Essay of RMIT assisgnment 3 in the course named "Leadership and decision making", including 1500 words

1. Individual assignment – Research report
Subject Code: BUSM4188
Subject Name: Leadership and Decision Making
Location & Campus: RMIT Vietnam, Hanoi Campus
Student: Nguyen Thi Thu Trang – S3749503
Lecturer’s Name: Lan D
Word count 1428

2. Table of Contents
I. Introduction ......................................................................................................3
II. Assessment of Leadership skills.................................................................................3
1. Overview................................................................................................................................ 3
2. Strength................................................................................................................................. 6
3. Weakness............................................................................................................................... 6
III. Development plan ...............................................................................................7
IV. Conclusion........................................................................................................8
V. Apendixes....................................................................................................... 10
VI. Reference:...................................................................................................... 13

3. I. Introduction
According to the World Economic Forum (2020), leadership is among the top 10 most
important skills in the recruitment market in 2025. In that increasingly competitive market, it is
extremely important to quickly acquire these important skills to be successful in the workplace.
Table 1: Top 15 skills for 2025 (World Economic Forum 2020)
That fact raises an important question: Is leadership an innate ability or a skill that can be
learned and developed over time? The answer will determine whether every individual has a
fair chance of obtaining great leadership to be successful. According to Chatwani (2017),
leadership is seen as a process by which one practices to influence a group of people in order to
achieve a common goal. By emphasizing leadership as a process, Chatwani argues that it is a
learned skill rather than an innate skill.
In my opinion, practicing to become a good leader in the future includes two important factors.
Firstly, it is understanding your own strengths and weaknesses in terms of leadership ability.
After having a thorough and comprehensive view of yourself, a specific short-term and long-
term development plan becomes the second indispensable element. Therefore, the following
essay will consist of two parts: an analysis of myself using analytical tools and a personal
development plan to become an effective leader.
II. Assessment of Leadership skills
1. Overview
To have a comprehensive perspective in self-assessment, I took 3 tests in turn: Self-confident
test, Teamleadership test and Emotional Intelligence Test. My scores in the 3 tests are as
follows: 54/75, 13/15 and the scores of the 4 sections in the last test are shown in the table
below.

4. Table 2: Self-confidenttest(DuBrin,A.(2015) Leadership:Research findings, practice and skills, Cengage
Learning, US)

5. Table 3: TeamLeadership Skills test (Daftand Pirola-Merlo [2009] The Leadership Experience,4e,
CengageLearning,Australia)

6. Table 4: The Global EI Test Personal Result (Global Leadership Foundation, Taken in 2020)
Overall, all three tests produced consistent results. From the above outcome, I can see the
following remarkable patterns: Self-management and Team Leadership are two strengths that I
can take advantage of and promote over time. However, I have problem in connecting and
communicating effectively with others as well as creating strong relationships with people in
society, which is indicated by a low Relationship Management score. Finally, with a score of 7 in
Self-awareness and 54/75 of Self-confident test, I consider this a slight weakness because there
is absolutely room for improvement.
2. Strength
With the score of 10 in Self-management part in the Emotional Intelligence Test, I believe that I
acquire great skills of planning, organization, persistence, progress monitoring, control, and
attention to detail (Pearson, 2018). This stays true because through working experiences,
whether as a member or as a leader, I always try to control and manage very well not only the
end goal but also the whole process. For me, throughout the working process, I always value
both the long-term vision, the big picture and even the small details.
One thing that is very interesting about my Leadership test results is that I answered all
questions about cultural differences correctly. Cross cultural skills is defined to be the ability of
leaders who can work in and respond to different environments belonging to particular
countries and interpersonal work situations (Allon & Higgins 2005). I consider this a great
strength, especially in the context of globalization and increasingly diverse working
environments (not only diverse in personality but also different in culture and lifestyle). In the
test, there are questions in order to point out leadership style, which are questions
1,2,6,7,8,10,12 and 13. In those questions, most of my answers shown that my leadership
behaviors are towards the participative style. This style, based on the Participative Leadership
Theory, was defined by Ferrraris (2015) to be the democratic leadership style, in which the
inputs of members and collaborators are taken into account while the decision-maker is the
leader. This way, team member are fulfilled as they are being respected and belonged. This
character has been noted to have positive effects on criteria such as performance, job
satisfaction, and commitment (de Vries,2011) and I think it plays a fundamental role in leader
position.
3. Weakness

7. The result of Self-confident test (Durbin, 2015) tentatively shows that I possess a moderate
level of confidence towards myself. However, this stays a critical character of a good leader, as
it was claimed in many research and theories. Self-confidence was marked by Axelrod, Ruth H
(2016) to have great impact on leadership building and also enable the leader to influence his
collaborators, or followers. Based on the Trait theory of Kirkpatrick & Locke (1991), Self-
assurance and Cognitive ability are essential qualities in a good leader, beside of drive,
motivation to lead as well as intergrity. To be specific, leaders with great self-confidence tend
to have their employee engaged with the work and commited to the vision and the story goes
vice versa – employees have moderate loyalty toward leader with low self-esteem. By
emphasizing the importance of self-confidence in leadership in theory, I think this will be a
weakness I need to focus on.
According to Smyth (2014), Relationship Management plays a key role in any business, which
helps to develop capability and control over partnership with collaborators. This once again
confirms the importance of managing social relationships at work, especially in leadership roles.
With a low score of 6/10, I currently need to improve myself in communicating effectively as
well as maintaining and developing relationships in society. This can come from managing the
relationships in the close social circle available around me first, and from there expanding and
developing relationships in wider circles.
III. Development plan
With such multi-view analysis, I develop a short-term plan for the next 1 year with specific goals
in improving my weaknesses and developing strengths in my leadership aspect as follows:
Objective Activities Time-bound
Weakness to be
improved
Strength to be
further developed
 Self-
confidence
 Self-
awareness
Reading book:
Mindset: The New
Psychology of Success:
Dweck, Carol S.
 10/2021-
11/2021
 Relationship
Management
Skills
 Self-
confident
skill
Communication
skills
 Planning
skills
 Team-
leading skills
Joining Start-up project
named “CyberKid” as
Vice Head of External
Affairs Department
 Communicate
and manage 100
stakeholders for
Techfest event
 On-board and
work
induction:
10/2021
 Managing
team and
building
sponsorship

