Final Project:

Leadership Development Plan

Nicole Savinda
Seton Hill University
March 2021
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Summarize

Leadership is a subject that I admittedly did not know much about when this class

began. My leadership experience started when I was 20 years old. I was working at a small

neighborhood grocery store. I had been working there for a couple years when I was asked to

switch departments. While working in the deli department, my manager decided to retire. I

was asked to take over her position. With no management experience at all, I was a little leery

but I took the offer. Since then, I have been the manager of two pizza shops and I am currently

the Senior Teller at my bank. While I have had a few different leadership roles in different

industries, I had no idea that there was so much more to learn.

Being a leader is more than just telling people what to do. Leadership is about seeing

that things need to be done and knowing how to get those things done. “Leadership is about

managing energy”; not only in yourself but in those working around you. (Clawson, p 3) As a

leader, you have to be able to effectively communicate and be willing to step up when you see

something isn’t going as well as it should be.

One of the first things that stood out to me was that there could be different types of

leadership. I mean, I knew that different people lead in different ways. I just had no idea that

there were actual terms to describe these different methods. Level One, Two and Three

Leaders have such different styles of leading. I had never even heard of these levels before.

While Level One Leadership is not the ideal place to be, a lot of leaders start out there. A level

one leader does not care what other people think or how they feel. (Clawson, p 213) They are

geared more toward commanding people to do what they want. Level two leaders are focused
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more on logic and data. Last, but not least, is the level three leader. This is the leader who

focuses on his people. He wants his people to be engaged and to do the best that they can do.

This is the leadership style that encourages relationships in the workplace. VABEs are very

important in level three leadership. This is the values, assumptions, beliefs and expectations

about the way the world is or should be. (Clawson, p 26) Level Three Leadership is where

leaders should strive to be.

Something else we learned about was emotional intelligence. Working with a

classmate, we did an assessment of ourselves. The topics we were assessing were intellectual

intelligence (IQ), emotional intelligence (EQ), social intelligence (SQ) and change intelligence

(CQ). It was interesting to see how I fit into each of these categories and where I could use

some improvement. The areas where I rated myself the highest was IQ and EQ. IQ is an

indicator of mental capacity. (Clawson, p 156) EQ is the ability to manage your own emotions.

(Clawson, p 157) The areas where I could use a little improvement were SQ and CQ. SQ is

recognizing and managing the emotions in interpersonal relationships. (Clawson, p 161) CQ is

recognizing the need for change, understand the change process, and the skill in managing the

change process. In thinking back to past experiences, I realized that I need to work on

managing my emotions a little better. I tend to let things build up instead of dealing with them

at the time. This does not always end well. This is definitely something that I will work on in

the future. If I can’t properly deal with my emotions, how will I be able to deal with other

people’s?

Morals, values and community are a big part of leadership. To be an effective leader, a

person must have a good moral background. We were asked to do a moral assessment of a
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leader at the organization where we work. I had two of my coworkers participate in this as

well. We rated our regional manager. It was no surprise to see that their feelings about this

particular manager fell pretty much right in line with mine. Unfortunately, this is something

that we have discussed prior to this assignment. Employees need to be able to trust that their

manager is going to treat them with respect, fairness, and honesty. A manager with a good

moral foundation will strive to get more energy out of their employees and will recognize the

potential of each individual. (Clawson, p 83) In talking to two leaders in my organization about

the values that a leader should possess, their answers were almost exactly the same. Honesty.

Plain and simple, a leader must always be honest with themselves and their employees. If you

are not honest 100% of the time, you will lose the respect of everyone around you. Community

is a very important aspect of leadership as well. “We learn our VABEs from our parents, our

friends, our teachers and our experiences.” (Clawson, p 141) The type of community we grow

up in has such a big impact on the values we hold. If we grow up seeing people work hard and

do the best they can, we will also strive for that success.

Strategic thinking and decision making is a big part of leadership. Strategic thinking

involves being able to come up with new and innovative ideas. This is something that is very

helpful as a leader. You must be able to “think outside the box”. Leaders and their employees

should be encouraged to come up with new ideas or ways of doing things to improve the

company. Decision making is just as important. As a leader, you are required to make

decisions that are often not easy to make. This is an area where some people disagree. In my

leadership interviews, Clem and Heidi had very different responses to my questions about this.

While I would consider both of these people to be excellent leaders, we see that every person
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has a different opinion of how things should be done. And that’s okay. Strategic thinking is

something that I could use a little improvement on from time to time. I need to focus on

prioritizing the things that I am involved in. As far as decision making goes, I feel like I am pretty

good at that most of the time. But there are times when I let my feelings get in the way and I

don’t truly listen to everything before I decide.

