Creating a Personal Leadership Development Plan- Aligning with the SPL Model for Maximizing Effectiveness

Creating a Personal Leadership Development Plan- Aligning with the SPL Model for Maximizing Effectiveness

Bureaucratic organizations face a lot of resistance to change in the established routines and operations due to their structure. A notable example is the cultural resistance and reluctance to adopt advanced AI systems in the management of health information and related records at the Arizona Department of Corrections. Overcoming such cultural resistance and reluctance requires leaders to adopt leadership theories that support their plans to engage in continuous learning, promote innovation, and develop solutions that lead to meaningful change within their organizations and the broader industry.

This paper discusses a leadership theory that supports such a plan, personal leadership strengths and weaknesses, how to capitalize on the strengths to modify the weaknesses, how to identify current gaps in leadership, and how to improve on such gaps in accordance with the SPL model. It also discusses actionable items to work on the gaps and provides a timeline for implementing the action items.

The Transformational Leadership Theory in Supporting Change Plan

The planned change focuses on overcoming the resistance to the adoption of new technologies and supporting continuous growth and development of leadership competencies. Overcoming such resistance requires a leader to address the various factors leading to the resistance to change. For instance, lack of motivation towards innovativeness, existing knowledge gaps among the staff, and the staff’s attitudes towards the expected change in routines.

The leadership theory that fits in with this plan is the transformational leadership theory. The transformational leadership theory aligns with the plan since the end goal is to inspire the correctional department to adopt new technologies in medical records and in the department’s operations.

The transformational leadership theory helps overcome resistance to change as it incorporates four factors essential for sustainable change, including idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration (Northouse, 2021). According to Robbins and Davidhizar (2020), followers are more interested in leaders who are able to lead in a positive and encouraging manner.

The transformational leader, in line with the transformational leadership theory, focuses on being a role model and communicating the desired change. It is, therefore possible for the leader to inspire their followers and effectively achieve the intended change goals. The Transformational leadership theory can also support the plan for change by encouraging and empowering creative and innovative thinking at an individual level toward solving challenges within the organization or adapting to new systems.

Leadership Strengths and Weaknesses

Leadership Strengths

Major leadership strengths identified include a deep passion for continuous learning and personal development, empathy, emotional intelligence, and self-confidence. The passion for continuous learning is driven by the desire to understand new ways to do things, overcome challenges, drive innovation, and continuously update competencies in medical records-related technologies.

Empathy and emotional intelligence as leadership strengths are driven by the ability, as a nurse leader, to understand personal emotions and feelings, have control over them, as well as the ability to recognize how others feel, and offer them emotional support. Additionally, self-confidence is driven by the belief in personal competencies as a nurse leader and understanding of medical records technologies.

Leadership Weaknesses

Three major leadership weaknesses include the avoidance of conflict, communicating less, and being too involved. Avoidance of conflict is driven by the inability of a leader to make decisions that are not acceptable to the majority, regardless of their merit, which may have a negative impact on others. Second, communicating less is a negative leadership trait as it reduces the effectiveness of communication, especially during the change process.

Thirdly, getting too involved means micromanaging the employees. Micromanaging is a leadership weakness. Always checking on the employees and scrutinizing delegated tasks kills their morale.

Capitalizing on Strengths to Modify Weaknesses

It is possible to leverage leadership strengths to modify existing leadership weaknesses and achieve effective personal and professional growth as a leader. For instance, emotional intelligence and self-confidence can help work on and improve on the weakness of conflict avoidance. Emotional intelligence and self-efficacy determine one’s perception of stress and coping styles (Jurado et al., 2019). The fear of conflicting with others in making decisions can influence decision-making and lead to stress.

Being self-confident and integrating aspects of emotional intelligence in decision-making can help a leader make the right decisions and efficiently manage any conflict and stress such decisions can lead to. Leveraging on the passion for continuous learning and personal development would also be valuable in continuously exploring ways to become a better leader and grow on the current leadership weaknesses.

Gaps between the Current Leader and the Future Leader

The future leader needs to make hard decisions that may not align with everyone’s interests. Also, future leaders must be able to influence those who are uncertain of new initiatives and routines and those who express opposition to changes. Future leaders are also expected to promote autonomy in the workplace. However, there are various gaps between the future leader and the current leader.

