Executive Summary 

Leadership abilities are entrusted on people who try to set exemplary events and carve an approach to achieve success in the workplace for their followers. The reflective report highlights the aspects of motivating the employees, influencing them, and inspiring them through effectual leadership styles in achieving success with the business objectives. The report emphasizes on the Whitmore GROW model to highlight the practicality achieved through leadership in the organization where several skills like active listening, empathetic outlook and a practical feedback system help in both personal and professional growth of an individual.

Introduction 

The reflective report outline supports an individual to analyze the strength and weakness that one posses being a leader and exhibiting true leadership qualities in the workplace environment. Self-awareness is essential to be built in this process of exploring and reflecting on self-development since several important qualities and skills are developed, which enhances the personal and professional growth of an individual (Rubena et al. 2018). The reflective leadership plan provides a scope to introspect on the leadership qualities, theoretical concepts, and models which will help in applying the foundation of leadership qualities in the practical scenario as well as attempt to portray a critical reflection on the major theories of leadership enhancing the knowledge, skills and experience of a leader. 

The aim of the reflective leadership plan helps in analyzing the underlying capabilities and capacities of a leader to influence, motivate and inspire the co-workers, colleagues and subordinates in the workplace. According to Hackworth et al. (2018), a manager can employ people and direct them to work in accomplishing the organizational goals whereas a leader performs multiple roles of being a coach, friend and philosopher guiding his team, motivating them and mentoring them to learn new strategies, accept the changes in the organization and timely completion of the tasks with a positive attitude in the workplace environment.  

Discussion

I have observed that being a leader, the responsibilities, capabilities, and dedication towards the team and the organization increases multifold in presenting competitive characteristic through the enactment of goals and visions for the organization. I have the flair of being a good manager while I am still in the process of learning to be a good leader who can motivate, inspire, and get the work done with least of obstacles from the team members in the organization (Anbu, 2019). The course curriculum of higher studies comprising of post-graduation offers the scope of learning the theories and models of leadership while apprenticeship or being an intern supports the journey of an individual to identify oneself as an effectual leader with multiple skills and multitasking abilities. 

The reflection of being a leader not only highlights the capacities of an individual but also emphasize of purposeful and resourceful utilization of personal goals and objectives that can be aligned with the organizational objectives. The integration of both will provide ample scope of growth in professional and personal life. Hence, I try to imbibe the roles and responsibilities performed by the peers and seniors who help me determine the course of actions that I must inculcate in my leadership style and professional journey (Berg & Karlsen, 2016). I am engaged with an organization being an HR manager, where I get ample scope to practice adaptability, flexibility, communication skills, and integration of the efforts of my co-workers. Being self-aware on my skills and qualities, values and personality, traits and behaviours, I can control my actions and direct my behaviour towards the fruitful achievement of the organizational purpose (Coetzer et al. 2017). The exploring and reflective practices being a leader helps me understand my feelings, comprehend my strength and weakness at work and performance, practice mindfulness, and incorporate better decisions at the workplace. 

Analyzing the current role, responsibilities and the challenges in leadership

The personal development plan enables me to highlight my current role and responsibilities while introspecting on the challenges that I encounter in my workplace. Human Resource Management is an intriguing career prospect which relates to the direct connection with the human resources employed in an organization (Wu et al. 2020). Similarly, it is challenging to understand different mindsets, values, beliefs, and goals of people unless a leader is effective with communication skills. 

Being an HR manager, I am entitled to create recruitment opportunities for the organization, determine the advertisement content for specific roles and functions of the people to be hired, design the recruitment rally or event, engage a team to conduct the interview for recruiting talented or skilled workforce, discuss and determine the payroll and incentives for the selected candidates and monitor the tasks assigned to the subordinates in the organization (Figueroa et al. 2019). The responsibilities that I shoulder from my position is drafting training schedule for the people required to be trained and inducted in a specific process, identifying appraisals marinating work culture, enabling harmonious relationships between employees and managing the workforce of the organization.  

The challenging roles and responsibilities emerge with the context of maintaining ethical consideration of code of practice, code of conduct and maintaining work ethics in the organization by a diverse culture of people. The legal perception of the framework of the company, maintenance of rules and regulations in the organization and training the people to fit in the specific work profile becomes cumbersome for me to manage at times. The recent pandemic crisis across the world has been presenting a challenging job profile for me since the safety of the workers is at stake if not complied with the regulations of the workplace as laid by the World Health Organization while marinating the productivity of the organization to ensure profit that covers the expenditure and salaries of the workforce (Xian & Huang, 2020). Hence the current situation can be claimed to be challenging and critical for an HR manager like me who has to monitor the safety and health compliance of the workers and at the same time creating and monitoring rotational schedule for the workers. 

