Executive Summary
This personal leadership plan identifies my goals, which are (long-term) to be a leader in my family’s company and (short-term) to become more respected as a leader. My strengths are in being creative and seeing multiple solutions to problems. My main weakness is in communication. My personal action plan is to focus on developing better communication skills by working on the development of my social and emotional intelligence skills. This will allow me to see more clearly how to speak to others, be supportive of others, and in turn build strong relationships with others.

My Goals

As a member of my family’s real estate development company in the Caribbean, I look forward to having a career with the company and taking on more responsibilities as I grow and develop new skills. My goal is to eventually head the development division, which I feel I am more than capable of doing at some point in the future, as I am strong in exploratory and abstract thinking—two skills absolutely essential in this field. While I have only been with the company for eight months, I have enjoyed every minute of my time here and I want to keep going and proving my worth and value to the firm. My ultimate goal is to help lead the company in the future and build out its footprint throughout the Caribbean market and perhaps even expand it to other markets. Based on an analysis of my character and qualities as a leader, my immediate or short-term goals are the following:

1. Becoming more respected as a leader—one who people are willing to listen to more often.

2. Developing a stronger relationship with others by engaging with them so that they get to know more about me, my thoughts and viewpoints.

3. Becoming more self-confident in myself and what I have to say in group settings or around other colleagues.

My Current Position

Currently, I am a mid-level manager, just getting my feet wet in the company. I do not have a lot of responsibilities, but one of the primary skills I have realized I need to develop is my communication. While I am a good communicator, I feel I could be better and that in this environment there is no room for error or miscommunication, as either can lead to immense losses of time, money, energy and resources. If I want to work my way up in the company long-term and meet my short-term goals, I need to focus on my ability to communicate more effectively.

My Strengths, Weaknesses, Skills and Motivations

Strengths

My strengths are my ability to envision goals and motivate, be creative, and seize the opportunity. I am always looking for opportunities that might lay open and I view a missed opportunity with great regret.

Weaknesses

I think an important weakness for me to address is my soft-spoken nature and lack of continued communication at times. I have learned through the ratings and feedback that this weakness then in turn gets perceived by others as not being fully engaged, active or not taking initiative. What becomes more concerning is that I do believe I am being fully engaged and paying attention but to others I am not. I believe, at times, I am too focused with trying to listen and appease others in an effort to build relationships and make others feel comfortable that I do not speak up enough with my views and thoughts. I become too agreeable and too shy to speak my mind when, in fact, it is something others wish to see out of me. I over-concern myself with saying the right things and, as a result, I sometimes abstain from commenting at all out of fear of saying the incorrect thing. I need to work on building my self-confidence so that I feel comfortable to speak my mind and not internally overanalyze everything I want...…deepen my insight into how people think, how they express themselves and their feelings, and what kind of responses they expect back from others in order for the exchange to be viewed as a good, positive and productive one.

I also need to practice my communication skills, which I can do daily by setting aside a few minutes each day to great and speak with others, just to see how they are doing and how their lives are going. By taking an interest in others, one shows that he is interested in their lives and well-being and this makes one more likeable in return. It will also put me in a better position to respond to any questions they may have about me, who I am or what I think about things. By practicing my communication skills, I can also gain feedback from others about what they think and this opens up a good two-way flow of information.

After engaging in communication practice, I need to spend a few minutes each day reflecting on what transpired. It is important to reflect on our interactions because this is how we gain insight. If upon reflecting I see something that I can work on, I can make a plan to address that issue the next day in my communication practice and in this manner build up my communication skills.

Measuring the Effectiveness of My Plan

I can measure the effectiveness of my plan by noting the following:

1) The responsiveness of my peers in our communications after I speak. Do I think they think I am paying attention and as a result react to my words more frequently and consistently.

2) Note that people don’t mention my name when trying to remind people in groups of what we are doing and what our tasks and goals are.

3) Ask others if they feel I have been involved, communicative and engaged.