The current leader is unable to make such decisions due to avoidance of conflict. The current leader also communicates less hence, is ineffective as a leader. The current leader also fails to support autonomy due to micromanaging the followers.

Nonetheless, the gaps between the current leader and the future leader can resolved by leveraging the current leadership strengths. Rodríguez et al. (2021) argue that, although leadership is mostly viewed as a natural attribute, the necessary leadership skillset can be learned from training and through hands-on experience. This means developing a personal and leadership development plan can help close such gaps.

Resolving the gaps between the current leader and the future leader aligns with the SPL mode. Firstly, it is because the leader will have to become both a learner and an educator. And secondly, as it is presented by McCaslin (2023), the SPL model makes use of the leader’s knowledge, skills, and leadership competencies to develop new ideas, and solutions, and support development.

Actionable Items to Help Realistically Implement and Close Leadership Gaps

Promoting Collaboration Over Delegation

This action involves creating and becoming a part of collaborative teams rather than delegating tasks. This helps create an environment in which the leader can connect with the followers. This can reduce the urge to micromanage others and improve employee engagement.

Developing a Leadership Development Plan

A leadership development plan will include developing some of the leadership weaknesses in the current leadership and improving knowledge of transformational leadership. The plan involves enrolling in a short leadership course, preferably for three months in the evening, with a focus on developing skills in change management, becoming a transformative leader, and conflict resolution.

Working on Active Listening and Providing Timely Feedback

This action focuses on improving the effectiveness of communication as a leader. One way to achieve this is to improve the leader’s listening skills and provide team members and other followers with timely feedback. This action is achievable through enrolling in a mentorship program and daily experiences within the workplace.

Timeline for Implementing Action Items

Conclusion

Change within organizations, especially changes in routines, can face significant resistance. However, through the integration of transformational leadership theory, a leader can overcome such resistance and initiate and manage change effectively. The leader can also leverage their strengths to modify their existing weaknesses. Regardless of the gaps in the current leadership levels, engaging in continuous leadership development and learning and aligning development plans with the SPL model, it is possible to become a better transformational leader with the capacity to drive positive change even in the most change-resistant organizations.

References

Jurado, M. del M. M., Pérez-Fuentes, M. del C., Ruiz, N. F. O., Márquez, M. del M. S., & Linares, J. J. G. (2019). Self-efficacy and emotional intelligence as predictors of perceived stress in nursing professionals. Medicina, 55(6), 237. https://doi.org/10.3390/MEDICINA55060237

McCaslin, M. (2023, May 9). The scholar-practitioner-leader: An introduction: Understanding the Concept of SPL Model. University of Phoenix. https://www.phoenix.edu/research/resources/the-scholar-practitioner.html

Northouse, P. (2021). Leadership ethics. In Leadership: Theory & Practice (9th ed.). SAGE.

Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2020). Transformational leadership in health care today. Health Care Manager, 39(3), 117–121. https://doi.org/10.1097/HCM.0000000000000296

Rodríguez, D. C., Jessani, N. S., Zunt, J., Ardila-Gómez, S., Muwanguzi, P. A., Atanga, S. N., Sunguya, B., Farquhar, C., & Nasuuna, E. (2021). Experiential learning and mentorship in global health leadership programs: Capturing lessons from across the globe. Annals of Global Health, 87(1), 6. https://doi.org/10.5334/

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Developing leadership skills is a process of continual improvement. The SPL model provides a structure for personal growth. For this assessment, you will translate your course learning into a personal leadership development plan and explain how your plan aligns with the SPL model. Your plan should define a strategy for maximizing your leadership effectiveness.

Creating a Personal Leadership Development Plan- Aligning with the SPL Model for Maximizing Effectiveness

Write a 1,050- to 1,225-word (minimum) personal leadership plan that includes the following:

Identify the leadership theory or theories that support your plan. You must integrate theory with citations from the literature to illustrate why the theory you chose supports your plan. Write this section in a third-person perspective.
Analyze your leadership strengths and weaknesses and what you will do to capitalize on your strengths and modify your weaknesses. Support your analysis of strengths and weaknesses with your scores on the interactive assessments.
Identify gaps between the leader you are now and the leader you would like to become and how improving these gaps aligns with the SPL model.
Describe actionable items you will realistically implement to close gaps between the leader you are now and the leader you would like to become.
Provide a timeline for implementing action items.