Assignment 2 - Skill Development Action

Plan
Raniya Ali Parappil

45789061

Word Count –

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1) Development goals (Problem statement)

The core of your action plan will consist of:

 Focus and rationale - A clear focus on which development goals (skill areas) you want to
work on and the reasons why.

This paper focuses on presenting a self-development action plan to address two development
weaknesses related to my leadership style. The self-development plan will use both social cognitive
theory and self-regulation theory as the underlaying foundation of the plan. evaluating and analysing
my self-development plan has allowed me to focus on the process of personal change to appreciate my
strengths and to identify areas for further development of behaviours and skills.

The ability to identify and critically evaluate my leadership style in this course has been very rewarding.
By focussing and developing an action plan, I was able to seize the opportunity to evaluate my
leadership style – the impact my style has on my decision making and the ability to work with/lead a
team. Over the years in my career I have understood that I have focussed and shaped myself to
develop a leadership style that is authentic, transformation and service-first.

This assignment has allowed me to define my vision and set concrete goals and commit to a specific
action plan along with regular self-evaluation. I would definitely say this paper on development action
plan is very fluid meaning – open to opportunities and feedback.

I decided to focus and work on an action plan on two main skills that relate directly to my leadership
style:

 Self-Awareness – I would like to be able to enhance my ability of understand my I clearly keep

track on my thoughts, feelings, behaviours, strengths and weakness and the impact this has on others.
I have understood from various professional and personal encounters that it is extremely vital to take a
step back from the current focus to gain a new perspective or insight. This results in better decision
making and engagement. By initiating myself to reflect the moments, I am providing myself an
opportunity to evaluate all possible outcomes.
I understand as I progress further in my professional life, being conscious and aware will assist in
effective planning, sustain and support those around me, allow for personal and team growth and
continuity.
My reason for choosing this skill for development, while I have noticed I have put significant effort in
education to enable myself to solve the day to day challenges and issues I may face. I have however
noticed; my environment is constant changing and the challenges I face often require more than the
technical skills I have. They are more of an adaptive kind and require the transformation of a mindset.

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I understood from observing my leaders and mentors, that my developing a higher state of awareness,
there is huge impact on how one communicates, thus influencing the way one leads. With this I
understood how important it was to develop the skill of self-awareness. To be a better leader, I
understood I needed not just the educational /technical side of the role but much more.
Understanding my feelings and acknowledging the will be the foundation to master and learn better
from my environment. By improving on this skill, I will be able to understand not to loose the logical
thinking when making a decision. This will allow me to asses not just my own emotions, but those
around me as well.
 Active Listening - For me active listening plays a vital part in my learning process, establishing
good communications, maintaining relationships and self-management. Good Listening allows other to
speak, however active listening will allow me to influence and negotiate better – thus giving me the
leverage in decision making situations. I have placed, a great emphasis on both reading and writing in
my life – however these are slower mode of communication. In an environment of constant change and
globalisation where everyone is connected, I believe active listening will be great skill that I should
develop further. Active listening goes beyond just listening, it also includes the efforts a person makes
to listen and understand/observe the body language and other non-verbal cues that the other person is
conveying.
My reason for choosing this skill is to potentially increase my influencing and negotiating abilities. When
I have self-evaluated myself and received feedback from colleagues and direct reports, they key
patterns I have identified throughout is how I need to improve my active listening. I can be very solution
focused and quite excited when I hear trigger words. Self-evaluating and understating the skills I want
to focus on have been very insightful, confrontational and inspiring at the same time for me. Active
listening will provide me with the opportunity to refine my behaviour to become increasingly effective
manager/leader – maximise and adapt myself.

 Process and milestones - A section on specific sub-goals where you outline the
development of specific concrete goals and discuss their relationship to your broad
development abstract goals.

When it comes to self-awareness and developing these skills and how it relates to my development, will
be an ongoing assessment/process. Unlike technical skill/education soft skills like self-awareness and
active listening is a transformation of mindset. This can only come with constant self-review and by
having a growth mindset. My end goal is to be an authentic and true leader, keeping that goal in mind, I
choose the skills the two skills I want to work on to be a better me.

I have a habit of writing notes alarm clocks, reminders for myself of tasks or things to do. However, to
increase my self-awareness, it more than putting an alarm, but rather training my mind and brain to

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detach itself from the situation to evaluate the environment and all other aspects of the situation before
providing my feedback/decision.

Increased attention to self-awareness and active listening will increase my ability to self-evaluate. The
ability to pause and devote that time and effort to examine the situation will yield better results. Self-
awareness and active listening will allow me to control over some aspects of my decision making and
selected behaviours. To be able to do this, I must define those behaviours related to achieving those
goals and taken the desired plan of actions.

For me what I want to achieve my improving self-awareness and active listening is the following:

 Cultivate a growth mindset – leading the desire to learn and embrace the constant change
around me.
 Increase my ability to influence and negotiate – This is to understand the power of listening and
understanding those non-verbal cues to motivate/influence/negotiate.
 To be a multiplier – this means not just increasing my productivity, but those in my team as well.

By adopting a personal development plan. I believe I will develop the competencies required to adapt
and respond to the rapidly changing environment I am in. By means of self-awareness, active listening
I will be able to identify my behaviours and go through a gradual journey.

