Essay on Career Leadership Plan

There are many sound definitions of a leader; they are all different, some of them are right, others are wrong. I will give my own definition. The leader is a person who knows how to effectively build relationships with a group (team), with a specific person (individual) and with oneself (develop one’s own qualities). It is important to understand that the leader is able work both with a group and with an individual; and more importantly, is able to work with oneself, or rather manage oneself: every day one should work on cultivating leadership qualities, work on mistakes, and think over what one can do to make the performance more effective: what is going wrong and have one can cope with it. Thus, before stating my vision of an ideal leader I can become and mission I put in front, I will focus on the qualities of a leader I possess, analyzing my own strengths and weaknesses, as well as ways I can advance in.

Leadership qualities:

strengths and weaknesses adherent to me; opportunities for improvement

Before I start the analysis of my own perspectives, I should mark that I understand a leader as a person, having such qualities as: 1) will; 2) persistence; 3) independence and initiative; 4) adaptability 5) self-criticism; 6) high demands for self and others; 7) mental stability 8) reliability; 9) endurance; 10) optimism; 11) decisiveness. Thus, I’ll try to keep the framework on discussing them all.

First of all, I’d say that I feel a strong personal desire to occupy a high position, which is by no means present in everyone, and therefore I have the willingness to take on responsibilities associated with it, responsibility and risk. It is also believed that a successful leader possesses an almost magical ability to appear at the right time in the right place. This quality does not drop from the sky, in a sense, it is just as any talent one has – a gift from God. Though I use to notice this ability in myself, I also understand that talent is nothing without work, so the leader must constantly and persistently strive ahead no matter what obstacles one faces, persistently moving toward to the goal. I believe I have this kind of potential which can be further developed.

Personal qualities of a leader primarily include honesty and integrity, always assuming compliance with the norms human morality, modesty and justice to others, which are the qualities I’m proud to notice in myself. I believe I’ll be able to understand my future subordinates, see them as individuals worthy of respect, able to understand their behavior, be humane and caring about employees, seek for cooperation, and take into account the interests of my subordinates. But at the same time, I can stick to one’s principles in all matters, withstand the pressure from both above and below, consistently and firmly stand my ground, never conceal my own views, firmly hold the promise, defend until the end the values I share, as well as help others accept these values through personal example but not moralizing. These strengths of mine can be very helpful for the effective leadership.

The job of a leader is extremely difficult, and therefore one of the most important personal qualities should be good health, which helps to keep up energy and vitality, endure the blows of fate with courage, and cope with stress. I can’t say I’m a sportive person now, so to maintain good physical health I need to start regular exercise, and support balanced loading, implying the change of activities, as my rest should not be in idleness, as I use to practice now but in switching to another job.

Besides, strength and energy should be rationally distributed among all the tasks in order to achieve success in each of them, while I’ve trained myself to stable constant loadings. So I need to try to destroy the habitual patterns of actions from time to time, because now there’s a risk that once I’ll need to make another breakthrough, I will lack energy for it. Thus, a distinctive feature of a manager should be increased efficiency, the ability to work hard, however, without sacrificing oneself and without becoming workaholic in the worst sense (for instance, in some leading companies, it is considered mauvais ton for senior executives to stay in office after the working work or take work home (Parker and Carroll 276)). I should learn to save forces for the main tasks and not to waste them in an empty, be able to relax, including relax during the trips.

However, only physical health is not enough for a good manager. A leader must also be an emotionally healthy person; otherwise one won’t simply survive all the occurring overloadings. Therefore, now I’m in advance working on forming positive emotions in myself: empathy, which makes a person humane; excitement, stimulating activity; interest and curiosity helping to move forward; development of new fields of activity, and confidence, which will add solidity. Already now, I believe I’ve learn to grasp everything on the fly, I’m quite skilled in linking the newly acquired knowledge with old; I also have the ability to learn both at work and outside it, thus enhancing my competence, but avoiding one-sided specialization. Still, I should keep in mind that education usually starts from the moment of taking certain position, and never stops.

