xxx | Leadership Action Plan | 5/2/19 Leadership Action Plan xxxxx Leadership in Organizations May 2, 2019 Leadership is both an art and a skill. Some people are naturally gifted leaders while others must learn and practice the skills. I have always been someone who likes to contribute to the conversation or project in a meaningful way, but I do not tend to take charge or drive the task forward. I started my current job about seven months ago and I am not a manager or a leader by assignment. As I have become more comfortable with my role in the office and my interactions with colleagues, I am starting to look for opportunities to lead. The readings from class provide both a theoretical and practical foundation for this leadership action plan which I hope to implement between now and the end of my performance year. Through previous leadership experiences, I started to develop my style, and this course has helped me understand what I should change to be a more effective leader. I tend to default to a combination of Goleman’s (2002) coercive and affiliative styles. I tell my team members “go do this” and hope they will do so because I have invested in building positive relationships based on trust and open communication. Goleman (2000) has taught me that I will be more successful using the authoritative and coaching styles. In my experience as a team member, I know I am most invested when a leader says “come with me” and then takes the time to help me develop the necessary skills to succeed. I need to work harder to take these approaches to leadership rather than fall back on my comfortable but less effective patterns. Style alone is not enough – leaders must also have substance. Good leaders know how to use influence and the power of persuasion to guide their teams toward the desired end result. Cialdini (2001) talks about six principles of persuasion and of them, I think the most critical is the principle of liking. People are much more inclined to follow and work hard for a leader they like. Throughout my career, I have found it is fairly easy and highly beneficial to be liked. I’ll try to smile and say hello when passing people in the halls, find non-work commonalities like favorite lunch spots, offer simple compliments, and say thank you. These small efforts have gone a long way toward building good will and this is critical to my job since I am often asking my colleagues to provide me with information or attend meetings I arrange. I feel I can improve my powers of persuasion by capitalizing more on Cialdini’s (2001) principle of expertise. I am one of only a handful of people in my office without an advanced degree, and this is also true of the people I interact with outside the office. While I cannot add letters after my name quite yet, I can derive authority from other expertise and make that clear to people. For example, most of these same colleagues have worked on Capitol Hill so mentioning my ...

1. xxx | Leadership Action Plan | 5/2/19
Leadership Action Plan
xxxxx
Leadership in Organizations
May 2, 2019

2. Leadership is both an art and a skill. Some people are
naturally gifted leaders while others must learn and practice the
skills. I have always been someone who likes to contribute to
the conversation or project in a meaningful way, but I do not
tend to take charge or drive the task forward. I started my
current job about seven months ago and I am not a manager or a
leader by assignment. As I have become more comfortable with
my role in the office and my interactions with colleagues, I am
starting to look for opportunities to lead. The readings from
class provide both a theoretical and practical foundation for this
leadership action plan which I hope to implement between now
and the end of my performance year.
Through previous leadership experiences, I started to
develop my style, and this course has helped me understand
what I should change to be a more effective leader. I tend to
default to a combination of Goleman’s (2002) coercive and
affiliative styles. I tell my team members “go do this” and hope
they will do so because I have invested in building positive
relationships based on trust and open communication. Goleman
(2000) has taught me that I will be more successful using the
authoritative and coaching styles. In my experience as a team
member, I know I am most invested when a leader says “come
with me” and then takes the time to help me develop the
necessary skills to succeed. I need to work harder to take these
approaches to leadership rather than fall back on my
comfortable but less effective patterns.
Style alone is not enough – leaders must also have

3. substance. Good leaders know how to use influence and the
power of persuasion to guide their teams toward the desired end
result. Cialdini (2001) talks about six principles of persuasion
and of them, I think the most critical is the principle of liking.
People are much more inclined to follow and work hard for a
leader they like. Throughout my career, I have found it is fairly
easy and highly beneficial to be liked. I’ll try to smile and say
hello when passing people in the halls, find non-work
commonalities like favorite lunch spots, offer simple
compliments, and say thank you. These small efforts have gone
a long way toward building good will and this is critical to my
job since I am often asking my colleagues to provide me with
information or attend meetings I arrange.
I feel I can improve my powers of persuasion by
capitalizing more on Cialdini’s (2001) principle of expertise. I
am one of only a handful of people in my office without an
advanced degree, and this is also true of the people I interact
with outside the office. While I cannot add letters after my
name quite yet, I can derive authority from other expertise and
make that clear to people. For example, most of these same
colleagues have worked on Capitol Hill so mentioning my three
and a half years there helps build commonality and make me
more of an equal. People respect the Representatives I worked
for, helping to validate my expertise and my worthiness of a
seat at the table. I need to be more willing to draw attention to
this background.
As an employee, I have been most willing to follow leaders
who know how to motivate, cultivate talent, and give people the
tools to thrive. When given the opportunity to lead, I will draw
on a motivational tool I have found very useful in my career -
setting goals and following through on them. Latham and Locke
(1979) provide an eye-opening look into the power of goals.
They show that goals are a critical factor to motivating all
levels of employees whether the goals are set by management or
set through a participatory process including the employee. My
current trade association depends highly on goals at the

