Leadership Assessment & Development Plan (LADP)

OBHR001 Leadership and Team Building

Lim Qian Guo
Introduction
How often have we heard the comment that he or she is a born leader?
Certainly, there are some characteristics found in some people that seem to
put them in a leadership position. However, a person is born a leader or
develop skills and abilities to become a leader is debatable. I do not regard
myself as a born leader. In spite that, when I got my first leadership role, I
enjoyed the responsibility that comes with being a leader.
Ever since I was young, my parents always told me that I tend to direct
people around the house to get things done for me. In kindergarten school,
my friends tend to look up to me. I will be the one who give orders and
organized my friend in the playgroup. Subsequently, I held numerous
leadership position throughout my school life. Despite my enthusiasm, life is
not always rainbows and sunshine. I learn the hard way that leadership is not
simply ordering people around to get something done. Mistakes were made
along the way. And in every mistake, there is always a potential for growth.
Leadership and mistakes become indispensable to each other.

Personality profiling: MYERS-BRIGGS TYPE INDICATOR (MBTI)

As a INFJs, I share a unique combination of traits. I am soft spoken, but I do
have strong opinions and will fight tirelessly for an idea that I believe in. I
also tend to be idealistic and because of my judging preference, I do not idle
and wait for dreams to happen. I take concrete steps to my goal. This can be
evidenced by my worldview that hard work is needed for one to reach its
goal. When I was the basketball captain of my youth club during polytechnic
days. I planned and organized every training session to improve every player

in the team. Every session came with intense training to take a step forward
towards winning a championship.
Like a typical INFJ, I am deeply concerned about my relationship with my
members. I am blessed with the empathic abilities that often found in Fs.
Therefore, I have deep insights of complex characters and thoughts. It was
easy to make connections with others with the ability to feel and think in the
shoes of others. Despite the tough training, I always encourage my team in
warm and sensitive language to get them to feel good about themselves.
Hence, they were more willing to accept the tough training every single
week. However, the combination of these characteristics results in me
always taking up disproportionate amount of responsibility as a leader and
sometimes, it landed me in trouble. In spite of my best effort to balance my
life and work. At a point of time, I was also the head of an organizing
committee. I had new unfamiliar members who just came onboard to the
team.

My

lack

of

trust

in

the

new

members

had

put

me

into

micromanagement mode of every part of the operation. Consequently, few

members of the team were unhappy with my leadership and caused a huge
commotion. I was young and inexperienced in managing that first big
project. I felt really guilty that I did not put more faith into them. From that
incident, I realized that managing a team or an organization is like flying a
kite. Flying a kite is not always a smooth-sailing task. We should let it fly on
its own when the wind is blowing at the right direction. However, when the
wind start to blow at a different direction and things are starting to go wrong,
this would be the right time to step in and provide assistance by pulling the
kite before it falls to the ground.

MANGERIAL LEADERSHIP ROLES

This semester I am the co-head of the organizing committee for SMU Peer
Helper outreach event in school. Being a Peer Helper, we are trained in skills

who work closely with counsellors at student wellness center. We provide a

listening ear and emotional support for peers during times of need.
Additionally, Peer helpers organizes several campaigns and events every
semester, which seek to promote and raise awareness of the SMU
community to take care of their personal mental health and well-being. As
the head of the committee, I was involved in multiple leadership roles which I
strive to bring success to the project.

INTERPERSONAL: LEADER & LIASON

One of the priorities of a leader role is the effective management of the
committee. After the committee was formed, my number one priority was to
hold a meeting and immediately dived into the details of the project. I know
most of the members since they were from the club. Based on their ability, I
allocated task based on their strengths and weaknesses. Every Friday, I will
have a short meeting with the members on their progress. No matter what
they are doing, I will always do it with them. A leader who walk the talk and
not simply ordering people around. Furthermore, I also played the liaison role
which I have to work with various stakeholders from the school and the
public. For the upcoming event, the peer helpers are getting the students to
write letters to themselves about their goals like a New Year resolution. On
top of that, we are giving out free ice creams as welfare. Using my
relationship with one of the ice cream supplier, I managed to obtain ice
cream supplies at a lower price that fit the events budget.

INFORMATIONAL: MONITOR & DISSEMINATOR

Despite my seniority, my experience as a leader has thought me to be
humble and be receptive to advice from the members who possess more
knowledge in various roles. I encourage them to constantly provide

feedbacks to my plans. I am always open to new ideas and suggestions from

the members. Using the information that I have gathered, I will analyse
various problems and opportunities during the discussion. This allows me to
better understand events outside the project. After the discussion, I will
disseminate information to different units to get them to execute the new
task.

DECISIONAL: ENTREPRENEUR
Getting a leadership role in the club is a privilege. The privilege has enable
me to get inside the in-group and observe various functions of the club.
Every semester, the club will hold two events for the school. Before each
event, our club logistic director will have to email SMUSA to get the
necessary logistic support like tables and chairs. On some occasion, in spite
our effort to loan the items, the club is not able to get the items needed. As a
result, it affected the plan and have to make changes accordingly. It creates
many headaches for the club whenever this happened.
However, for the upcoming event, I was able to negotiate for the ice cream
at a cheaper price. Hence, I proposed to the executive committee that we set
aside the remaining budget for new tables and chairs so that we will not
have to worry about logistic for future events anymore.