Analyzing the practice of coaching employees with emotional intelligence and empathy 

 The personalities of leaders and their traits do not change in an instant. The leadership qualities come embedded with the attitude and intention of an individual to lead by example. It is not essential to be born as a leader but once can get motivated by the leaders across the world to establish oneself as a leader while setting some unique examples for the followers. I have been an ardent fan of Jeff Bezos, who has emerged as an influential personality being the CEO of Amazon and leading the e-commerce site by examples (Patzer et al. 2018). The company, from its initiation with books, merchandise, and music CDs, has emerged to be the highest revenue grosser in 2019-20 with the largest number of innovations and development.  

I perceive that my personality has enhanced with practice of integrity and honesty in my work at the organization. I have never been too much controlling on the workforces, which has helped me emerge as a compassionate leader in the organization. I had practically worked in my empathetic behaviour while not laying-off the employees from the organization during the pandemic when several renowned organizations stated retrenching their employees (Breevaart & Bakker, 2018). In contrast, I devised strategies to include them in the new process where they could manufacture essential items like masks, PPE Kits, and gloves in bulk and contacted the local hospitals for purchase of the products. 

The key areas of developing self-awareness and practising the same in the workplace environment support my endeavour in establishing personal values based on scientific outlooks, inculcating positive habits of gratitude, acknowledgement, effective feedback, active listening, and appraisals of the subordinates under me. I have also explored Maslow’s Need theory while applying the same in personal behaviour where I feel self-actualization matters to me since after addressing the needs of self-esteem, belongingness, affection, achievement power and control, self-actualization supported me to understand the need which had a strong influence on my behaviour and actions in determining inter-personal relationships in the workplace environment. Emotional intelligence is some of the favourite trends in the workplace environment, which I have witnessed in the current times (Ackley, 2016). Emotional balance in the workplace helped me to develop empathetic feelings for my co-workers while understanding their conditions during stress and this pandemic crisis. 

I have been conscious to understand that my weaknesses encompass the decision-making skills, emotional influence on others and understanding the dilemma of people around me in expressing their thoughts, fears, and anxiousness. Hence, the self-development criteria that I have worked on with utmost passion and integrity stands on the techniques of self-stress buster, forming questionnaire to get feedback on my qualities and skills as a leader, and investing time in the Gallup Strength Finder Test (Burke & Passmore, 2019). These feedbacks supports my journey as a leader who is not leading his team by concepts and models but through making practical and visible examples in the workplace. 

Evaluating personal leadership development strategies with critical reflection on major leadership theories

The leadership theories followed in the business realities emphasize behavioural theory, situational leadership theory, contingency theory, transactional theory, and transformational theory. The theories have been developed by observing the skills and qualities of the great leaders and people of influence in the world. Some of the leaders are having born leadership qualities, while some have adapted them to lead the world (Kiersch & Peters, 2017). I believe the people who have the leadership qualities since they gain consciousness of the material world have a set of direction for their lives, and they are aware of their actions. The leaders who develop leadership qualities depending on the situation are the people who can adapt and mold to different challenging situations in their lives (Lee et al. 2020). The contingency leadership theory ascribes that leaders are either relation-oriented or task-oriented in the organization. The three situational variables describe the leader-member relationship, the power position, and the task structure (Kulkarni, 2017). The critical aspect that embeds the contingency theory is that this can be applied in a given set of style where the relations and tasks relate with others instead of acting against each other.

The situational leadership theory describes four fundamental styles of leadership which have telling, selling, participating, and delegating approach. The leaders, while selecting the style, have to be conscious of the approach of the team members (Walls, 2019). Here, the leader must be aware of the team members and their capabilities of performing a task. According to the situation of the organization, the outcome will vary. The delegating style has the high readiness of the workers to perform a job when allocated by the manager. For instance, I have allocated the instant job of making masks following the safety and hygiene protocols to three team leaders who knew how much labour would suffice for the given targets of making 300 masks per day and delivering them to the hospital counter (Dirani et al. 2020). The critical aspect while following the situational theory I faced is that the selling approach was shown by the leather goods manufacturing workers who were motivated to produce PPE kits while they lacked the ability on preparing them on emergency and without training. 

Transformational leadership style is what I have adjudged as my forte. I reckon that my followers in the workplace consider my efforts to maintain a relationship while being able to distinguish that from allocating and getting the tasks done at the right time (Turnidge & Cote, 2018). I believe that in a formal setup of organization, it is the verbal communication and convincing style which creates an impact on the workers or followers. Hence, leading the team becomes easy when the right people with the right mindset can be aspired to work on the given objectives. I must admit in such a leadership style; the relationship is not compromised with the work (Muralidharan & Pathak, 2018). In contrast, identifying the potential of the followers, mentoring them, providing relevant training, giving constructive criticism on their performance help them emerge with the best of their abilities help in creating an effective leader.  

Application of a conceptual model of leadership development 

The conceptual model of evolving as a leader can lay their foundation with Whitmore GROW Model evolving a framework to be utilized in everyday work life were meant for setting the goals and solving complex problems. The model is extensively used for corporate coaching making an impact in unveiling potential and possibilities of the emerging leaders (Milad, 2017). The acronym GROW stands for Goal achievement, the reality on where the leader presently stands, Options or Obstacles to face with resources and Way Forward with the willingness to achieve the most in the time line framed by an individual.  

