Leadership Development Plan Instructions
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Leadership Development Plan (LDP)
Goal:
a) To develop and enhance self-awareness
b) To help you formulate a plan for “leading” in a way that matches your goals and values.
c) To increase your ability to lead effectively.
Personal Leadership Definition (2 – 3 paragraphs, no more than 1 page):
Leadership can mean many things, from being a role model for others, taking initiative, acting with
integrity, and achieving formal positions of power (e.g., management). Please write a coup le
of paragraphs, minimum describing what leadership means to you. You can include formal
definitions of leadership, but I am most interested in how you define leadership. What criteria
would you use to determine whether someone was a leader or not? What criteria would you use to
decide if someone was an effective or excellent leader? No quoting of material. Please cite outside
sources, if used.
Your Leadership Aspirations (2-3 paragraphs, no more than 1 page):
In this section you describe your own leadership goals, hopes, plans, or dreams. How does leadership
play into your career, or as you move into the next stage with your MBA or Master’s degree? Don’t
put grand definitions of leadership here, unless you are personally striving to match that grand
definition (some of you will want to be a CEO, or inspirational leader, others will simply want to be a
good employee who takes initiative and speaks out when change is needed). When you complete
this section, think about yourself, not some ideal leader. If you achieved what you wanted to as a
leader in the next five years, how about someone describe you? Some students find it helpful to
write this section in the third person, as if someone were describing them. Feel free to be creative
in your approach.
Strengths and Vulnerabilities (about 2 pages):
Your table is not included in the page minimum. In other words, the table/matrix is in addition to what you
write about in this section.
Write down what you think are your two greatest strengths, and your TWO greatest weaknesses.
Why do you believe so? Can you think of examples where you demonstrated (or failed to
demonstrate) them? Next, contact three (3) people whom you respect and with whom you have
associated closely at some point recently. They can be supervisors, coworkers, friends,
spouses/significant others, or relatives (try to get a good mix). You will be interviewing these
individuals to elicit information about your personal strengths and weaknesses. I expect each
interview should last about 15 to 20 minutes, but this is not a strict guideline. Think of this as
valuable time to learn more about yourself! You may mention that you are interviewing them for a
class project. Explain that you are interested in obtaining information to help you make
developmental plans regarding your career. It is okay if the interviews are not face-to-face (e.g.
Skype/Facetime, Zoom, or phone is okay).
Interviews should focus on the following issues:
1. What do your interviewees see as your TWO greatest strengths? Why?
2. What do your interviewees see as your TWO greatest weaknesses? Why?
You are encouraged to take notes during the interview, but do not let your writing distract you
too much from the conversation and interaction. Under no circumstances should you argue with
your interviewees. You may only ask questions to clarify your understanding or to probe their
reasoning. Avoid raising your voice, be sure to smile, and use reassuring verbalizations. It can
be more awkward for them to discuss your weaknesses than it is for you!
When you are finished, generate a matrix summarizing your interviewees’ feedback to help identify
overlap in your interviewees’ assessments. A sample of what this matrix should look like is
provided on the next page.
Leadership Development Plan Instructions
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Sample Feedback Summary Matrix:
AREAS INTERVIEWEES
IDENTIFIED My Own
Thoughts
Supervisor Significant
Other/Partner
Friend
Strengths
• Strong
communication
skills
Write & speak
well, very clear
Strong writing
skills
Good job
keeping
me
informed
• Positive outlook on
life
Pleasant,
friendly
Nice/
Cooperative
Optimistic,
kind
• Superior
analytic ability
High quality
work
Superior work
quality
Weaknesses
• Perfectionist Overly critical
of self
Too much time
on details that
don’t add value
Picky,
sometimes
too detailed
• Take on too
much work
Little time left
for self
Never delegate
to others
Seem
overworked &
stressed
• Avoid conflict even
when needed/ too
nice
Let others walk
on you
Be more
direct in
disagreements
Insights about leadership and yourself (about 1 page):
In this section, discuss 2-3 key learnings about leadership (including about yourself as a leader) from
activities associated with this class (readings, group feedback, personal discussions, etc.). For
some of you there will be a longer list of learnings and insights and for others there will be fewer.