LEADERSHIP MODELS
My experience in various leadership settings has made me realized that
humans has a strong need to feel important, to have a sense of meaning and
purpose in life and work. Being a leaders is also being sensitive to deeper
emotions of the members and get them to rise above and beyond anything
that they may have accomplished in the past.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN JOINT-LEADERSHIP MODEL

Using the two leadership models, I believe that I skews towards EmployeeCentred Leadership end of the continuum. On a scale from 0 to 10, my
leadership style is likely to be 6.5, with 0 being a Job-centred leader, and 10
being a Employee-Centred leader.
Before the start of the outreach project, I asked every member in the
committee to write on a piece of paper on what do they hope to achieve out
of this project. What are the areas that they would like to improve on? The
purpose of this short exercise was to get them to reflect and ask themselves
questions to find meaning in this project. As a leader, I hope that I was able
to meet their needs and build a strong support system for them grow and
mature through this process. I also constantly encouraged them to provide
me with constructive feedback for improving the outreach event as a whole.
My willingness to head and sought advice from my team illustrate my
Employee-Centre Leadership.
Having said that, there was also times which I had to make important and
unpopular decisions on behalf of the group, thereby illustrating the JobCentred Leadership traits. For instance, majority of the committee would
prefer churros than ice cream as welfare for the event. Most believed that
churros would bring a huge crowd to the booth. However, having churros for

the event is impractical as limited space and manpower will caused a

bottleneck in the production process. Usually, students would prefer welfare
that is convenient for them to grab and go. Therefore, I was against the idea
and autocratically chose ice cream despite the popular demand.

Thus, I

evaluate myself as a 6.5 on the scale.

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP MODEL & LEADERSHIP GRID

During polytechnic days, my leadership style for old me can be classified

under High Structure & Low Consideration on the Ohio State University
leadership model and authority compliance leader under Leadership Grid.
After the transformation, which I become older and wiser, I developed into
High Structure & High Consideration and Team leader. Assuming the new
model as a 10x10 grid where at the centre is considered as the balanced
between the characteristics, I estimate the new me to be in the region of
(7,7).

Before the transformation, I was considered as authorirty compliance leader

who is highly concern for production and low concern for people. For
instance, during a meeting for open house event, one of the members in the
committee made a suggestion to have game booths to encourage active
participation. However, I quickly abate his ideas without consideration
because it did not align to my original intention. As a result, I strained the
relationship with some of the committee members that eventually led to
more problems.
Nonetheless, experience has thought me well. I become aware of my own
weaknesses. I become a team leader who open to opinion and feedback. I
realized the fact that one does not need to sacrificed relationship with your
peers or subbordinate in order for me to reach a goal.

LEADERSHIP ATTITUDE: X & Y THEORY

Before I came to the university, I was immature and inexperience 19 years
old who was part of the executive committee for events in my polytechnic.
With similar characteristics as described in leadership model, I displayed
both Theory X and Theory Y traits. However, at that age, I was more inclined
towards being a Theory X leader who tend to view their subordinates as
someone who dislike work and must be closely supervised. As part of the
logistic department, the team and I worked in a pressured environment to
deliver result at every event. The circumstances that I find myself in at that
point time had no rooms for other peoples thoughts and feelings. I became
autocratic and kept a close watch of everyones work, breathing down their
neck all the time. As the project went on, my approach towards work got me
to a bad place with my fellow school mates. My experience forced me to
reflect on my approach towards my relationship with others while working on
the project.

The hard lesson has thought me to become a better leader. After that
experience, I changed my leadership style and became more inclined
towards a Theory Y leader. I decided to trust my team more instead of
micromanaging every aspect of the project. I employed participative
leadership styles and using internal motivation and rewards to encourage my
members. Furthermore, many studies has shown that mutual bond of trust
and respect acts as a catalyst that creates high performance. Subordinates
who feel trusted by their leader felt more responsible and oblige to repay the
faith that the leader has shown them. As a result, they strive to do better in
the task given.

CONCLUSION
In late Mr Lee Kuan Yews words: You begin your journey not knowing where
it will take you. You have plans, you have dreams, but every now and again
you have to take uncharted roads, face impassable
In conclusion, being a leader is no easy task. From the get-go, I do not regard
myself as born nor a good leader. I developed the qualities of a good leader
through my mistakes. I realized the importance of good leadership. Leaders
who walks the talk will earn the respect from others. Leaders who have an
exemplary characters makes him trustworthy. Leaders who have faith in his
subordinates will gain trust from them. These are the lessons that I learnt
from my experience.
Those hard lessons I learned many years ago has help me become a better
leader today. Despite my shortcomings, I was fortunate to have met great
people who was there to advise me during my tenure as the logistic head.
The responsibility of being a leader motivated me to always push myself and
that experience has made me a better person.