How to Create a Leadership Development Plan

Submitted By: David Shoemaker I.
(Leadership)

HR leadership and executive leadership training both take a lot of practice and motivation. To become an effective leader, you must develop a plan. Whether or not you are ready to complete your own leadership development plan, there are a few tips and pointers that can help. A plan is an important part of getting where you want to go, whether you aim to improve your leadership style or change it completely. Regardless of what you want to do, it is
How to Create a Leadership Development Plan

crucial to make a plan in order to achieve your goal.

In both executive leadership training and HR leadership, future leaders are given the tools to become effective leaders in their chosen industries. For example, by the end of training you are advised to keep a list of the key pieces of knowledge you acquire throughout your career. Going through executive leadership training also prepares you to be able to describe each part of a development plan and to also be able to provide examples. In the process of developing a plan it is also helpful to explain the role of your colleagues, mentors and networks in the pursuit and accomplishment of your goals.

HR leadership training will prepare you to develop the strategies that will improve strategic, legal, ethical, and financial outcomes for your organization. HR leadership is very important to any organization and in order to be effective and successful in your career it is helpful to complete executive leadership training. Working in HR leadership can involve facing many complex problems, including managing the complexities of interpersonal dynamics at the most senior levels to foster strong leaders. Developing a leadership plan can be useful for working in HR leadership because it will allow you to assess your basic leadership skills.

The goal of developing a leadership plan in both HR leadership and executive leadership training is to help yourself develop those skills that you have not mastered yet. The first step to writing your plan is to choose a template method. The next step is to compose your plan. When composing your plan, you should first identify three goals you will pursue. Then document each goal on your development plan and write down as many ideas as possible that will help you in successfully completing each goal. These are also known as the strategies for development.

It is important to remember to set reasonable dates for accomplishing the steps and goals in your plan. This should be as realistic as it can be because you will be using this plan beyond training, and well into your career and future. It may be convenient to print a copy of your plan so that you may easily refer back to it as you complete steps. Keep in mind that this can be an ongoing professional plan that you can use throughout your career and you may not fully master all of the skills you listed. While documenting which skills you wish to develop, keep in mind that there is a cost to every skill. You should determine whether or not it is worth the cost before working towards it. Lastly, in HR leadership and executive leadership training, you should always remember the importance of mentors and networks. Heeding this advice will not only yield good results in your plan, but it will also be helpful for the success of your career.

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An Overview of Project Leadership and Project Management Training

Submitted By: David Shoemaker I.
(Leadership)

The traditional perception of project management looks at projects as goal-oriented systems created by managers and other administrators. These systems are often filled with ambiguity, technical complexity, and span many diverse goals that seem to be ever-changing. Project leadership attempts to organize this process and succeed in meeting goals. There are three major frameworks for defining project leadership: organizational, project, and individual. We cover these topics in a project management training.
An Overview of Project Leadership and Project Management Training

In order to be an effective project manager, it is essential to start with the basics. All projects begin with a specific need. We must develop a plan that specifies how the need can be met while still taking into consideration our time and resource constraints. We develop timelines with specifics tasks and cost estimates as well as ways to measure progress. Despite all of this careful preparation and planning, projects often don't stay on schedule; or perhaps fail to stick to their budgets; some do not deliver the desired results. Why?

One reason for these failures could be that the techniques we use to complete and plan the projects are inadequate. Another is that sometimes the techniques are improperly implemented. However, the most common reason for failure is that project leadership does not include sufficient time for uncertainty. Every project is different. We cannot implement the same processes and techniques for every project and expect things to run smoothly. Some projects will require more time in the planning phases and others during execution. In a project management training you will learn to account for uncertainty and develop plans that are realistic and thorough.

We start with organizational design theory. Most projects are undertaken by organizations. We need to look at how the organization was designed. We need to look at the fundamental goals of the organization, the environment in which we want to accomplish the goals, and the types of work needed to produce the product or service that we are trying to plan. This last part is important for project leadership. We call this aspect differentiation, meaning that we take big objectives and break them up into smaller tasks. Then the tasks are carried out by specialists (often in groups). After tackling differentiation, integration is the next step. All of these separate tasks that we defined for differentiation must fit together seamlessly at the end.

There are several different ways to approach handling both differentiation and integration. Sometimes it is best to work in a hierarchical structure and other times it is best to work in a team setting; sometimes we must combine the two approaches. Differentiation and integration are often the features that define the way an organization is structured, and it is important to understand those concepts in order to understand an entire organization. And once we understand those concepts we can better appreciate the roles that a project manager serves within such a complex structure. Concepts and strategies such as differentiation and integration make up the basis of a comprehensive project management training. At the end of such a course, you will have the skills needed to be an effective leader.

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