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Bessie Allen
Mgt. 6995
My Reflection and Development Plan Paper My overarching goal that is driving my individual development plan is as follows: To have a
positive and lasting impact on others through mentoring and leadership, while also successfully
running a small startup company.
Demonstrating leadership is the best lesson your employees can learn from as well as others
those in the community. I realize I have an obligation to grow in a way that I can leave a legacy
of knowledge of how those coming behind me should carry on as leading by example in the
community or running a business.
What makes a Leader?
Leadership is put into action to show others how to do something successfully. The Leader has a
vision and a plan and must inspire people around them to believe in and carry out a plan. I
realize to be an effective leader I must be aware of my strengths and weaknesses and construct a
way to improve them altogether.
I realize to operate as an effective leader I must be confidence and able to discipline myself
under pressure, as well control my emotions, so I can think clearly not from the emotions itself.
Because thinking clearly this will allow me to achieve my goals and produce winning situations,
especially in managing conflicts, for achieve the best results.
Standout 2.0 assessment
How my strengths as a creator and teacher, can help me become the leader I inspire to be. First, I
realize as a creator I can be a Leader who inspires others to be in action by demonstrating the
same, as well as building up others around me. I can become a good leader by creating value
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and new opportunities that causes growth, by respecting the ideas of other and putting together
what could work best for the company’s portfolio financially. Creating a positive environment is
important for my employees to be productive as well as for me in maintaining healthy work
relationships, to succeed as a unit.
Also creating a safe place for others to feel free to be creative and share their thoughts of how we
can do something better than before.
Not forgetting most importantly, one of my powerful points as a creator, “I am relentless. Though
at the outset I will not be rushed, as I think the problem and think about it, the patterns emerge,
these patterns create theories, the theories spark new insights and all of a sudden I am being
borne along by these pictures in my mind. I may take a while to get going, but once I am off and
running, I am most definitely, hard to stop.”
Leading as a teacher on the other hand, I think is even more vital because you want to empower
people around you whether in the community or my business. I realize as I empower other to
succeed I am empowered too, because as a community or group of willing people anything is
possible. I realize to be an effective leader, I will be able to find satisfaction not only in teaching
others but also in mentoring them—in showing others how they can become more than they ever
believed they could.
As a leader with teaching strength will allow me to invest in people to activate their
independence as well reap the reward this will bring them also personally. Even in the time of
uncertainty, I want to be discipline enough to continue to inspire a person’s best performance. 2 Bessie Allen
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And realize a great leader can also be a great teacher by understanding the difference between
management and leadership. Being what others need me to be most as a leader or mentor, a
listening ear, that respects who they are and their views.
As stated in Standout 2.0, “I start-by-listening, approach make others feel heard and safe. For me
it is the source of vital information about their learning styles, their personalities, their
understanding. I use this information to tailor what I am teaching so that it fits each person I
individualize.”
Emotional Intelligence
EI has truly caused me to be in touch of who I really am as a person, with the following
key components at play, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship management.
When it comes to self-awareness I realized my strength stronger in this area, because I
understand my emotions, this is a great quality in a leader because a leader needs to know
their own shortcomings and able to produce in their authentic self. I have always been one to
be very straight forward about what I can do and what I need to practice, I have always been
this way because I did not want to say I can do something and let someone down. Being
truthful with people from the start allows me to properly understand how to do a task and
how to become proficient at it. “Social awareness is something that is important for leaders to
have because they are to be able to read what other people are thinking.” Even if you are
employed in customer relations, you need to be able to hear what the customer is trying to
say, when working in retail this was very important because there were so many interactions
with employees and customers that I would be able to tell which ones were going well and
which ones needed to be intervened. By reading that a customer or employee was having 3 Bessie Allen
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problems I could step in and correct the issue before it escalated. By being able to read the
situation from a distance it allowed me to assist the employee and allow the customer to
leave with no unresolved issues.
Decision Making
As a leader, it’s good to know what decisions are best such as when it is appropriate to use
advocacy decision making versus inquiry.