At the same time, a leader must not only be well trained and highly educated, but also creative. A leader is required not only to believe in one’s own creative abilities, but also value these abilities in others, be able to mobilize and use them, overcoming all the obstacles along the way. In reaching this, I will rely on my persistence and constant need for changes. I’m not surely whether I’m able to fully break with traditions, but I feel I can easily accept new ideas and innovative solutions, and I use them regularly. Working with groups as a creative manager, I will be using the method of brainstorming, encourage free expression of emotions and ideas and constant learning, including learning on our own mistakes.

Another group of qualities of an effective leader, defining one as a manager, are organizational and business qualities. Above all, organizational qualities involve determination. I reckon that determination lies not only in setting goals but striving hard for them. This distinguishes managers from other employees. As for me, I clearly possess the ability to accurately and promptly set short-term tasks, make sound decisions and monitor their execution, be operational and administrative in my actions. Besides, I’m quite an energetic person, which means I have the ability to infect people with my confidence and optimism. However, what I should still work hard at is setting long-term goals, as well as developing my own discipline and control. Without these qualities and skills, I will neither be able to call other people to order, nor control their activities. Therefore, I must learn to control my emotions and moods, become less impulsive, explore emotions of others to find approaches to their behavior, and further control the discipline of my subordinates.

Exploring in myself the qualities of an effective leader, I can say that I’m a sociable and approachable person, i.e. highly communicative, directed to the outside world, and showing interest in others. I think I’m able to prepossess other people, listen and understand them, and even convince when needed. But in my work I will not only deal with people, but also have to assess them. Here, I’ll need such an important quality as realism. But though I feel free now in assessing my own skills, I still feel shy in openly assessing other people’s abilities and their actions, so this is another weakness I have to work at.

A good manager is characterized by healthy optimism and confidence. I believe it is impossible to lead people without self-confidence, as only confident people know what they want. I’m one of the persons who never resort to circuitous routes, my views on different issues are always well-defined and clear, and I seek to ensure that other people know about these views, and therefore I typically feel free to express my own point of view, seeking to be heard and understood, but with respect to others and their opinions. This might be helpful.

Moreover, an efficient leader should be able to ensure the involvement of employees to work. Today, I can say I lack knowledge and experience on how to do this properly, to encourage people to perform any even the most boring job and turn in an exciting game. Therefore, I’ll be looking for innovative approaches and unknown dimensions in addressing this problem. Anyway, what I will definitely have to do is take into consideration the desires of subordinates to achieve certain positions in the world, know their ideals and promote the implementation of them in life.

But most importantly, the manager must have the ability to lead, organize and support the work of the team, be prepared to act at risk. A leader should be able to determine the amount of one’s own official duties, ability to act independently of the top-management, encourage people to obey, get rid of ballast, but help the remaining be themselves, and not press them down under. One of the qualities I possess will be very appropriate for these goals: I have tolerance for the weaknesses of people which are not interfering with work and intolerance to anything that prevents the successful solution of team tasks.

Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that there does not exist or will exist a leader, having universal skills and equally effectively acting in any situation. Therefore, I know I must learn much more than I already have. Further, I’ll describe my understanding of an ideal leader I’d like to become and goals I set to reach it, as well the general vision and mission of my career leadership plan.

Vision, mission, goals

Clearly articulated strategic vision is a necessary prerequisite for sustainable strategic leadership. The vision is necessary for effective leadership and making responsible decisions, it focuses the person on the future, determines the priority problems, as well as person’s long-term competitive position (Parker and Carroll 265). For instance, if the manager decided to create a new business or improve an existing one, he/she must “see” or imagine this business in the future. Present yourself or your business in future is similar to setting long-term goals.

For me, there are three main aspects in shaping my strategic vision and justification of my mission: the first one is understanding, in which sphere I’ll be operating and applying my skills (I’d like to focus on marketing or public relations), the second one is an explanation of this strategic vision and mission of the company (which means becoming a leader as I ideally see this) and the third is a timely decision on when to change the strategic direction and mission (for me, it’s when half of the variable for decision-making basis have changed). Thus, my mission statement mainly reflects the aspects of the professional growth prospects. I believe that this clearly and concisely formulated positions will have a positive effect, forcing me to make every effort to achieve my goals.

Generally, as a leader, I have strong convictions and a clear goal. I have the aim in my life – to reach success and realize my potential, and I will apply this goal to my work. Waking up, I should not only wait for what a new day will bring. The presence of objectives requires planning, and then each day will bring me to achieving this goal. The aim is usually the dream: the dream of what my company would become; the dream of what my whole life will become. Still, I believe that the views of a leader should not be stiff: a dream should also develop in time, as well as the goals associated with its implementation.

