Leadership Assignment On Self-Assessment And Self-Improvement Of Skills For Reaching Top Management

Question

Task: Provide a description of the skills required by a leader to lead an organization and give an overview of your own assessment of the skills possessed by you.

Answer

DPPLP: PORTFOLIO 1
Leadership Skills in the 21^st Century
Principally speaking, the term "Leadership" can be regarded as a collective as well as individual feedback for improving the world in better terms. Proper practice and understanding of the response from the leadership aspect are required, considering the modern interdependent world, which is full of complexity. 21^st-century leadership regarded as a context of leadership assignment that is mainly designed to respond to exclusive opportunities and challenges of today's era. Reflection of an extended leadership criterion draws the main focus on various practices and theories from a variety of traditions and disciplines for advancing practical knowledge and metamorphic change in the account of the world (Bartels, 2015). Exclusively, 21^st-century leadership mainly depicts the concept of leadership as characteristics of any social network. 21^st-century leadership familiarizes with collaboration and provision of services to every individual. It leads to environmental feasibility and social betterment. Moreover, 21^st-century leadership assignment is not bound by self-awareness, communication, social and cultural intelligence.

Leadership and vision
 In today's scenario, leaders play the most critical role in every private or the public sector because leader always converts the dream to the fact by their hard work and the dedications. The vision is a tremendously important key in any path of human life and the business sector also. So, vision is always targeted in leaders' aims, energy, and resources (Bellanca, 2018).

Sharing of visions with the other workers in the organization forces them to act, which is, on the other hand, regarded as the secret mission of a successful vision of leadership. The vision of a leader must include the following criteria's:

1. A clear set of organizational purposes and direction
2. Challenging co-workers to work in the way of producing productive outcomes.
3. Rejuvenating commitment and excitement, as well as inspiring belief and enthusiasm among the members of the company, is crucial.
4. Helping the employees to realize that they hold a significant position in the organization. Making regular communication and sharing information about the announcement of the company meetings daily.

The main aim of a successful leader is ensuring the employees about their beliefs and behaviour which support change. If required for the betterment of the company, a manager should take steps for going outside from their comfort zone. Many times, a successful leader devoted his or her time to develop the organization. They gave effort for the big picture where an unsuccessful leader always fails to accept challenges and create negativity in the field of work (Carroll, 2015).

Critical skills required by the leadership in the 21^st century
The leadership skills are necessary to influence their workers that will perform their work in the present and the future. The leadership assignment skills are mostly focused on two perceptive. The excellent character of a leader can bring values and beliefs to the workplace. The leader must always have a vision, and he or she has to communicate with the employees to bring the vision. It is also essential for a leader to be passionate about what they are doing for the betterment of the organization. Besides, it is also noted that Communication is the key to a successful leader. A leader should have good communication skills to the employees, and only good communication can change bad leadership. Coaching is the primary key to management. A manager should support their employees with all the resources and advice. A manager needs to be flexible for any kind of situation and any kind of job. A manager should build her or his network for better development of trust (Hoyle, English, & Steffy, 2018). It is also crucial for a leader in the 21st century, to built trust within the organization’s internal people as well as the external people.

Technical skills
A leader should have the good technical knowledge and must be an expert in a specific activity. Good technicality always plays an important role in producing the company's best product which is a must for the 21st century. If required, an organization must give proper training to the leader in the field of technicality or any other sector for the development of the organization (Ireland & Hitt, 1999).

Human skills
Human skills also called people skills. Human skills divided into two parts, the first part is called “ability within the manager’s unit” and the second part is called “inter-group skill relationship”. Human skills always help to develop the interpersonal relationship between the organization and the employs as well as it also helps to communicate with the external people of the organization (Lloyd-Walker & Walker, 2011).

Conceptual skills
In many times the leader has to deal with the ideas and the concepts, a leader needs to have a good conceptual skill which in the 21st century is essential for the strategic vision and the for the upper-level management in the organizations (Mahoney, 2001).

Time management
In the present scenario, the leader should have the ability to manage all the work within the proper timing. As a team leader, the ability for time management is very important to achieve the goal of an organization. Also, time management gives a leader absolute confidence for controlling the in and out of the organization. If a leader is good in time management, then he or she can divide their job into many parts, and most of the time it seems very fruitful to the organization (O Connell & Pascoe, 2004).

Decision-making skills
In the company a good leader should have a good knowledge of decision-making skills which can be based on four parts; firstly a leader should know how to command the thought to the employs that the employees can get a proper direction of the job. Secondly, the leader should be collaborating to the employees; only then the output of an employee can be reached up to the mark. Third, the leader should know the employee's personal and professional distractions, and according to the problem, a leader should give proper advice for the employees and make them convenience. The decision can vary according to the problem and the situations. In many cases, it also is seen that a quick decision can be left a bad impression on the person, but in the future, it can be a good step for the organization (Bartels, 2015).