In learning about leadership, we briefly touched on the gender issue. Are men superior

to women when it comes to leadership? Do men and women lead differently? Of course, over

time we have seen women taking the lead in positions that were once held only by men.

However, many believe that there is still a divide between the men and women. Both of my

leaders agreed that men and women lead differently. However, Heidi brought up a good point

that men “tend to be direct” and leave out the feelings; while women usually consider other

people’s feelings more. In regards to that, men should “put people ahead of themselves, don’t

command and focus on elevating others”. (Chamorro-Premuzec, 2020) Both Clem and Heidi

agreed that either a man or a woman can be a good leader. This is a statement that I also agree

with. I have had both male and female managers. I believe that they all have their good and

bad moments and we can learn from them all.

Vision

An organization’s vision is a look at what the business will be if the mission is successful.

If could include things such as financial conditions, customers, public reputation, internal

processes and employees. (Clawson, p 109) A vision is what the organization is striving to

achieve…a target for success.

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A personal vision statement will provide a look at where I wish for life to take me. It is

sort of like a set of goals that you wish to achieve. Having a vision of where you want to go is so

important for any person. If you don’t have an idea of where you want to go, how are you

supposed to get there?

My Vision Statement

My career goal is to become an accountant or hold an accounting position within an

organization upon graduating from college. I will continue to work hard to make sure that I

reach my goals. I will continue to learn and improve myself both mentally and physically. I

intend to live a healthier life and teach my children to do the same.

Goals

My first goal is to graduate college. I know this probably doesn’t seem like a real

challenge. However, I have a lot going on in life right now that makes this very important to

me. I started college over 20 years ago. After many years, I need to finish this…for myself and

for my family. My husband and I have four children who are getting to the age where the idea

of college is in their head right now. Not only do I want them to go to college, but I want them

to succeed. I don’t want them to drop out like I did and then try to go back years later.

Dropping out of college was one of the worst decisions I ever made and it is beyond difficult to

go back after so many years. So, my goal is to finally graduate college in May of 2022.

My second goal is to get an accounting position with a good employer after graduation.

I first fell in love with accounting in high school when I took a basic accounting class. It is

something that I have missed over the last several years working in different industries. I am a
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number person and I like the organization that it requires. Getting a job in accounting after

graduation will prove to myself that I can do what I set my mind to. My ultimate goal would be

owning my own business. My husband and I have talked about this for years. This is something

that I would like to achieve within the next 10 years.

My third goal is to start a charitable organization. Dealing with my husband’s cancer for

the last 5 ½ years has really got me thinking about all of the families going through the same

thing. I would love to start and run a charity to raise money to assist families in my community.

Most charities that raise money for cancer send the money directly to research facilities. That

is not necessarily the only place it is needed. Speaking from experience, I know that families

dealing with cancer often need help to cover costs not covered by insurance or deductibles. It

is such a burden to these families and they are already dealing with enough stress. I don’t

really have a timeline for this goal since my family and I are currently in this situation. But it is

something that I would love to do some day.

Famous Leader

I chose Oprah Winfrey as my famous leader. I think that she is such a great role model

for girls today. Born in 1954, in Mississippi, Oprah had a very difficult childhood. She was

sexually abused at a very young age by multiple men, relatives and friends of her mother.

(Oprah Winfrey, 2021) After moving to Nashville to live with her father, her life began to turn

around. Oprah attended Tennessee State University and began to work in the television and

radio industries.
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As a woman, and a woman of color, Oprah had to work very hard to get where she is

today. Not only has she had multiple television shows, but she now has her own network. On

top of that, she is part of the Weight Watcher family. Her weight has been the topic of

conversation of her many years of fame. As a spokeswoman for WW, she has revealed some of

her health issues to the public and has overcome them with her weight loss.

In 2007, Oprah opened the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.

This is a boarding school for girls in grades 8 – 12. The school provides education and

leadership opportunities to girls from poverty-stricken areas of South Africa. She does not want

these girls to struggle the way she did growing up.

“According to Forbes magazine, Winfrey was the richest African American of the 20 th

Century.” (Winfrey, 2021) “Life magazine hailed her as the most influential woman of her

generation.” (Winfrey, 2021) Oprah was determined to not let her bad childhood lead her down

the wrong path. With hard work and dedication, she has made a great life for herself. Not only

has she succeeded, but she has taken it upon herself to help others who might have fallen prey

to the poverty they were born into.