Thus, I have the common plan of how I will reach the goals set.

1. First, I’ll make up a list of goals: get higher education, scientific degree, deepen my knowledge in related spheres, travel a lot to understand the world better, find the job which significant perspectives of growth, start a family, and further after getting enough experience, start my own business, develop my creative skills by having a creative hobby like photography, etc. The process of recording this is already a good motivation: defined goals eliminate the possibility of uncertainty.
2. Then I need to make up list of obstacles that I may face on the way to my goal and then develop a plan for how I can avoid them. For instance, I could possibly lack money to travel around the world, so I might find a job, associated with trips abroad.
3. A sound idea is also making a list of “rewards” I’ll get when one of the goals is achieved (new car, prestigious watch, weekend abroad with family).
4. List of subgoals. Breaking my big goals into many smaller ones, I’ll be able to choose the order and time of their execution: for instance, to practice photography, I should first earn for a professional camera and then finish specialized courses.
5. Then, I should make sure whether I know what I lack. If I lack information and skills to achieve the goals, then I should think of how I can fill in the gaps: learning courses, self-development activities, finding new contacts, etc.
6. List of those who can help me. I find it reasonable to seek for friends or colleagues or anyone else whose aim coincides with my own. For example, I could find someone who will visit sport trainings with me to keep myself in form. These people will help me stay motivated.
7. I should imagine that I have already achieved goals as often as possible. Making a picture perfect of my life and myself as a leader, I’ll finally achieve this.

The thing is that by 35, an applicant for leadership at the highest level must have considerable experience in performing various functions and be mature as a leader in general. The duration of the maturation is determined by experts in 5-7 years (Parker and Carroll 271), i.e. the meteoric rise of my career is to begin at the age of 27-28. However, according to statistics, women decide to make a career too late, and often, only after ten years of work at a company, they decide to take a higher position, but it’s too late for a planned career. Therefore, I should focus on my goals of becoming a strong leader to avoid this widespread mistake.

One the decisive qualities are definitely my professional qualities, qualification and competence. Therefore, my main subgoal is the development of the system of specialized knowledge and practical skills through education, the obtainment of different culture levels – general, technical, economic, legal, informational, psychological and pedagogical. Another important aspect is being aware of reality, situation in the world, separate countries, tendencies in science and technology, market perspective, have both internal and external understanding of the goals of the company and its divisions, have the ability to see problems, highlight the most significant parts, and be open to novelty and change. For this, I need to be in constant search for knowledge, taking different courses, travelling, widening my interest and contacts.

On a whole, the contemporary leader must actively deal with one’s own disadvantages and weakness, form positive attitude towards life and work, create healthy environment through the promotion and training of people, disclosure of their abilities and talents, and never be afraid of losing credibility, as in most cases, it is for such attitude towards them that employees pay with recognition and gratitude. Thus, my ideal of a leader involves the development of such qualities in my personality: 1) Ability to extrapolate; 2) Ability to work at multiple problems simultaneously; 3) Stability in a situation of uncertainty; 4) Understanding, high susceptibility, developed intuition; 5) Ability to take control over myself; 6) Persistence; 7) Ability to cooperate; 8) Initiative; 9) Energy; 10) Ability to rely on others; 11) Capacity for empathy; 12) Identifying myself with my business; 13) Interest in the growth of the organization, and not my own career; 14) Independence; 15)Flexibility; 16) Resistance to stress; 17) Presence of clear goals; 18) Ability to manage big communities; 19) Sense of humor; and 20) Integrity of the personal ideal.

In this way, becoming an effective leader means for me being able not to be attracted by the power as such, but rather be interested in achieving goals. Successful leaders get real satisfaction from the success of others, rather than from their own unlimited power. The power they use should come out from the respect that they tend to inspire. My ideal perception of a leader is a self-sufficient person, who is not striving to take as many positions as possible, but knows the existing influence is quite enough and one doesn’t need to use the power to reach success. Through the prism of my future experience in career, I’d like to grow to the level when I know what I’m worth and am satisfied with it, have full confidence.