commonly interested in motivators and to measure their performed tasks in order to correct any deviation in their performance and develop their weaknesses. Considering myself a high achiever, I usually search for ways to increase my job satisfaction level, which will be achieved through a high customer satisfaction level and employees’ job satisfaction as well. Being a young manager, I am still paving my way to achieve my long-term goal of becoming a line manager. By the time, I notice that my tasks are becoming more complex and interrelated with other departments’ activities.

I have to ensure a well-communicated innovative strategy that fits the organization strategy, motivate the followers to create new innovative ideas in response to customer needs and the market conditions. I have to ensure that tangible and intangible resources are available to help in implementing new ideas.  Also, to have the skills of evaluating business cases, complains and possible solutions. Motivate the followers by rewarding them according to their performance level and ensure that originators of new ideas are recognized according to their performance.

Boyatzis (2008), as cited in Kemp (2015) and Halton (2017), declared that the behavioral change requires effort and desire at the heart of the individual leader development. Becoming an effective leader requires building leadership skills, motivation skills and continuous learning attitude. For example, in handling my daily career activities, I recognized that both the company and the customer are partners in the value creation process or it could be stated as “the customer is a co-creator of value” (Gronroos, 2011; Rosenbaum & Massiah, 2011). This implies that I am as a leader co-responsible for achieving the organizational goals that require at the first step fulfilling my individual career goals and maintaining the customer satisfaction as well. In addition, I have to manage and monitor my productivity and the followers’ productivity, the customer engagement, service quality and safety (Academy for Career Enrichment, 2016; Blazevic, et al., 2013). My personal development plan is described in details in appendix (2).

Conclusions

The career reflection of the intentional change model developed by Boyatzis will support me in developing the leader core skills required to achieve my long-term goals. Referring to the intentional change model, I could understand that facilitating the intentional change is well beneficial and it has to be associated with the proper context. Also, synchronizing the real-self and the ideal-self-discoveries are the strengths.

Also, I realized that a body of knowledge is contributed to enhancing emotional intelligence. It considers the individual attitude towards the change that has a significant impact on the intentional change results.

Personal development planning is about achieving my long-run career goals and defining the best ways of achieving them. That is why I plan for the next five-year career development. I can classify myself to have certain characteristics, represented in need for achievement, career motivation and organizational commitment.

I can achieve and continuously measure my real skills depending on the multiple resources of feedback, including the 360-degree, psychological tests, behavioral feedback that help in providing real feedback on various values, traits and motives. My future career goals are represented in gaining greater depth of leadership knowledge in the customer service management, broaden my leadership skills, to improve my core business skills and to improve decision-making skills.

My oral communication skills, including information presented to people require effective listening and clear delivery of information, ideas exchange and managing open communication. Becoming an effective leader requires building leadership skills, motivation skills and continuous learning attitude. This implies that I am co-responsible for achieving the organizational goals that require at the first step fulfilling my individual career goals and maintaining the customer satisfaction as well.

References

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