Pmgt702 Project Leadership - Self-Development Assessment Answers

Instructions

1. Personal Assessment  

a) Identity two (2) of your foremost instrumental values and discuss how they contabute to your projectleadership; and 

b) Identity your one (1) greatest weakness and discuss what impact it has on your abilly to lead others around you; and) Select two (2) leadership skls from this unit and explain how they contribute to your current project leadership practice.

2. Development Plan  

‘Set two (2) personal goals that will contribute to your project leadership capabilities. Discuss why you selected these goals in particular, how they will benefit your professional development, and outline a practicable plan that you can follow to work toward these goals.

Answer:

Introduction

Project leadership is the act of leading a team to take towards the successful completion of ay project. As stated by Heifetz & Linsky (2017), project leadership needs skills in both leadership and management. Project leadership is the soft skill and it is the part of science and art. Project leadership matrix is made up of four parts, reactive people-leadership, reactive task management, proactive people-leadership ad proactive task management. A good project leader is grounded and centred and this type of leader is aware and mindful. Transformational leadership style is my preferred type f leadership and in this leadership, leaders need to work with the subordinates to identify the change required by the organisation.

In this study, there are two parts; in the first part, two instrumental values of me are discussed along with one of my greatest weaknesses. Two leadership skills are explained and how they contribute to my project leadership. In the second part of the study, a leadership development plan is given to set two personal goals contributing two project leadership capabilities. 

1. Personal Assessment

a) Identifying two of the foremost instrumental values and discussing how they contribute to my project leadership

My future plan is to be a successful entrepreneur; however, before that, I want to work for an organisation as leadership to gather my experience and knowledge. I always prefer transformational leadership style as the transformational leaders work with the subordinates in order to recognise the change in creating the vision to guide the change by the inspiration.

I always value honesty in my life and being a leader, it is very important, to be honest with myself and with my team members. As opined by Antonakis & Day (2017), honesty is the most valuable quality for a leader and this value works for the inspiration and trust. Honesty is the first expectation of the team members from their team leaders. There is a correlation between the employee performance and the perceived behavioural integrity; mostly honesty of the leaders. I also believe that honesty is the founding principles and core values. Honesty is the easiest way to work within an organisation in order to be successful and happy. Since, my childhood, I have always been provided significance towards making myself fulfilling and free life. According to Liden et al., (2016), honesty seeks the truth and honesty provides faith, confidence and empowers the willpower. In order to work within an organisation as a leader or to be an entrepreneurship, honesty is needed as honesty develops the vitality. Honesty is the value of leadership that brings respect and admiring behaviour; the fellow team members will start trusting the leaders. My opinion is that telling the truth and backing the truth with actions makes the person believable. I want to continue to be honest and my aim of achieving the transformational leadership can be gained through honesty as I value the success in terms of character, emotional intelligence, hard work, self-awareness and honesty as well.

The final characteristic of the leaders is the ambition and the leaders need to balance their balance in ambition as they must not have high desires towards power and money. As opined by Rao (2017), ambition has an ugly side and it can create the inner fuel to drives the people towards the vision. I value the ambition as this quality will help me to go ahead with the idea of setting up my own business as an entrepreneur. In addition, higher-ambition leaders in business skilfully integrate both social and economic value. Ambition is a great thing; however, leaders should not only drive with the ambition. Leaders who care for the building honest and sustainable institution; they are ambitious with a limit. Transformational leaders with ambition make the business decision on a long-term basis after discussing with the stakeholders. Higher-ambitious leaders can craft the distinctive set of outlook towards the organisation. I think ambition is the most significant tool to gain success in career and it can override the resources and talent. Ambitious attitude leads to satisfaction in the workplace as leader and triumph regardless what is waiting for them. Ambition value in leadership will enhance my domain of pursuits to have the greater goal in future. Ambition in leadership can make me a hard worker and it will instil confidence within me.

b) Identifying one greatest weakness and discussing what impact it has on my ability to lead others around me

