Leadership

Personal Leadership Development Plan

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Some People think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you, it’s much more serious than that.” – Bill Shankley

 

Whenever people talk about leaders, or leadership I automatically revert my thinking back to Football, and how the leadership of one man creates followers not only on the pitch, but also in the stadium, and all over the world all through the medium of a simple game. And one of my hero’s Bill Shankley typifies what it takes to be this great leader who can unite everyone toward one cause and he does so through pouring every ounce of his existence in to the sport, and people surrounding him cannot help but be magnetized by his passion, and this notion of passion perfectly defines how a leadership vision can come to life, know what defines you as a person and stick with it wholeheartedly.

Authenticity

1. Purpose 

Finding your purpose as  a leader is the most difficult aspect for me to discover, because it requires full self-awareness and knowledge of yourself, and I do not believe I am at that point, I still have a lot to learn, which is a major contributing factor for why I am currently studying my MBA. But running with the football analogies in the future I want to be seen as a leader that people look to in times of adversity, I want to be the person who leads by example and inspires all others join the cause through my passion and drive.

2.  Values

Values are a key instrument and guiding light in any development, and to assess these properly I looked back at my Rokeach terminal values, i.e. those desired future states that my behaviours are based upon,and the top ranked are: An exciting life, Pleasure & Sense of accomplishment, these guiding values may come across as overly conceited,  as it does not take in to account the value of others, and this is something I must work on, no one man is an island after all. My instrumental values, i.e. my vessel of behaviours leading to my desired end state are: Intellectual, Independent & Ambitious. It is clear that I wish to set my self apart, do something that will essentially leave my unique mark on the world after i’m gone, and these driving values will be inherent to me in opportunities I pursue.

3. Relationships

As I have have progressed with age, I have been able to separate the difference between an acquaintance & a genuinely strong relationship, and over the years I have gone from having many people around me to a select few close friends. I am always of the belief that who I am is largely defined by who I surround myself with, as these people will play a critical part in my personal growth, I am extremely proud of the people I currently have in my life, and I can see many life long bonds being created during my MBA, that will allow me ton further develop myself.

4. Self-Discipline

Using this trait as a leader was perfectly exemplified to me by Mike Chantler when he said “I would never ask an employee to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself” and by demonstrating such great discipline to the cause Mike works for he demands the respect of all those around him, and it’s what has strengthened him majorly as a leader, this message really resonated with me, and has given me reason to further develop my self-discipline in anything I wish to do, both personally and professionally.

5. Heart

This to me, is the one key aspect, the one piece of the puzzle that I need. I am fully prepared to be a great leader, I am just searching to find something that I can be passionate about, something I can but all of my passion and energy in to and find joy in doing every day. I am sure eventually I will have that “ah-ha” moment, until then I will keep building my other attributes to be fully geared up progress myself at that point.

All of these aspects combine to making me an authentic leader, and without authenticity there is no substance to your leadership, and no enjoyment in doing so, again using Bill Shankley as my reference point. How small an impact would he have had if he didn’t even enjoy the game ? If he had no emotional investment in the club? yes he was a great leader, but he was a great leader because he always did so in accordance with his authentic self. He would not have any impact if he had switched his managerial role to coach a Rugby team for example, because it would not align with his form of authenticity.

Fundamental state of leadership

comfort zoneThe fundamental state of leadership, a thought process coined by Robert Quinn, is based on challenging how we typically operate and interact with the world around us, and essentially is about stepping way outside of your comfort zone, and challenging convention. Added to this Quinn emphasizes a message I have conveyed consistently through my previous posts, and that is that you should not be defined, and confined by a certain strength or attribute, the key to effective leadership is adaptability while maintaining true to your authentic self and this is not something that can be simply learnt, it takes time, reflection and experience to fully develop.

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When further examining the fundamental state of leadership to my own point in the process, it is clear I am more highly developed in some areas compared to others, which firstly gives me great encouragement in that I can see that I am on the right track to becoming an authentic leader, also that I possess enough self-awareness to recognize where I stand in each of these criteria, but also it gives me clear aspects to concentrate more effort toward and look to develop.

