Week 2: Action Planning
In journaling this week, follow these steps:
1. Pick 1 of the Five Practices to work on. Consult the Leadership Behavior List to help you pick a practice. You may pick more than one practice, if you desire.
2. Identify 2-4 leadership behaviors within that practice as goals for the term. The behaviors you choose do not need to appear on the list of leadership behaviors. The list is simply a resource.
3. Plan 2-4 exercises/activities to improve each leadership behavior. This is the most important and difficult part of the assignment. What are you going to do, above and beyond the regular requirements, activities, and exercises of the course, to improve those behaviors? When, for example, which week, will you do those activities?
These are some exercises/activities that students have done in the past:
• Getting additional feedback from TAs or me on writing or speaking assignments
• Asking roommates, friends, etc. for feedback on your leadership skills. (Note: You will get feedback from your teammates in Weeks 6 and 10.)
• Taking teammates to lunch to get to know them better
• Doing additional writing or speaking assignments to practice
• Speaking in front of a mirror or videotaping one’s speaking
• Creating lists of questions or ideas before team meetings
• Volunteering to lead team brainstorming sessions
• Joining a club or taking on a leadership role in a club, team, or other organization
• Joining Toastmasters
• Attending “mixers,” like the Career Fair
• Attending business school or university speaker events
• Reading additional books or articles on leadership, teams, or business ethics
• Reading extra articles on your team’s proposal topic
• Reading articles and books by authors whose writing you would like to emulate
• Emailing reminders to teammates
• Emailing thank you notes and statements of appreciation to teammates
These are simply examples. Be ambitious yet realistic. For each exercise/activity, specify when you will do it, down to the week.
Common Pitfalls
These are some common shortcomings of leadership development action plans:
1. Mistaking goals for exercises/activities. Goals and exercises are not the same thing. Students often list goals or intentions (e.g., “I’m going to work on looking confident in my public speaking” or “I’m going to speak up more in my team”) instead of concrete, scheduled exercises (e.g., “I’m going to practice speaking in front of a TA in Weeks 4 and 7 and in front of Jeff in Week 7” or “I’m going to meet each teammate for lunch between Weeks 3 and 5.”) Be sure you have concrete exercises/activities/action items.
2. Relying too much on subjective measurements. You need ways to measure your progress. How you feel about your improvement is a subjective measurement. But you need objective measurements, too. How do you come across to others? What impact have your changed behaviors had on your teammates? These are objective questions that you will measure primarily through feedback. “Activity measures,” i.e., counting the number of times you did something (e.g., meeting with a tutor three times), are also objective.
3. Focusing on leadership development outside your team. Since your team will be your primary source of feedback, focus your action plan on your BA352 team experience. Don’t select goals that will only impact your roommates, coworkers, or friends.