If you learned many things about leadership you can make a list, but be sure to fully expand on 2-
3 issues that were the most meaningful to you. Feel free to reflect on course readings or your own
outside sources or course book.
You might find yourself feeling this section is redundant with the prior section, but it should not be,
though it may build on it. For example, one of the things you may have listed as a strength is that
you are a good listener. You might have reported this as a strength in the preceding section. But,
it would show up in this section ONLY if it was an important new learning for you. If you already
knew you were a good listener, it would show up in the preceding section as a strength but it
would NOT show up here. Issues that show up in this section are the things that you learned.
That means you will be talking about things you did not know before this class or things that you
now understand in greater depth, or in a new way. What I am looking for here are the pieces of
knowledge or insight that you gained about yourself, or leadership in general, or what employers
want in employees who will be leaders – as a result of this class.
Self-Improvement Plan (about 1 page)
Analyze your current status as a leader. You have defined leadership in the first section and then
analyzed your own current capabilities in the strengths and vulnerabilities section. Considering
Leadership Development Plan Instructions
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these sections together, what can you do to improve? List your goals and objectives for improving
your leadership capabilities. What will you need to do in terms of experiences, learning, and
development? In this section, you should take the long view, addressing your development as a
leader over the next 1-3 years. If you are to become the leader you aspire to be (per the leadership
aspirations section), what will you need to do? BE SPECIFIC; BE REALISTIC. What will you do?
What obstacles are you likely to encounter? How will you monitor your progress to know if your
leadership capabilities have increased? How will you evaluate the effectiveness (success) of your
development activities? There should be obvious links between your improvement plan and the
earlier sections of your LDP.
Personal Values Proposition, as a leader (100 words or fewer):
It may seem that this statement is about you, but as you develop it you should be thinking about your
future employer and the leadership role that you want in their organization. The goal is to
communication what you bring to an organization, as a LEADER (with leadership described per
your individual aspirations). If somebody said to you, I am going to make a decision whom to
hire based on your personal value proposition and you have only 100 words to convince me to
hire you, this statement would be your response. I should see evidence of self-awareness in this
statement. If you seem to be talking about someone very different than the person described in
this document, then you need to go back to the drawing board. This is a summary of who you are,
and what you bring to an organization that is looking for leaders. You should be seeking to
differentiate yourself from other candidates.
LDP Length Requirements:
Your plan should be a minimum of SEVEN (7) pages (single-spaced, with 1” margins and using a 12-
point font). I t can be m or e pages. W hat w i l l be eva luat ed is your subst ant ive
descr ipt ion, d iscuss ion, and ana lys is of your per sona l LDP. You need to balance the
need to be thorough in covering the central points while also communicating the information as
concisely as possible. Writing Matters. I would guess than an effective 100 word value proposition
will be revised as many as 10 times, so that the end result is a clear statement of what you have to
offer as a leader.
Leadership Development Plan Instructions
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Evaluation:
The following form indicates more precisely how I intend to evaluate your LDP.
Criterion Points
Clarity, Organization & Professionalism (25% possible)
Clear writing style, logical flow of writing, use of headings & subheadings
where appropriate, clear transitions between sections of paper, title page &
table of contents, numbered pages.
Thoroughness (25% possible)
Complete coverage of all required elements and thoroughness with which
elements are covered.
Quality (50% possible)
Care & critical thought put into the plan – (a)depth of insight, (b)creativity in
plan to match individual student circumstances, (c) clear statement of learning,
(d) development of realistic improvement plan, and (e) a clear, concise and
informative value proposition that follows from the information in the plan. Do
the various elements of the plan work together to present a coherent narrative
about your goals
and aspirations, where you stand today, and what is needed to bring you closer
to your
goals and aspirations? Does the values proposition follow from the rest of the
plan?
(up to 25)
(up to 25)
(up to 50)
TOTAL POINTS:
