Personal Leadership Reflection Current Leadership Strengths and Potential Growth

Reflect on your current leadership strengths and areas of potential growth and create a personal development plan in a 6-9-page paper.

Introduction

Before one can begin to lead other people, they must first understand themselves, especially their strengths and weaknesses. For this assessment, you will have an opportunity to explore the concept of competency-based reflection. The ACHE Healthcare Executive Competency Tool will be a key component towards completing your assessment. This tool was developed by the Healthcare Leadership Alliance (HLA), which is comprised of six member organizations:

• American College of Healthcare Executives.
• American Association of Physician Leadership.
• American Organization of Nurse Executives.
• Healthcare Financial Management Association.
• Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society.
• Medical Group Management Association.

This collaborative effort between both clinical and administrative organizations suggests the importance and applicability of the tool across professions (Garman & Johnson, 2006).

The ACHE Healthcare Executive Competency Tool attempts to define the health care field by using five competency domains: communication and relationship management, leadership, professionalism, knowledge of the health care environment, and business skills and knowledge (Garman & Johnson, 2006).

Reference

Garman, A. N., & Johnson, M. P. (2006). Leadership competencies: An introduction. Journal of Healthcare Management, 51(1), 13–17.

Demonstration of Proficiency

By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the course competencies through the following assessment scoring guide criteria:

• Competency 1: Assess one’s leadership style in a professional setting.
  • Discuss the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool.
  • Determine strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.
  • Describe qualities needed by leaders.
  • Analyze personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.
  • Create a one-year personal development plan.
  • Develop a timeline for personal development plan.
• Competency 4: Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and respectful of the diversity, dignity, and integrity of others and is consistent with health care professionals.
  • Demonstrate effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.
  • Communicate in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically, with the correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

Preparation

In order to best prepare to complete this assessment, you will need to work through the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool. The assessment is broken up into five domains:

• Communication and relationship management.
• Leadership.
• Professionalism.
• Knowledge of the healthcare environment.
• Business skills and knowledge.

Take your time while completing the assessment as self-reflection takes time. It is worth the effort to accurately assess the starting point of your leadership journey. You may want to print the document so that you can make notes on it and save it for future reference. It would be beneficial to take the assessment again in the future to see how much progress you have made.

Additionally, you should review and fully develop your plan for improvement going forward. You will also be asked to analyze the five domains and offer your opinion on the accuracy of the assessment based on your external research. Enjoy the self-discovery process! You will be able to use this as a starting point as you begin your professional health care career.

Instructions

This assessment has two main parts. The first part is a self-reflection of your personal leadership competencies based on the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool and a discussion of leadership qualities.

The second part involves the creation of a one-year development plan as well as planning a realistic timeline for the plan. The goal of this assessment is to learn more about yourself as a leader and create a workable plan to improve your leadership skills over the next 12 months.

Part 1: Leadership Self-Reflection

Relevant Scoring Guide Criteria:

• Discuss the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool.
• Determine strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.
• Describe qualities needed by leaders.
• Analyze personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.
• Demonstrate effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.
• Communicate in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically, with the correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

In this first part of the assessment, you will relate your findings and self-reflection with regards to the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool. Additionally, you will begin to identify strategies to further develop your strengths and weaknesses that are identified by the self-assessment tool. You will also want to analyze leadership best-practices and qualities that are most relevant to for success in your chosen career path.

Some potential items to consider as you work on this part are:

• For each of the five domains, summarize both your strengths and weaknesses. 
• For each domain, identify at least one resource that you can use immediately to develop your skills further, for a total of five resources.
• From your readings and research, define the primary qualities needed by leaders and apply those qualities to your personal assessment.
  • Which qualities do you possess and which qualities have a scope for improvement?

Part 2: Personal Development Plan

Relevant Scoring Guide Criteria:

• Create a one-year personal development plan.
• Develop a timeline for personal development plan.
• Demonstrate effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.
• Communicate in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically, with the correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

In this second part of the assessment, the focus is on creating a plan and timeline that will help you to develop and improve relevant areas of leadership competency. Your plan should integrate your assessment results with your research and readings for this assessment. You will want to identify at least three things that you would like to work on over the next year and develop a timeline with specific metrics to measure your progress. By creating a good plan and timeline, you will be more likely to achieve the desired improvements.

One potential way to approach this part is to create a table to break the three goals into actionable steps after you have identified three things that you would like to work on. Your table should have the following four columns.

• The first column should show the overall goals.
• The second column should contain all the steps necessary for each goal.
• The third column should show how you will measure the progress of each step.
• The fourth column should show the deadline for completing the steps.

An example of this table could be like this (your table will include three goals and each goal can more than two steps):

Additional Requirements

• Structure: Include a title page and a reference page.
• Length: 6–9 pages, not including the title and reference page.
• References: Cite at least three current scholarly or professional resources.
• Format: Use APA style for references and citations.
  • You may wish to refer to the following APA resources to help with your structure, formatting, and style:
    • APA Style and Format.
    • APA Paper Tutorial.
    • APA Paper Template.
• Font: Times New Roman font, 12 point, double-spaced for narrative portions only.

Personal Leadership Reflection Scoring Guide

Criteria	Non-performance	Basic	Proficient	Distinguished
Discuss the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE Healthcare Executive Competencies Assessment Tool.	Does not list the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE instrument.	Lists the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE instrument.	Discusses the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE instrument.	Discusses the five leadership domains assessed by the ACHE instrument, summarizing both strengths and weaknesses.
Determine strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.	Does not identify strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.	Identifies strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.	Determines strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.	Explains strategies to develop the identified strengths and weaknesses of each of the five leadership domains.
Describe qualities needed by leaders.	Does not identify qualities needed by leaders.	Identifies qualities needed by leaders.	Describes qualities needed by leaders.	Describes qualities needed by leaders and provides examples.
Analyze personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.	Does not determine personal leadership qualities or the ones that need development.	Determines personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.	Analyzes personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.	Compares personal leadership qualities and the ones that need development.
Create a one-year personal development plan.	Does not create a one-year personal development plan.	Creates a one-year personal development plan, but the plan is missing key elements or is otherwise flawed.	Creates a one-year personal development plan.	Creates a one-year personal development plan, identifying at least three goals that need to be achieved.
Develop a timeline for personal development plan.	Does not outline a timeline for personal development plan.	Outlines a timeline for personal development plan.	Develops a timeline for personal development plan.	Develops a timeline for personal development plan, including specific metrics to measure progress.
Demonstrate effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.	Does not demonstrate effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.	Demonstrates communication through writing and proper use of APA style with a few errors.	Demonstrates effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style.	Demonstrates effective communication through writing and proper use of APA style with no significant errors, and supports analysis.
Communicate in a professional and effective manner, writing content clearly and logically, with the correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.	Does not communicate in a professional and effective manner. Written content is unclear or unorganized, and there are many errors in the use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.	Communication is not consistently professional, clear, and logical; there are errors in the use of grammar, punctuation, or spelling distract from the message.	Communicates in a professional and effective manner; writes content clearly and logically with the correct use of grammar, punctuation, and spelling.	Communication is professional, effective, and insightful; content is clear, logical, and persuasive; grammar, punctuation, and spelling are without errors.