 Self-evaluation – evaluation will require me to carefully analyse what I perceive my own abilities,
goals, values, interests to be. Consulting with other peers/colleagues/mentors in this process
will also be very worthwhile, as they would provide with the reality check to determine my
evaluations. Another important facet is that consulting with peers provide the mental support
throughout the developmental process.
 Setting the goals and plan of action – Have set goals allows one/me to see the end picture in
mind. This will help me stick to the developmental plan and act as a constant reminder. The
goal and action plan must fit around my work and personal life. This gives increases the
chances of fulfilling the commitments. Having regular check in with colleagues, peers will help to
keep that constant focus and provide regular feedback as well. Both skills, I have chosen is
relating to change in mindset, so developing these skills will be gradual process. I do not expect
for change to occur overnight.
 Constructive feedback process – Before beginning the journey of developing the chosen skills, I
believe it very important to engage with those around me constant for feedback. I think another
good way to manage feedback process is also by having a journal/activity book that
summarizes my daily accomplishments/activities. Engaging in regular self-talk and positive
mental energy is also motivating. I have regularly engaged in self-talk without realising the

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 benefits. However, after engaging in this course I have come to understand the benefits of self-
talks to be extremely rewarding. It allows me to relive the situation and evaluate possible
outcomes and prepares me better for similar scenarios in the future.
 Having a measurement of success – how to measure the success when the skills, I am wanting
to develop are soft skills. I believe this can be achievable is through having smaller goals and
accomplishing them. Through regular constructive feedback and self-evaluation, I can
understand my journey and how far or close I am to my goal. The key to achieving those goals
in to plan, which allows for me to have control allowing to identify opportunity.
 Continuous monitoring – soft skills are not mastered overnight. It takes time and change in
mindset and continuous monitoring to be able to achieve the desired goal. Self-monitoring is
extremely critical in making sure my progress is managed successfully. The key to self-
monitoring is to ensure the process established fits in with my day to day life and is easy to do.

Changing mindsets is not an easy task and often takes several small steps. Often at times hardest part
is to have a process that fits my lifestyle and easy to continue. I recently had the opportunity to do a
short course that was designed/inspired by the book “The 7 Habits of highly effective people”. From
that seminar, I was able to plan an ongoing activities that allows me to address and develop the
capabilities I wanted to develop.

1. be proactive – being ready to take the responsibility to the end

2. begin with the end in mind – think of the result and what the result looks like
3. put first things first – Understand what the priorities are, how to achieve them and their
constraints.
4. Think positive – always have a positive mindset when approaching a situation
5. Seek first to understand then understood – active listening
6. Teamwork – understand the importance of teamwork and how to multiply that productivity

As a first step to implementing the self-development plan, is to choose the above-mentioned activities
and convert them to bite sized actions and plans. A few strategies that I will be implementing in
ensuring I develop my skills will include:

Self-Awareness

 Keeping an open mind – to allow the free flow of emotions and to listen and understand what
everyone present has to offer. In team meetings, I have been more aware and present, allowing
everyone to be more involved and therefore being a team player. When making or providing a
feedback, I take the moment to self-evaluate and to ensure I am understanding all aspects of
the situations.

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  Being mindful of my strengths and weakness – Understanding my strengths and weakness has
allowed me to always provide valuable input in a situation. This has also resulted in my raising
my hand when I know I need assistance or require input from others. I have been able to focus
on my strengths and therefore being more of a go to person for those areas.
 Staying focused – Training myself to be focused to the goal is very crucial, as result to achieve
my goal is not something overnight. It requires both change and transformation which required
time and patience. I have been utilising my networks in ensuring I have that constant connection
and ensuring I am not distracted from my path. This includes regular 1:1s with my team, peers,
mentors and directors. I encourage my colleagues to provide me real time constructive
feedback. I always encourage my colleagues/mentors etc to have an open discussion with me.
 Setting the boundaries – Being a young leader and someone who is recently taken up a
leadership position the hardest thing for me is to say NO. Being extremely serious and
passionate about what I do, I find it hard to say no. I worry about being judged. One thing I am
working on to achieve is to set the right expectations and boundaries when it comes to tasks. I
encourage an open environment and allow peers/colleagues to have open discussion. I
currently ensure I maintain a firm boundary and I ensure I have bit sized goals.
 Know my emotional trigger – this one of the most difficult action for me. Being a very passional
and reactive person, I tend respond almost immediately when hearing trigger words. One thing I
have implemented over the past few years is to stop and think before responding. When I hear
trigger words in a meeting/conference/1:1 scenario, I immediately force myself to detach and
evaluate my response. This allows me to construct my response allowing me to be a better
communicator. This is an ongoing piece of work that I am working on and changing my
behaviour.
 Embracing my intuition – Understanding my intuitions and taking risks associated with it. It very
vital to nurture my intuition and understand the benefits and challenges it brings. Trusting and
embracing myself is the first step towards achieving this action.
 Self-discipline – being disciplined about my what I want to achieve should be my prime focus.
Transformation and change take time, accepting this and giving myself the time and space to
make those changes without loosing the focus should be my number one.
 Becoming a regular reader -

2) Design & Discussion (Analysis and application)

Your critique of your action plan will address the following three (3) components:

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1. Strategies and justification - A plan of ongoing specific activities that details the strategies
(what you intend to do) to address your development sub-goals highlighted. You also need to critically
discuss your strategies in relation to social cognitive theory. In other words, you need to show how your
behaviour, your thoughts, and your feelings and interrelated by clearly linking strategies to each of
these domains.

2. Implementation intentions - As part of the strategies of your plan you need to include at least
a single specific implementation intention. You need to carry out the implementation intention and
critically discuss whether it was successful or not. (Implementation intentions will be discussed in Week
6).

3. Obstacles - Discussion of personal and environmental obstacles to your change objectives and
plans to deal with these obstacles.

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