Skills related to the strategic vision of RGIS Company
The strategic planner of RGIS Company decides the steps to be taken by them. The steps include:

• Calculating implementation costs
• Properly defining the input mechanisms
• Proper development of the plan for implementation of strategies of the company
• Defining the process of strategic planning
• Ensure systematic thinking
• Review critical thinking
• Development of Inductive as well as deductive reasoning

Company overview
RGIS primarily focuses on inventory management system and current have a retail platform for merchandise services. RGIS expanded business in global perspective and have more than 400 office spaces all over the world. The number of employees is more than 1000 who are working on projects like physical inventory management, compliances inventory and clinical supply etcetera. As per revenue published for the fiscal year 2018-19 is $9.2 million.

RGIS business strategies and vision
Vision- RGIS developed a vision focusing on integrity, excellence and respect.

Mission- RGIS emphasizes on innovation based on teamwork and team dynamics.

Business strategy- the primary business strategy adopted by RGIS is to standardizing the physical inventory process.

Decision-making skills
The leader of the contextual organization should identify all the ways of growing retail segments which operate in a crowded market by the needs of the customer and the consumer. Nowadays, the leader should frequently survey about changing or the increasing demand of the customer. According to the target audience, the leader should take steps for any kind of decision (Baron, 2016).

People skills
The RGIS already achieved a good position in today's market. To achieve more in the future, the RGIS must have a good leader who can drive their organization up to their goals and aims. The main of this discussion is based on bringing people together and make it easier for a manager to reach his desired goal for the RGIS. The leader should give more attention or focus on peoples' skills for achieving future goals (Bartels, 2015).

Conceptual skills
As per the whole discussion, it is already clear to all that, in the 21st century leadership assignment, the marketing sector has huge competitions in any sector. As an example, company A provides food and also company B provides food. Both companies serve the same quantity, quality. So the next question will arise that why a customer ordered his or her food from company A? Why not from company B? So, this is the main challenge for all the leaders to survey the proper needs according to the customer's changing behavior. In this kind of situation, the leader must have a good knowledge of conceptual skills (Bellanca, 2018).

Table 1: time management grid (Bartels, 2015)

DPPLP: Portfolio 2
Introduction:
Leadership is a procedure of operation and action, emotion and creativity of mind, soul and body. The leader always dreams, and they want to convert their dream in reality. The leader will try hard to fulfil their dream. In the 21st century, a leader is more important than the manager. 21st-century new leadership model includes individual attributes, competencies, and leadership outcomes. The leadership skill focused on traits deals with innate characteristics and leadership assignment accomplishment. In this leadership assignment, I perform a gap analysis on my leadership skill that I want to identify and develop. Based on this analysis, I want to create a dynamic career development plan using the SMARTER model (Carroll, 2015).

GAP analysis:
GAP analysis is a technique which helps organization and individuals to meet their goal and develop their performance. GAP analysis is a useful technique to search the path between the desired and actual objectives. Winning individual and organization use GAP analysis for identifying and developing their areas for improvement (Cuevas, Dawson, Hightower, & Brown, 2015).

1. Technical skills:
Technical skills are significant in middle-level and low- level management and less important for the upper –level management. Technical skill is regarding the knowledge and ability and specialist in a particular activity. I want to identify my desired and current technical skill by using GAP analysis and find the recommending technical skills and propose steps on how to bridge the gap (Dai & Li, 2016).

Current State:

1. I have strong knowledge of the basics of IT, and I am comfortable to use the software daily.
2. I want to show my ability on the technical skill and its application in this age.
3. I was less exposed to the new technologies and their applications after I became an entrepreneur due to top-level management work.

Desired State:
 All the time, I believe in myself, which helps to increase my technical skills. It is an essential part of my improvement efforts. Having good technical skill would increase my income and save my expensive time. My motive is to be a proficient computer programmer with proper leadership assignment knowledge of a wide range of application (Geisinger, 2016).

How to bridge the GAP:
I want to bridge this gap. Due to this, I need to read technical books, subscribing to technical magazines, hanging out with experts and online software tutorials.

2. Human skill:
Human skill is vital for all levels of top, middle and bottom-level management. The skills of human are different from technical skill. Technical skill deal with things during human skill deal with people. The leader communicates with his followers by human skill. I want to identify my human leadership assignment skills using GAP analysis (Germaine, Richards, Koeller, & Schubert-Irastorza, 2016).

Current state:

1. Need to be a good listener which is essential for teamwork.
2. I focus on my body language when I interact with a different group.
3. Need a good preparation for attending the conversation.

Desired state:

1. I need to learn how to create fruitful conversations. I believe that a fruitful conversation achieved the goal.
2. Need to be an open-minded person. It gives me a good opportunity to improve myself.

