Individual developmental plan paper

Essay by mallikavasuUniversity, Master'sA+, April 2004

download word file, 10 pages 3.7

Individual Development Plan

There are many tools and techniques available for developing a specific individual plan of action whether it is in your personal or professional life. In this paper I will examine my weaknesses and strengths based on the self-assessment tests and my personal experience and come up with a course of action to improve myself in specific areas.

Leadership Style and Effectiveness

Leadership comes in many forms, dependent on the leader's personality, the group situation, and the problem at hand. Each person has a leadership style that they feel comfortable with. The role of leadership in management is largely determined by the organizational culture of the company. It has been argued that managers' beliefs, values and assumptions are of critical importance to the overall style of leadership that they adopt. One way of looking at different styles of leadership is in terms of task orientations versus employee orientation.

Task Orientation or Directive Behaviour reflects how much a leader is concerned with the actual task at hand and ensuring that those following him complete it. Employee Orientation or Supportive Behaviour reflects how much a leader is concerned for the people around him, providing support and encouragement for them (Vecchico, 1998).

The leadership test "What's My Leadership Style?" is an instrument that measures the degree to which a person is task or people-oriented. My score for concern of people was 6 and for concern for task was 15. According to the instrument a high score for task-orientation is above 10 and low is below 10.

For people-orientation a high score is above 7 and a low score is below 7. From my results it is apparent that my leadership style is more task-oriented than people-oriented. The best leaders are ones that can balance their task-people orientation to various situations...