8.  Leading a team
of 10 members
Manage sponsorship
packages and control
accompanying
documents
package:
11/2021
 Executing
packages and
manage
stakeholders:
2/2022
 Relationship
Management
Skills
 Self-
awareness
 Self-
management
Entering an internship
in 5S Media Agency as a
Marketing-
Communication Intern
 2/2022-
8/2022
I will briefly explain how these activities can help me achieve my goal of becoming a better
leader within 1 year.
With the first activity is reading the book "Mindset" - a book that is highly recommended
because it offers a correct perspective of oneself and can develop an open mind and a growth
mindset for readers. From there, I will have a deeper perspective on myself, and most
importantly, I will have a suitable attitude, willing to accept my own shortcomings and being
confident in improvement. Self-reflection, according to Goleman (2000), set the foundation and
differentiate good leaders from low-perfoming ones. Hence, I consider self-understanding and
self-attitude to be the starting point of all further development.
Once I have the right attitude, I will embark on extra-curricular activities in a leadership
position. As a result, I have many opportunities to lead others, improve my confidence in
myself, and develop my communication skills. Moreover, this is a job that requires
communication and managing a lot of social relationships, so this will definitely be a good
opportunity for me to practice relationship management.
Finally, I will start an internship at the Agency. For a job in a fast-paced and ever-changing
environment like an Agency, I'm sure my self-management skills will be of great help to the job.
As an intern, I will also have the opportunity to rotate jobs continuously and work with people
in different departments. The two weaknesses of relationship management and self-awareness
can also be developed.
IV. Conclusion
In conclusion, with the help of these following diagnostic tools: Self-confident test, Team-
leadership test and Emotion test, I have generated an initial understanding of my leadership
abilities in terms of strength and weakness. Along with the guide in class and other materials

9. showing different aspects and criteria of leadership, I have a deeper knowledge of the ultimate
goal, which is becoming a better leader by enhancing my advantages and improve
shortcomings. My two major setbacks are Relationship Managements and Self-confidence,
while Team Leadership and Self-management are my two greatest strengths. With the analysis
of myself in aspect of leadership, a holistic plan has been made in time frame of 1 year so that I
can follow through and become a successful leader in the future.

10. V. Apendixes
Appendix 1: Top 15 skills for 2025 (World Economic Forum 2020)

11. Appendix 2: Self-confident test (DuBrin, A. (2015) Leadership: Research findings, practice and
skills, Cengage Learning, US)

12. Appendix 3: Team Leadership Skills test (Daft and Pirola-Merlo [2009] The Leadership
Experience, 4e, Cengage Learning, Australia)

13. Appendix 4: The Global EI Test Personal Result (Global Leadership Foundation, Taken in 2020)
VI. Reference:
Alon, I & Higgins, J-M2005, ‘Global leadership success through emotional and cultural
intelligences’, Business Horizons, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 501–512, viewed 18 September 2020,
Science Direct database.
AxelrodR.H.(2017) LeadershipandSelf-Confidence.In:MarquesJ.,DhimanS.(eds) LeadershipToday.
SpringerTextsinBusinessandEconomics.Springer,Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31036-
7_17
Chatwani,N 2017, Distributed Leadership:The Dynamicsof BalancingLeadershipwithFollowership,
SpringerInternational PublishingAG,ProQuest eBook Central,
<https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/detail.action?docID=5103855#>
de Vries,R.E., Pathak,R. D., & Paquin,A.R. (2011). The paradox of powersharing:Participative
charismaticleaders havesubordinateswith moreinstead of lessneed forleadership,EuropeanJournal of
Work and Organizational Psychology, 20(6),779–804.
<https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2010.509923>
Durbin,A.(2015), Leadership:Researchfindings,practice andskills,CengageLearning,US.
Ferraris, A-V 2015, ‘Lead from the front: Participative Leadership’, The Journal of Thoracic
and Cardiovascular Surgery, vol. 150, no. 6, pp. 1413-1415, viewed 18 September 2020,
Science Direct database.
Gene Klann,(Mar.2010), Characterstudy strengtheningtheheartof good leadership,
https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/lia.1319
Goleman, D 2000, ‘Leadership that Gets Results’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 78, no. 2,
pp. 78-90, viewed 18 September 2020.
Kirkpatrick, S-A & Locke, E-A 1991, ‘Leadership: Do traits matter?’, The Executive, vol. 5,
no. 2, pp. 48, viewed 18 September 2020, ProQuest database.

14. Smyth,H 2014, Relationship Managementand theManagementof Projects,1stedn,Routledge,
Oxfordshire,England,viewed 10 September2020,
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/rmit/reader.action?docID=1775294
WorldEconomicForum (Oct.2020), The Future of JobsReport2020, from
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2020.pdf
Yarbro, J.,& Ventura,M.(2018). Skills for Today:WhatWe Know aboutTeaching and Assessing Self-
Management. London:Pearson.<https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-
com/global/Files/efficacy-and-research/skills-for-today/Self-Management-FullReport.pdf>