1. Self focused-Other focused

This simply put describes transitioning from putting my own interests ahead of the groups, to putting the groups interest to the forefront of my efforts. This to me is one of the areas that need more work, just looking at my terminal values from Rokeach, it is clear that the needs and wants of others don’t even resonate in my consciousness and my goals are completely self-focused. I need to take more care in appreciating the need for others in my success, I will need the support of my team at various stages, I will need to rely on them, and at other points that paradigm will switch and they will seek that guidance from me, making a concerted effort to do something selflessly for the team is very much something I will need to increase my efforts towards moving forward.

2. Internally closed-Externally open

I feel as part of my natural makeup I am already strongly developed in this area. Throughout my life I have continuously sought learning opportunities from outside my “bubble of existence” through my worldwide travel, and encounters with varying cultures I am definitely not a creature of habit, I seek new views and processes and constantly look to adapt who I am as a person, in some ways this is key to my existence as being internally closed causes me to feel in a rut and stifles my creativity.

3.  Comfort centred- purpose-centred

This again is closely tied to my previous point, I have constantly looked to expand my horizons and firmly place myself outside my comfort zone, I have no issue in diving head first in to completely unknown territory, whether that is moving to Kenya and living in the orphanage, or whether it was giving up my steady 9-5 job to pursue my MBA across the atlantic ocean. I thrive on new and exciting challenges, it is a key value I hold in creating a meanwhile life for my self, I am not content with the status quo and look wherever possible to reach out and explore new things.

4. Externally directed- internally directed

Being conscious of what other people may think of me, and how they may judge my actions has always been an inhibiting factor of my behaviour, I at times will bite my tongue through fear of judgement and disrupting the consensus, and this aspect for me is going to be the hardest one for me to change, as as much as I want to live by my own values and stay true to myself, I have a lack of confidence in myself and will too often compromise on my beliefs in order to not cause friction. Continuing through this learning process that I am in through interpersonal dynamics I am becoming more aware of myself and more confident in my abilities, using this will eventually translate in me being entirely comfortable with behaving completely in line with my own values and beliefs.

My Leadership strengths and values

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“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else, is the greatest accomplishment”- Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Who am I? This is probably the most simple, yet most difficult question you will ever have to answer, especially when it comes to defining yourself as a leader. Recently I have been tasked with doing just that, and it makes perfect sense to do so, after all how can you expect others to respect you as a leader, if you don’t know what makes you an authentic leader yourself? To synthesize my Future needs i.e. what I need to do to develop myself as a leader, I will be using a variety of different tools that define my strengths and values in the Present (Gallup strengths finder, Competing values framework and authentic happiness), and combining them with aspects from my Past from three major areas where my leadership has been most prevalent (Academics, Sport & Work/Philanthropy). I will synthesis these aspects together, emanating in a leadership development plan.

 

The Past and Present

My Gallup StrengthsFinder results that were shown below, but were unable to format on to this post, vary widely, giving a relatively even spread over the 4 major categories. To me this shows that my strengths, if used properly can be extremely complimentary to one another, allowing me to develop in to a well-balanced and flexible leader leader. This again was a standout feature in my Competing values framework with my score being fairly evenly distributed between the Collaborative, Compete & Create segments. I then took my Authentic Happiness results, and they provide the bonding agent that leads to a seamless combination of attributes to create who I am, and how I can use that to leverage my development as a leader.

It was very intriguing to me that as soon as I received my results, I could immediately trace these features back to my past experiences and leadership type roles, the value of the Gallup & Competing values reports were  almost that it points out the truth that is so obvious, that you have completely overlooked it in the past.

 

For example, when I first looked at the strength Restorative it effectively shows that I like to take things apart, look at them and then fix it. The most relevant display of this strength has been through my years of playing soccer, and in particular my role as a captain, I was always the first person teammates would approach if they had a problem, both on, and off the pitch. On the face of it, it would be easy to assume that this strength is closely related to my creative nature as described by the CVF, as my ability to be so restorative is bred from my creative approach to problems, and being able to see paths others would not necessarily see, which is a great ability to build upon, however it could also be argued that is has strong bonds with my collaborative nature, and wanting to build relationships with various people built on an understanding of each other. And with eh very core of my example it could also be shown that my strength in being restorative owes its prevalence to my competitive nature and wanting to win, and therefore helping reduce the burden from my teammates.