My greatest weakness is team-working; however, it is not that I don’t like to work as a team. During team huddle or team discussion; I face the issue of sharing my concern or opinion. When my opinion is not granted by my team members; I feel discouraged. However, it is needed to have a good team working skills as a team leader. Leading a team is associated with the idea of understanding the shared values. According to Goleman (2017), a conscious effort is required to assist the individuals within a team so that the team members can work together with the amicable atmosphere. Team members can experience difficulties working in the peaceful atmosphere; however, positive relations and team performance need to be developed by the team leaders. Team leading quality is one of the important aspects of the team leaders and I have to develop the quality to work as a team. The team leaders can make ‘building block' that enables the team to work together (Breevaart et al., 2017). In order to develop the team working quality, my friends and my near ones told me to improve in setting the objectives of my team and make balanced roles. I think I have to develop my qualities regarding the effective processes and good communication among the team members. I want to create support and trust among my team members when I will work as a team leader. Team working is essential for me in my future career and in my project leadership as teamwork motivates unity in the workplace. Team working can promote the atmosphere which fosters the loyalty and friendship. In addition, being a team leader, I want to allow close-knit relationship among the team members and this will motivate the employees to align the team members to hard, to be supportive and cooperative. As stated by Dong et al., (2017), teamwork offers different types of feedback and perspectives that help the team leaders to do brainstorming collectively. Team working is needed in project leadership as the leaders' duty is to bring out the opportunities, problem-solving approaches and perspectives. In addition, team leaders' perspectives of allowing the team working can improve the productivity and efficiency. Moreover, from my perspective, team working can provide the great learning opportunity for the team members and for the team leaders as well. I also think that I need to improve my team working as team working can promote the workplace synergy to support the shared goals, patience, encouragement from the fellow team members and cooperation as well.

c) Selecting two leadership skills and explaining how they contribute to my current project leadership practice

Communicating directly:

Leaders should know how to communicate with the team members and communication with the higher authority is another lesson that the leaders need to understand. In addition, the leaders should know themselves as good communication beings from the self-awareness quality. At the time of communicating, the leaders must be aware of the inner monologue (Beyer, 2017). Leaders need to speak publicly and the leaders need to raise their understanding of their audiences. I think that the leaders within an organisation need to know about the audiences' motivation and the preferred communication style. The leaders must be direct and clear in their communication as they need to pay attention to the non-verbal communication as well. The leaders' non-verbal communications are associated with facial expression posture, hand gesture and eye-contact. The leaders' communication is associated with listening to the employees and the leaders can take the strategy of asking the follow-up questions. While communicating, the leaders must show respect towards the audiences and the leaders should be positive.

Inspiring others

I want to be a transformational leader in future and my project leadership is going towards to make myself as the transformational leader. Transformational leaders know how to inspire someone to get the work done in the sake of the organisation (Bass, 2016). The leaders can express their gratitude towards their team and show appreciation to the team members can inspire others. Small gestures and gratitude play the role of inspiration and bolster for the team. According to me, leaders must have crystal clear vision for the objective of the organisation and the leaders need to know what the preferred future is. The leaders have the skill of inspiring and the leaders need to listen to the queries of the team members in order to motivate. If I can win the trust of the team members; I will be able to inspire the team members. The leaders need to be authentic in their understanding and as a leader; the employees should show respect.

2. Development plan

Two personal goals that will contribute to project leadership capabilities

I have analysed my strengths and weaknesses; I have chosen two of my personal goals to be a transformational leader.

First personal goal:

Team management

Time management is the quality of individuals to administer as well as coordinate the team members to perform the task (Bolman & Deal, 2017). In addition, team management involves communication, team working and objective setting as well as performance appraisal. Therefore, I have to develop the skills of team management through working with the team members in the future workplace. The leaders need to be transparent and the leaders need to develop the mutual respect for the employees. My goal is to develop team management skill as I cannot work within a team. I have an issue with communication while I communicate with fellow team members. My patience is low and I cannot repeat any words continuously. I have ego issue also that I cannot start a conversation myself. Therefore, the first rule to manage the team is to communicate effectively with the team members. As a team leader, I have to provide honest feedback and constructive replies to the team members. In addition, being a leader, I am planning to start a conversation using intranet software where each of the team members can share their views.