“Productive advocacy helps to move the collective thinking of a group forward, to create shared
understanding and direction, and to turn words and ideas into coordinated action. It also helps
reveal and resolve potential flaws in reasoning, gaps in information and conflicts in goals.
Advocating productively requires awareness of yourself and others, skill in speaking and in
listening, sensitivity, respectfulness and humility.”
“Productive inquiry is an essential companion to productive advocacy. This kind of inquiry is
more than knowing what questions to ask and learning how to ask them skillfully. Productive
inquiry is a method of engagement, a way to be present with you and with others.”
My problem-solving style may be more of inquiry. When solving a problem, I prefer to look at
many different perspectives and think about many possible solutions; from there I do what is best
for not only the company but also the people. This not only applies to me while I’m at work but
it also applies to me in my everyday life because whatever I decided is the best solution not only
affects me but it affects others as well. As a leader, I cannot say for sure what the ideal problemsolving style is but I do believe that being an idealist is great for moral and gain respect from
your peers and employees. One way this is great when it comes to working with people is that it
shows that you care about what others say and that you are interested in their values and ideas.
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To me, a great leader is someone who can listen to others ideas and work with those ideas and
see if they can help the company and if they cannot then you go to the person and talk to them
about why their idea didn’t work. By acquiring others opinions, even if they will not work, you
are showing others that you respect them and what they have to say.
But operating this way will also cause some people to try to take advantage of you, since you
listen to others options and take them into consideration, others might try to abuse that and this
can cause problems. With being a good leader you should know when you need a solution that is
corrective rather than receptive. This is where I would like to improve on being more of a realist,
I believe if I work hard enough that I will be able to acquire a second problem solving style and
this style will assist me to deal with people who are only out for themselves.
The lesson I learned from the Nut Island Effect is the importance of communication between a
leader or manager produces effective production as well as time management in accomplishing
assignments.
“If I want to become a Strong, effective leader I must practice discipline, accountability, strategic
alignment, managing to his or her values and empowering employees. And realizing this is what
bring all things to function corporately in succeeding in building a company or simply
completing an assignment for the good of the company, remember communication is the most
important key to great leadership. Open communication will allow myself and my employees to
be able to develop a view of a situation from different perspectives.
The bottom line is clear communication is the ingredient to a business leader’s success.
And If I want to grow as a leader or mentor, I must learn how to be an effective, compelling
communicator. And if I am to run a successful company, my team and I must to master the art of
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clear communication together, as well. By using these and other strategies, me and my
employees can reach new levels of leadership excellence.
Crucial Conversations
I can truly learn a lot from the tools of Crucial Conversation when talking, we are living in a
real world and there always unexpected events that may occur. I realize there is much work I
have to do to improve my approach to crucial conversation as a leader, one thing for sure I have
to discipline myself in stepping out of a present conversation and listen to what’s really said
before I respond.
In a simpler discussion referencing a class grade, the other day I realize before I knew it I was
passionately disagreeing about a presentation my team presented in another class. I wasn’t as
present to the conversation as I thought I was, because I was already on the offense, when I
asked a question, and received the answer I knew I would receive. First of all, accepting my role
in the conversation would have been helpful and waiting for my immediate emotion to fade or
step away for a while then return to resume the conversation at a calmer manner. But in the end,
I did begin to listen and not argue and finally was able to make the point I wanted concerning the
grading for the presentation and ended with a successful resolution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as a leader and mentor to impact others as well as manage a startup company, I my
leadership skills to build moral through mentoring and respect. I believe that I can reach this goal
because as I reflect on myself I see that listening as well as respecting the viewpoints of others is
something worth being passionate about. From what I have learned in class there are many 6 Bessie Allen
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different types of leadership and for some there is no one good way to become a leader. I hope to
take this knowledge, the concepts of business ethics and practices as well as lessons learned from
this class, to apply them to help me to grow into an effective leader who priority is empowering
others. 7
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