Personal Leadership and Learning Plan
DESCRIPTION For this paper, you are asked to reflect on the leadership learnings and experiences in your life to write a personal leadership story and learning plan. Reflecting upon life experiences from birth to the present day, you will create a leadership life story. Consider the ways in which various people, events, experiences, and opportunities have impacted the way you think about leadership to date. What does your leadership future hold? What steps and new experiences should you engage to achieve that leadership future? Use the following questions to remember and reflect on the foundational and growing experiences that create your story and learning plan.
Remember What is your first memory of a “leadership” experience? What is your earliest memory of a leader? What leadership roles (positional and non-positional) did you play in your family, in your community, in school, sports, or clubs and organizations, in spiritual or religious communities? Who encouraged or discouraged you to develop and practice your leadership skills? How did they do this? Reflect Do you consider yourself a leader? A change agent? Why or why not? What labels or titles do you self-identify with? How has your perspective of leadership changed over time? What events sparked changes in your leadership perspectives? What leadership lessons have you learned from these experiences? What images come to mind when you think of leadership qualities? Which qualities do you believe to be most important? What is your personal vision in life? What specific goals do you have to reach your vision? When reflecting on your leadership story, what stands out most to you? DETAILS Your paper should be 3-4 full pages double spaced, not including any cover pages or reference lists required by your style guide of choice (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.).
See our syllabus for specifics on our policy on written assignments. Be sure to include both in-text citations and a reference/works cited page appropriately formatted for all material taken directly or paraphrased from another source. This paper is worth 15 points. HELPFUL TIPS This assignment is meant to be reflective in nature. It is your opportunity to share part of your personal story about the people and events that have influenced you and your understanding of leadership (i.e. personal leadership story). Be sure to give strong reflection to BOTH your story and your future leadership learning plan. The assignment is also meant to give you an opportunity to be thoughtful about your future. Given what you know about and think of your personal leadership story to date, what else might you be interested in learning about leadership? What goals do you have for your future and what kinds of leadership experiences might you seek out in order to achieve those goals (i.e. learning plan). The questions in the assignment details should help prompt both the reflective and future orientation portions of your paper. They are meant to be helpful and provide guidance as you synthesize your reflective thoughts into your paper, not as prompts for you to create a Q&A-style paper. Although the assignment is situated within your personal experiences, you should always reference materials that you take directly or paraphrase from another source. If there are connections between your personal leadership story and any course materials, be sure to reference those and cite them appropriately. While this particular assignment is not meant as a research paper, and there is no requirement for a specific number of references as in future assignments, drawing connections between your personal insights and course materials is always a good technique to strengthen your paper. Be sure to proofread your paper and pay attention to your writing style, grammar, and syntax. Often, when writing papers that are more personal in nature, we can forget they are still academic papers. Avoid making your submission too informal, and remember to format it appropriately.