Service

I guess I already kind of answered this in my goals section. With my family’s experience

with cancer over the last few years, it has become clear that something needs done to help

people in this situation. I would love to be able to help them…once we win the battle

ourselves. My husband has been fighting cancer since 2016. I never realized just how much

cancer treatments cost and how little health insurance pays for. While I am grateful that we
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had health insurance, the co-pays and deductibles are ridiculous. Without going into too much

detail, I would like to share just a little information for anyone who may not be aware of the

cost of treatment. The very first treatment that my husband had to take was an injection that

he had to take twice a month for a year. Each injection cost over $16,000…yes, that’s right…

$32,000 a month!

Now, keep in mind that many cancer patients fight their disease for years and years.

Even if you are just paying co-pays and deductibles, the cost to the family is enormous. I would

love to be able to help local families dealing with cancer or life-threatening diseases. Most

charities that raise money for cancer send the funds directly to cancer research facilities. I think

there is a need for the funds in the local community. Most of these families will never see a

penny of what is sent to research facilities. And many of them, unfortunately, will not survive

the disease they are fighting.

The charity I would like to see would raise money and use it to help the families directly.

Whether they need it to pay for gas to get back and forth to treatment, to pay for groceries for

the family, or to take a much-needed vacation; every family needs a helping hand once in a

while. I think that this kind of service would be so great for my community. Hopefully, once my

husband has won his battle, I am able to see this come to fruition.

Conclusion

I have learned so much about leadership in this short period of time. To think that just 8

weeks ago, I thought that leadership was simply being someone who is in charge of a group of

people. Now, I know that a leader is required to do so much more than that. A leader must be
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an effective communicator. He/she must be a strategic thinker and a good decision maker.

He/she must have good morals and values. An effective leader must always have respect for

his/her employees and be able to manager his/her emotions as well as those of the employees.

And lastly, a good leader must always do what is the best thing for the organization and not

what is best for himself/herself. If a leader has all of these qualities, he/she will be respected

by his coworkers and will be successful at his/her job.

My favorite chapter in the book would be Chapter 3: Levels of Leadership. The reason I

chose this one is because I had no idea that there were different levels of leadership. I think

that this is the chapter that I learned the most. I had never heard of VABEs before. Reading

about Level One, Two and Three leaders really opened my eyes up about past managers that I

have had. It’s funny how you don’t really think about their managing skills at the time. It’s

interesting to look back on that now and rate them on how good of a job they did.

One of the learning objectives of this course was to communicate well and work

effectively in a team environment. I believe that I met that objective in a couple ways. First of

all, with our peer assessment assignment where we worked with a classmate on a paper. We

were required to work together to discuss our self-assessments and how we could improve on

areas where we didn’t score high. Another example of this would be when I interviewed two

leaders for another assignment. I had to communicate and work with them in the interview

process in order to get the responses needed for my paper. If they had questions for me, I

needed to be prepared to answer and the same goes for them.

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Another learning objective is to recognize that personal leadership is an ongoing process

of being present to the world. Leadership requires continuous learning. The world is always

changing and we must be too. When this class started, I had no idea what all was involved in

leadership. Through reading the text, talking to leaders and analyzing the responses of

classmates, I learned so much more about it. An effective leader must always be thinking and

learning.

Some areas where I need to continue learning and growing are being a strategic thinker,

making decisions and controlling emotions. These are all areas that I didn’t realize needed

improvement until we covered it in class. As far as strategic thinking, I tend to get an idea in my

head and find it hard to see past it. I need to learn to listen to other people’s ideas fully before

setting my mind on something. Decision making falls in the same path. Once I get an idea in

my head, sometimes I don’t want to hear other’s opinions. I need to be more open-minded and

let other people give me suggestions from time to time. Making a decision doesn’t always have

to be hard. Last, but not least, is controlling emotions. I have always been an emotional

person. The problem with that is that I tend to hold in my feelings until I just can’t keep them

inside anymore. Instead of doing this, I need to learn to deal with my emotions as they come.

Telling people how I feel at the time would be a great start!

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References

Chamorro-Premuzec, Tomas and Gallop, Cindy. (2020) 7 Leadership Lessons Men Can Learn

From Women. Harvard Business Review.

https://hbr.org/2020/04/7-leadership-lessons-men-can-learn-from-women

Clawson, James G. (2012) Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface. 5th Edition.

Prentice Hall. Upper Saddle River, NJ.

Oprah Winfrey Biography. (2021) Retrieved from:

https://www.biography.com/media-figure/oprah-winfrey