Closely tied with this strength is that of Individualization which is the ability to gauge not only the strengths, but the unique characteristics of any given individual, this ability played a large role in my success in sales as an account manager. One of my roles within this job was to allocate specific clients to internal representatives, and this showcased my ability to identify client differentiation and specific needs, and match them to a specific individual internally within the organization who had complimentary capabilities and personalities. This strength again owes its existence to a number of differing values that are inherent to me, not only does it play on my creative and collaborative values like the previous example, but it also roots from one of my lesser competing values, control, as this strength of being able to put the right people in the right position is at its most basic level displayed due to a need for me to control any given situation to benefit myself.

Moving forward with my background as a soccer player and captain, this most obviously links me to my strength of Competition which is also a major competing value I possess. On a side note, I have always been an advocate that competitive team sports and business have extreme similarities, but also have a colossal amount to learn from one another in developing success. Obviously playing competitive sport from an early age has instilled a sense of competition in me. There is a need in my eyes to proceed with caution with this strength, many past teammates, and family members will soon remind me of times where I have had to be dragged off a pitch after losing a game due to my competitive nature, however being aware of this definitely allows me to harness the positives from it, and continue in relentlessly pursuing being the best at whatever I attempt, whether it be sports, academics or in the workplace.

Earlier I alluded to the flexibility that can be attained through my mix of strengths and values, and one of the most vital concepts involved in creating this is my Adaptability Which to me is the ability to shift gears and move forward no matter what life throws at you, and I have always gravitated towards roles that suit this trait, as this strength was the only one I had a real awareness of before completely the various tests. This can be shown again in my sporting background, it is very obvious in my success in a sales environment as no one day is the same in that given industry, but I believe it is best depicted through, what I consider one of my greatest contributions to life so far which was/is my ongoing work with the Mama Upendo Trust  charity in Kitui, Kenya, and in particular my time spent at the orphanage, my adaptability, is no better personified than when I threw myself in to such an unfamiliar environment, and in to situations the polar opposite of what I’m comfortable with, and still managing to succeed. One of the major reasons why I believe myself to be so adaptable in life and work is due to my inherent collaborative value, through my authentic values of humor & playfulness along with fairness, equality & justice and finally forgiveness and mercy it allows me to collaborate with and relate to a wide plethora of individuals with little issue. And in the modern global business place, having this ability can have untold amount of leverage for me as a leader, if I use it in a proper fashion.

Finally there is the concept of Ideation which unlike other strengths has only started to propagate in recently through my time in university, as this platform gave me the ability to show my passion for taking a plethora of theories and academic views, dissecting them and then developing them together to build my knowledge and also be novel in my ideas. However my time in academia also showed the need to rein in this passion occasionally as well, as many professors commented that I would over-source a lot of my work, and that my craving of new ideas can lead to me deviating too far away from the problem at hand, So again it is important for me to be aware of this and know when to be adaptable and rein it in a little bit. Also the positive aspects of this strength can be maximized further by capitalizing on my collaborative nature and being mindful of others expectations of me, to be creative yet concisely focused.

 

The Future

From this process so far, I have learnt that my path to become a leader is still very much in its infancy and I have a lot to learn. Along with this notion, I cannot be solely reliant on myself to be successful in my leadership development, I will require assistance from my peers, my coaches and my family to help stay true to those values that are intrinsically authentic to me, whilst providing a platform to allow me to capitalize on my strengths and differentiate myself.

What I have found however, is that leadership is a choice, not a position, and that although the tools that have been used are helpful in directing me on my leadership journey, I will not be defined as a person or a leader by them. As I have discussed previously, all the strengths and values are not independent of one another, they all intertwine to create a unique person. Ultimately it’s not what my strengths are that will make me a great leader, it’s what I CHOOSE to do with them in the future that will do this.