Needs of team management skill: Team management is very important part of the leadership capability as the transformational leaders are capable of managing the team members. Team management is important within an organisation as the team management creates the vision for the organisation and effective communication is done within the team through proper team management. Team leader creates functional skill and the management experiments their strategy using a team. The team management brings confidence to the leaders and team management skill brings out the adaptability skill for the team leaders. The team leaders can earn respect through the team management.  

Benefits of team management: As a leader, team working can give me the benefits of better outcomes for the team members. Team management can bring me better resources as well as better team working can reduce the risk of the organisation in future. In addition, team working can increase the efficiency of the leaders as leaders learn to work with the team members. The leader can have the better idea of the team members and effective solution of the team issues can be generated easily (Arvidsson, Johansson & Akselsson, 2017). According to me, leadership quality must be aligned with the team management as it creates mutual support between team members and team leaders to gain the objectives of the organisation. In addition, team management goal will give me a sense of accomplishment about what an employee feels while working with me. 

Second personal goal:

Strategic Thinking

Strategic thinking is the process to define the manner of thinking capability of the individual and it is also the process of assessing, creating and viewing the manner within an organisation (McCleskey, 2014). Strategic thinking skill is a valuable tool and it is extremely effective to build up the leaders' decision-making ability. The leaders can apply the strategic thinking in order to arrive at the decisions of organisational objectives and business situation. I did apprenticeship from one of the leading international organisations in Sydney. During that period; my team leader told me that strategic thinking is very difficult to acquire as it is about setting the mindset. In that workplace, I had to maintain the tactical responses to immediate demands are rewarded over long-term vision. My dream is to be true strategic leaders to build the commitment of the stakeholders by inviting others to the strategic process.  

Needs of strategic thinking skill: I need to develop the strategic thinking skill as I always take a decision in hurry in my personal life without thinking twice about my future or the consequences. It is my bad habit not to define logically before taking any decision. In case of the future career life, I need to have the ability to use the logical and creative sides of the brain. This skill will help to do the practice to make myself valuable and confident in the future career. In addition, critical thinkers have the ability to learn about the organisational objectives and they develop the strategic plan in order to meet the objectives of the organisation. I want to develop my strategic thinking ability to design the flexibility by creating the benchmark of the review to learn about progress. The leaders within the organisation learn the benchmark to be a guide to recognise the opportunity to revise the plan. I want the personal goal of strategic leadership to recognise the external and internal cues that are suitable for the organisation.

Benefits of strategic thinking: As a leader, I want to take strategic actions with a right decision within the organisation in future. In an organisation or in entrepreneurship practices, leaders take the decisions of complexity, chaos and ambiguity of the businesses (Banks et al., 2016). The benefits of strategic thinking are having the benefits of leading the edge of the change. It can optimise the ability to leverage the change within the organisation. I will be able to eliminate the complacency and I will be able to create the sense of unity through the strategic decision-making capability. Benefits of strategic thinking will provide me with the idea of proactive leadership. Strategic thinking is the systematical process of becoming a life-long learning organisation.

Personal development plan: 

Conclusion

It has been observed that I have values regarding honesty and ambition in future career and I want to develop my project leadership through eliminating the weaknesses of the team working. I cannot share my opinion while working in a team. In addition, I have leadership skills like inspiring the people and communicating directly. I want to be a transformational leader in future and this leadership style will work in my entrepreneurship practices in future. In addition, my personal goals of team management and strategic thinking capabilities will help me to achieve my leadership project. I will follow the personal development plan to improve my leadership qualities on communication, team management, motivating others and decision-making capabilities. 

Reference List

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