• To bridge the GAP: made certain planning regarding attending various conversation clubs which helps me to bridge the GAP and develop my human skill. I also find criticism and academic group work and extra activities which helps me to improve myself and learn about myself (Hezlett, 2016). 

3. Conceptual skills:

• This skill is a very crucial part of top-level leadership assignment management, and it helps them to deal with the capacity to work with ideas and concepts. Conceptual skill includes creating ideas, problem-solving and understanding intangible relationship. It assists us in finding the entire organization only and stresses how many functions of the organization depends on each other (Ireland & Hitt, 1999).

Current State:

1. Need good observation to evaluate the situation and take measures.
2. I cannot recognize the problem and take fast decisions for solving it.
3. I do not have any work experience in the cross-functional assignment.

Desired state:

1. Need to be a fast and good decision maker based on any situation.
2. I want to see the organization as one creature rather than just a part.

How to bridge the GAP:
 I think that I need to discuss with various people to get new ideas which help me to bridge the GAP. I also need to attend various business seminars and networking people outside of the organization. I need to volunteer myself for working in a cross-functional business environment. I need a mentor for bridging the GAP (Hoyle, English, & Steffy, 2018).

SMARTER model: 
SMARTER model is a technique used for setting goals; the goals are strong and help one to be successful. This tool is used by various leaders to lead their companies. SMARTER is an acronym for s- specific, m- measurable, a- attainable, r-relevant, t- time-specific, e-evaluate, r-revise (Kirschner, 2017).

Step 1: identifying the specific goal
My main goal is to improve my communication and presentation skills before completing a course for placement in a reputed organization. I had to give my best to achieve this as I had limited time; my course is to be completed in 6 months. I need to assign a fraction of my reading time to this, as I can’t find any other time (Lloyd-Walker & Walker, 2011).

Step 2: Measurable
I need to spend two days a week on these skills and have to do so for two months. I have to measure my success in both these skills after I am done with my placement. Based on employee feedback, I can understand whether or not my goal is accomplished. 

Step 3: Attainable
IthinkI can achieve my goal, as I have another six months for further improvement. I am developing many methods and use those for fulfilling my goals. The methods are:

• To learn online tutorials and read online technology related magazines.
• To interact with computer experts.
• To use the tools required for communication and developing a practice module.
• To engage me in conversation with various people.

Step 4: Relevant
It is advisable to try to achieve my goals; it is the most appropriate time to start using the steps which I’ve given above to chase my goals. I did not finish my DPPLP module, but this module can help me make time easier. Such modules are made to create future leaders for organizations; it is also beneficial for overseas students (Mahoney, 2001).

Step 5: Time-specific
I have set a target of six month time for achieving my goals; my placement is in two weeks. I need to create a schedule to manage my goals. I will take some time to master the technical skills and will engage with people to improve humane skills.

Step 6: Evaluate
I will assess the progress I am making every two weeks; I can utilize my skills in group assignments. If I make progress, then I'll continue with the same. Otherwise, I need to give more time.

Step 7: Revise
After three months, I will do a complete analysis to check my progress. If I think I’ve achieved my purpose, then I will list conceptual skills as part of my learning.

After evaluating the GAP in leadership assignment skills required for a manager, I will create a career plan for achieving lacking skills.

Action Plan

 
DDLP: PORTFOLIO 3
Introduction
For developing a good management plan, it is necessary to assess the basic strength and weakness of the individual. In this portfolio, I’ll showcase my self- improvement plan based on my experience and feedback from others. One must develop both personally and professionally; it helps not only the individual but the company as a whole. It also helps the employee to build his confidence in managing leadership assignment tasks more efficiently (Newton, 2015).
Four learning styles 
There are many forms and preferences of learning, and not all the people fit into the same learning style.

Learning styles are of four categories-

1. Visual learning style

Those who are visual learners tend to look and observe things; they include diagrams, written directories, and pictures. This style is also known as ‘spatial’ learning style; those who learn by looking get better information when it is presented visually.

2. Audible learning style

Auditory learners learn better when the subject of the matter is presented audibly. Such types of learners prefer listening to lectures than reading notes; they often dictate themselves for getting new ideas (O Connell & Pascoe, 2004).

3. Physical learning style

These learners prefer learning through experience or by doing experiments; they prefer to get in the matter of the subject physically. Such kind of learners are usually known to be restless, and they could be good at sports and extra co-curricular activities.

3. Reading/writing learning style

This category of learners tends to learn by written words, and they express their words by reading and writing articles on the internet. They use the internet for just about anything; they also write diaries and look for words in the dictionary (Oliver, Underwood, & Jeffries, 2016).