 The GROW Model can be applied in assessing my leadership abilities and the goals which I personally want to persuade in the next two years. I am willing to assess the GROW model for the next two years since the organizational structure, strategies and operational methods are rapidly changing with the change in the induction of technological advancement in the business realities. The manual works are mostly performed by innovative machines, and marketing strategies are mostly taking place in the virtual space with the digital boom in the competitive market. Hence, a long term strategy or goal may not suffice my career prospect (Mayer & Corcoran, 2019). The Goals for GROW model which I perceive is to get trained on the advance technical programs in the organization to keep myself updated on the implementation of artificial knowledge (AI), machine learning and big data analytics in the business environment. The current realities where I stand in the substantial position of a manager in the organization relates to the contribution that I have already done for the organization being an HR manager,  the obstacles that I faced while realizing my goals and the Way forward to mitigate the obstacles while using the available resources in the organization.  

The current needs that I wish to focus on are to improve my socializing skills, my technical knowledge and advanced knowledge to set up a company in the next two years with my skills, qualities and expertise. However, the critical aspects that may create a road blockage are the Way I execute my tasks, the Way I establish a relationship with people and the Way I appraise the subordinates need to be addressed in the short period with a constant focus on other aspects of holding a substantial position and being a leader of the team.  

Analyzing and developing capacity in influencing, motivating and inspiring others in the workplace

 The present business reality is digital space-oriented where social media influencers play a pivotal role in upholding the growth of the organizations. In Gallup's engagement study, I found that holding a one-on-one meeting with the key people does not disengage them from the organizational objectives. I need to understand the reality where employees also tend to feel the sense of belongingness to the organization where small team meetings for a duration of twenty minutes on a regular basis would help them understand what the administration wants out of their performance, their credibility to the organization and their commitment towards the team (Joo et al. 2016).  A personalized feedback form must be distributed by me to make the employees fill them with their present needs and wants out of the organizational objectives while aligning the same with their personal gains. 

The employees feel resourceful when they are provided with mentoring and training on the processes they are engaged with the organization. The resources like leadership consultation, executive coaching, mediation services, communication services, and work performance coaching can be made available for the employees at the workplace which would motivate them, inspire them, and influence them to produce better performance in the workplace. The employees are also motivated when their efforts are praised in public as well as they are rewarded and recognized by the substantial people in the organization. It is essential for me as a manager to ensure that the long-serving employees must be awarded retirement benefits, perks and packages to sustain their lives at retirement. The entertainment packages, vacations, and outdoor events motivate and rejuvenates the employees from stress and boring work-life schedule.  

Demonstrating the techniques of reflective and reflexive practice in consistent learning and self-development

The theories that can be involved in the reflective and reflexive learning to develop personal skills, abilities and knowledge in the process of work signifies the implementation of Gibb’s learning cycle which comprises of the description of events, feelings on those events, evaluation of the events, analysis of the events, drawing a concise conclusion on the events, and devising an action plan (Salerni, 2020). The writing of Journal and highlighting the experiences help to introspect on similar experiences which we have in the workplace environment. Hence, the analysis of the events and drawing an action plan while reflecting on the events make us aware of our actions and behaviours towards the incident or event. I recapitulate an incident in the context of reflective and reflexive practise where being an executive in the organization we had to give a presentation on our ideas and thoughts to bring in some changes in the human resource policies. On one such event, our group was ready with the presentation where we faced technical glitches which we were not prepared for. We were not humiliated by the seniors since they knew how much efforts we have put in the presentation. But this incident helped us prepare our action plans to mitigate such incidents in future. 

Analyzing the peer-reviewed feedback with indicators of changing behaviour 

The peer-reviewed feedback was on the error of not including a conclusive executive summary, missing the valid point of properly referencing the contexts, more feedback of the colleagues and in-depth analysis of the career prospect in self-reflection of personal and professional development using theories and concept models. The feedback provided by my colleagues and partners has helped me develop my insight on gaining more experience in rightfully using the scholarly works for my contents, and using appropriate referencing style to quote the authors (Grimes, 2018). I have also followed the feedback, which helped me emerge as a good leader with empathetic consideration for my team members.   

Analyzing Personal Development Plan with new experiences and stretch projects

 The stretch projects in the organization are like managing the inventories while just-in-time approaches have been used by me while addressing the requirements of providing adequate masks and PPE kits for the frontline warriors like the healthcare professionals. The experience of stretch projects making the items within a short notice has created an opportunity for me to lead the organization by example with low-cost development on the projects while implementing transformational leadership style to convince the employees.

Conclusion 

In summarization, I would emphasize the thought of motivating, influencing, and inspiring people in the real world scenario while constantly exerting my efforts to emerge as an effectual leader by example to the followers. The GROW model would support my personal and professional journey to achieve the required abilities, strength, opportunities and experience in the actual business scenario and help me to be competent to overcome my weaknesses in becoming a substantial leader.