Leadership is an evolving journey, and its effectiveness greatly depends on the chosen leadership theory and one's ability to adapt and grow as a leader. The paper presents a personal leadership development plan, guided by the principles of transformational leadership theory, as a means to maximize leadership effectiveness. The plan aims to analyze current leadership strengths and weaknesses, identify gaps between the current leadership state and the desired state aligned with the University of Phoenix 's SPL Model(Conrad, 2023), and outline actionable steps with a timeline for implementation.

The personal leadership development plan includes a goal to be a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator in Pennsylvania. Becoming a Licensed Nursing Administrator requires enrolling into an Administrator-in-training (AIT) program and exhibiting the characteristic of a good follower such as honesty, respect, trust and teamwork. Northouse (2019) describe followership as a process whereby an individual or individuals accept the influence of others to accomplish a common goal. Northouse further moved on to say that leaders and followers together create the leadership relationship, and without an understanding of the process of following, our understanding of leadership is incomplete. An effective Licensed Nursing Home Administrator understand the dynamics of working with team members such as doctors, nurses, fellow administrators, and other direct healthcare providers; have full knowledge of all healthcare policies that guide the operations of the facility and understand the dynamics in the day-to-day running of the facility. The role of a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator includes critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, effective communication skills with team members, integrity and trust, leadership and management expertise. Becoming a Licensed Nursing Home Administrator through the administrator-in-training program requires an attribute of an exemplary follower type. According to Kelly (2008) an exemplary follower type is one that present high independent critical thinking skills that goes beyond memorization and observing facts. This type of individual doesn't need their leader to spell out everything because they know how to accomplish a task in their own creative way. New employees groomed through the administrator in training program become potential future Licensed Nursing Home Administrators. Administrator-in-training experiencing multiple leadership trainings may aspire to new healthcare leadership positions. The personal leadership development plan involves team leadership of administrators through transformational leadership.

Identified Leadership Theory

The chosen theory that supports this development plan is transformational leadership. According to Northouse (2019), transformational leaders inspire and motivate their own expectations by fostering a deep sense of trust, respect, and shared vision. Transformational theory resonates with the personal leadership development goals as it aligns with the desire to lead with authenticity, inspire others, and create lasting positive change within organizations. As its name implies, transformational leadership is a process that changes and transforms people to a better and higher version of themselves. Transformational leadership involves an exceptional form of influence that moves followers to accomplish more than what is usually expected of them through motivation, assessment of their needs and treating them like human beings. Transformational leadership is mainly concern with morals, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals. Employees prefer managers to perform transformational leadership behaviors such as encouraging creativity, recognizing accomplishments, building trust, and inspiring a collective vision (Notgrass, 2014). The personal leadership development plan also requires authentic leadership therefore, the plan will assess one's leadership strength through the Authentic Leadership Self-Assessment Questionnaire.

Leadership Strengths

Authentic leadership is a leadership style that emphasizes the leader's relational transparency, self-awareness, moral perspective and balanced processing. According to Baquero et al. (2019), authenticleadership is the behavioral patterns of leaders who promote the positive psychological capacities of followers and whose model consists of the following factors: self-awareness, balanced processing, internalized moral perspective, and relational transparency. Using the authentic leadership self-assessment to determine one's level of authenticity.

Self-awareness (Score: 30)

Genuine leadership is built on self-awareness. It entails being aware of one own principles, qualities, flaws, and feelings (Baquero et al. 2019).A self-awareness score of 30 shows a high level of awareness. It projects that one has a solid understanding of personal principles and moral values. According to Northouse (2019), self-awareness is crucial for authentic leadership because it helps leaders recognize how their actions affect others and make more moral choices.

Internalized Moral Perspective (Score: 25)

The core of authentic leadership, which emphasizes the value of ethical leadership, is aligned with one strength in internalized moral perspective. Having a strong internalized moral worldview as indicated by a score of 25 show that one has a clear set of ideals and is dedicated to upholding moral principles in one's leadership position. According to Baquero et al. (2019),people in positions of leadership who have a strong moral compass behave in a way that is consistent with their values and ideals. However, relational transparency and balanced processing both have room for development.

Leadership Weaknesses (Score:13)

In order to improve on the area of one's leadership weaknesses (Relational transparency and balanced processing), one has to keep learning from the self-assessment and work on the lower areas of authentic leadership. According to Chan et al., (2023)relational openness enhances leadership credibility and trust. Being open, truthful, and sincere in one's dealings with others is the bedrock for relationship transparency. Having a score of 13 indicates that there might be potential for improvement. One could occasionally find it difficult to communicate one's intentions, feelings, and thoughts to colleagues.

Balanced Processing (Score: 12)

Multiple points of view must be taken into account, and it's important to be receptive to suggestions and feedback. A score of 12 indicates that one tends to make decisions based on one's own viewpoint without completely taking into account other people's opinions. To enhance balanced processing, actively seek out various points of view, promote team members' perspectives, and engage in active listening. By avoiding biases and groupthink, balanced processing aids leaders in making better informed and moral judgments, according to (Chan et al., 2023).

Identified Gaps

The gap between one's current leadership state and the leader one aspires to become lies in the need to enhance one's ability to improve onbalanced processing and internalized moral perspective, as emphasized by the SPL Model. The SPL model is a leadership practice of combining the knowledge, skills and leadership abilities of an individual in order to improve the effectiveness of a leader (McCaslin, 2023). This form of leadership practice is guided by perspectives such as information processing theory, knowledge creation, dynamic capabilities and draws upon the resource base view in order to suggest the valuables that an organization and their leadership will be able to make decisions (McCaslin,2023). In order to improve on the areas identified, there needs to be a formidable action plan with timeline for implementation.

Action Plan

To bridge the identified gap, the following are specific outlined action items and a timeline for implementation:

Action Item 1 (Month 1-3): Enhance Situational Awareness

• Invest time in understanding individual team members' strengths, weaknesses, and developmental needs.
• Engage in regular conversations to gauge followers' competence and commitment levels for different tasks.

Action Item 3 (Month 4-6): Delegation Skill Enhancement

• Identify tasks that can be delegated to team members to promote autonomy and growth.
• Provide clear instructions and expectations while allowing team members space to contribute their ideas.
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• Action Item 4 (Month 7-9): Feedback and Reflection and continuous learning
• Seek feedback from team members on the effectiveness of adapted leadership styles and delegation efforts.
• Reflect on experiences, identifying successes and areas for improvement.
• Attend workshops, seminars, or courses focused on situational leadership and delegation techniques.
• Stay updated with leadership trends and research to refine my approach continually.

By implementing these action items for a period of nine-month timeline, one intends to bridge the gap between one's current leadership style with the adaptive transformational leadership approach aligned with the Situational Leadership (SPL) Model.

Task:

 

Analyze this leadership development plan and draw a perfect conclusion. Explain in details.