4. organizational, department and individual level. Compared to
my previous jobs where I was told to “do my best,” or “make
the member look good,” setting my own goals and being
rewarded for achieving them has made me a more motivated and
productive worker. When I am in a management position, I will
ensure my employees set ambitious but achievable goals with
my support and encouragement.
Another key to leading productive and motivated
employees is to ensure that employees are appropriately
rewarded for the tasks they are supposed to complete. Kerr
(2001) teaches how tricky this task can be. Often, incentive
structures will reward behavior A, even though the desired
behavior is B. For example, companies often reward the highly
visible behavior of being physically present in the office, but
they struggle to reward creativity and ingenuity because those
desired behaviors are less obvious. As a leader, I will address
this problem in two ways. The first is by lessening the emphasis
on physical presence through structured flexible work
agreements such as a day of telework per week. The second is
by encouraging employees’ to set goals around the less visible
metrics, even though they are harder to measure, and then to
evaluate them accordingly. This approach requires a higher-
than-average degree of trust in employees, but giving them more
room to be autonomous and creative will result in higher self-
worth and productivity. I want to foster these traits in my
teams, just as my boss does now.
Employees are also most likely to thrive when given the
opportunity to work to their full potential in a supportive
environment on an effective team. As Hackman (1987) explains,
the success of work groups depends on three related factors
including the amount of effort put into the task, the knowledge
and skill of each member, and the strategy by which the group
approaches the task. Although I am not a leader yet, my boss is
coaching me on how to build effective teams. In our office, that
generally involves bringing together the most appropriate
lobbyists and policy subject matter experts based on the topic at

5. hand. My department includes about 60 people so creating
teams often requires careful analysis. When giving the
opportunity to lead, I’ll focus on building stronger teams by
ensuing the organizational context provides task specific
performance objectives in addition to broad yearly performance
goals, something our current teams often lack. In my opinion,
building effective teams is one of the most difficult but most
important aspects of leadership and I know I have a lot of room
to improve in this area.
A key responsibility of a leader is preventing groupthink, a
trap even the most optimized teams must be cautious to avoid.
As Janis (1971) explains, groupthink occurs when group
members are so determined to create an amicable atmosphere
that they coalesce around an idea without realistically
considering alternative courses of action. For better and worse,
I am a people-pleaser and will self-censor to avoid creating
conflict especially around colleagues who outrank me in the
office hierarchy. When given the opportunity to lead, I will
need to overcome this tendency, and Janis (1971) has a lot of
remedies for avoiding the groupthink trap. I will try to start all
conversations in a neutral manner, and I will also tell my team
members upfront that they are encouraged to question my ideas
and those of their peers without any risk of negative
repercussions. I’ll also bring in outside experts to add a fresh
perspective and break through any biases or blind spots the core
group may have inadvertently developed. Most importantly, I’ll
hold a second-chance meeting before the final work-product is
submitted to give anyone involved one last opportunity to raise
questions and concerns. Many business decisions have far-
reaching implications and as a leader, I will need to be very
careful not to harm the credibility of my team’s work by failing
to explore all possible solutions to a problem.
Leaders and their teams do not exist in a vacuum. Therefore, it
is import for leaders to network in order to further their goals
both small and large. Ibarra and Hunter (2007) explain that
good leaders must participate in three forms of networking:

6. operational networking within an organization, personal
networking outside the organization and strategic networking to
leverage operational and personal networks toward future goals.
As a 23-year-old starting my career in congressional politics I
quickly learned the necessity of operational and personal
networking. I will be a better leader if I improve my strategic
networking skills and leverage my connections when trying to
set and achieve ambitious goals for the future benefit of the
company. My job now involves strategic networking at an
organizational level – building coalitions between my
organization and like-minded others to advance shared goals. If
I can translate these skills back down to a personal level, my
future teams and I will thrive.
Business is about profit, but it is nevertheless important
that leaders earn profit while abiding by a code of ethics and
values. Badaracco (1992) argues leaders operate within four
spheres of commitment as a person, as an economic agent, as a
company leader and beyond the firm’s boundaries. They keep
these commitments by answering four questions about
consequences, rights, integrity and practicality. Good leaders
learn to weigh these often-contradictory principles when making
decisions. Wrestling with these contradictions is absolutely a
skill that takes time, practice and good mentorship to master.
This type of decision-making is probably the aspect of
leadership with which I am the least comfortable because I have
had authority to give final sign-off. My current boss is a
decision-maker and a wonderful mentor. Going forward, I need
to better tap into the expertise she has built over a twenty-five-
year career in order to prepare myself for a future promotion
onto the leadership ladder.
The world of business is a pyramid, and very few people
make it to the top. Right now, I am finding success as a mid-
level professional staff member at a trade association. By
executing this leadership plan at my current level, I hope to
prove I am worthy of more formal leadership responsibilities.
This goal I have set for myself is ambitious and challenging. It

7. will not be easy, but striving toward my goal of becoming a
leader and manager helps motivate me to be a better employee
every day. I have a lot to learn, but I work hard, and I know my
effort will ultimately pay off for me, my colleagues and my
employers, present and future.
References
Badaracco, J. L. (1992). Business Ethics: Four Spheres of
Executive Responsibility. California Management Review,
34(3), 64-79.
Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Harnessing the science of persuasion.
Harvard Business Review, 79(9) 72-79.
Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard
Business Review, 78(2), 78-90.
Hackman, J. R. 1987. The design of work teams. In Lorsch J.,
Handbook of Organizational
Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Ibarra, H, & Hunter, M (2007). How leaders create and use
networks. Harvard Business Review, 85(1), 40-47.
Janis, I. L. (1971). Groupthink. Psychology Today Magazine, 5,
43-46, 74-76
Kerr, S. (2001). On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for
B. In Staw, B. M. (Ed.) Psychological Dimensions of
Organizational Behavior. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Prentice Hall(Original work published in 1975, Academy of
Management Journal, 18 (4), 769-783)
Latham, G. P., & Locke, E. A. (1979). Goal setting—a
motivational technique that works. Organizational Dynamics,
Autumn, 68-80.
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