Personal and professional development plans

Review of my plan and progress
My main plan was to improve my communication and presentation skills. I had a serious problem in communication, and I faced several restrictions in work that required communication. Secondary plans included enhancing my technical as well as time managing skills. My time management skills were not good either, and I could not relate to computers in any way. After taking various classes and activities to improve my skills, I found out that different skills took different time to progress. I could enhance my presentation skills much faster than the others. I progressed well in improving my time management skills as well as technical skills (Redmond & Dolan, 2016).

There is still a lot to be learned, and I am still facing difficulties in handling internal software of computers. Having undergone proper pieces of training for improving my speech, I am now more confident in front of people. Though I have succeeded in enhancing most of the skills, I am still lagging in some of them.

Conclusion:
I have given a chart explaining my progress in the various skills that I set out to acquire. Though I am still learning some skills, it is a fun process and makes me appreciate myself. Having improved communication and presentation skills, I feel rejuvenated and have also understood the value of time. Improving oneself is a tedious process, but it also makes you learn about your strength and weaknesses. By improving these skills, I can be successful in becoming a good leader. This chart will be of great use to me for solving my problems.

 
DDLP: PORTFOLIO 4
Introduction
There can be developed in one’s career only when there is an experience. Training and courses do not help as much as experience and job development does. Personally developing oneself is very important in an organization; it also helps one to track his/her work progress. This portfolio is intended to take the results from the development plan and use it in consultancy plans for making it successful. I will see how my development in various skills helps me in my consultancy plans (Soffel, 2016). I already done a consultancy project with NIA that is Nanotechnology Industries Association. My current objective in this section of discussion is to develop my PDP plan based on experience acquired during consultancy project with NIA. 

Integration of PDP and need of consultancy
In this segment, I will convey my consultancy project with NIA and the company where I worked in regard to the project. I will also assess how my self-created development plan will aid me in my consultancy project (Stewart, 2016). 

Company overview
NIA is a Brussels based nanotechnology company which has a structure of trade association comprises of companies working in the field of nanotechnology. Members of NIA are predominantly small and medium sized organization and the number of organizations under the governance of NIA is 55. The aim of NIA is to support development in the field of nanotechnology covering European territory. The objective of the NIA is to induce innovation in the field of nanotechnology to support customer wellbeing.

Question:

NIA enterprises are currently looking for partners who can help them in selling nanotech products. Where should we start the search, with what range of company and what would be the cost significance for us and them to transport our products in that region?

Aim:

The aim is for finding a partner that can help in selling our products.

Beginning the project through a self-development plan
Consultancy projects can be evaluated through subsequent stages which are to progress later. These stages will help me to implement my developed skills and contribute to the project.

 The following figure shows the sequential stages which a project must go through before completion (Tang, 2019). 

Fig 1: Developed skill set and its contribution
[Created by Author]

1. The first stage of personal development of the project starts from early awareness of the project to accept it. For the assignment, I have decided to spend some time doing research and evaluate the subject information. I have enhanced my skills to a great extent, so I feel it will be useful for the project (Truong, 2016).
2. Forleadership assignment inthe21stcentury, time management is an absolute necessity. And my project is vast that needs to be finished in three weeks, so my time management skills can be used for completing the project on time. I can divide certain sections of the project and create a plan to finish them in my allotted time. 
3. Communication skills are necessary for a leader of this age, and my task involves the cooperation of many people. So I see this an opportunity for implementing the communication skills that I’ve developed, I feel I can contribute to this project with my new found skills in communication.
4. Self-discipline is the ability to focus on a task for achieving the proper result. Being disciplined in life helps one to do work efficiently; I was not much disciplined earlier but have improved this trait. My project is quite large, and works need to be done systematically, having improved my discipline, I can manage multiple works in the project(Ward, 2016).
5. It is said that to be a leader in the 21st century, and you need good technical skills to lead your company. I had trained for six months to improve my technical skills; I can easily handle the external parts of the computer. Though I still need to work on the internal software, my project requires work on external computer parts only. This is why I feel my training will help me handle the external tools required in the project.
6. After the completion of the project, I’ll need to present the project to my teachers. All our collective efforts will be wasted if we cannot explain the project. Proper presentation of a project is necessary for leadership assignment skills; this is where my new skills will be of use. My efforts to improve presentation skills earlier will come handy for this project; I can now give a proper presentation. This will make sure the project is explained properly(Wootten & Kaslow, 2020).
7. Good Speech is important for a leader. It helps to save time, explain the matter properly and helps in having a good relationship between the speaker and the audience members. I’ve worked on my speech earlier and have enhanced a lot. My speech can help me to explain my project properly.

Conclusion
The various classes that I took to enhance my skills will help me to develop myself personally as well as professionally. After having improved some skills, I got an opportunity to implement them in my three-week-long projects. In these two weeks, I can enhance my leadership assignment skills and also try to make a big impact. After my course is completed, I will convert my two-week project into a year placement.

I will now show my development plan after the completion of the project.

DPPLP: Portfolio 5
Refer PPT

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