Reflection and Self-Awareness in Leadership Development

One effective method used to enhance self-awareness and clarifying where you are now in your leadership capabilities is through reflection (Jones & Bennett, 2012). Applying this method of reflection to my leadership development has made me assess both my capabilities and learning needs as a leader. This has consequently allowed me to become aware of my strengths, attributes and limitations as a practice leader. Self-awareness is crucial in refining and developing leadership performance. One way that I was able to reflect on this was by doing a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis refers to the examination of one’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. It is a tool used to identify internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as its external

By having a clear vision, it will allow an opportunity to form a plan that can be worked towards on a daily basis to ensure that the vision is realised (Jones & Bennett, 2012). Looking at where I am now in my leadership journey, my vision focuses on my own personal development and where I would like to be as a practice leader in the 12 months post graduation. My personal vision is ‘to become a confident and effective leader’. In order to achieve this I have identified four objectives that I aim to achieve within the next 12 months post graduation. These include of: being able to communicate assertively and further develop my interpersonal skills, to be able to effectively manage my workload as a leader, to develop a leadership style and to be perceived as a

I will need to do this within the next six months. Communication plays a big role in leadership and getting the best out of the role as a good leader. There are communication-training courses that are designed for leadership roles it helps individuals improve the skills they already portray (Illumine, 2014). Effective leadership is essentially a matter of communication and depends on effective communication. It requires using communication abilities and resources to create and deliver messages that guide, direct or inspire others, as well as to connect positively with other people (Barret, 2010). My second objective I aim to achieve within the next six months is to effectively manage my workload as a leader. I could do this by setting out goals every week, or scheduling my priorities. Managing leadership workload in the human services field comes down to time management and understanding how to best priorities leadership tasks. It is key to use prioritization and time management skills in order to gain control of workload (Fried, Fottler & Johnson,