My Personal Leadership Development Plan: 2012 - 2014

My personal leadership vision

My leadership development plan is based on the reflection of my leadership competencies analyzed through feedback from colleagues and friends. There are obviously some areas that I am strong, areas that I need to improve, and opportunities for development that are coupled with my career development.

In my view leadership at the individual and interpersonal level involves leading people and ethics is important. Servant leadership is my working theory of leadership as I consider both people and ethics. From this standpoint, I will describe my plan based on my values, traits, attributes, behaviors, and competencies that are compatible with this frame of leadership. My ideal leadership is more than the position that I am seeking for in my organization, CRS. I believe it requires a willingness to sacrifice for others, model, motivate, mentor, and multiply others. It is also a relationship of influence, to keep a team together and is based on trust, respect, shared experiences, reciprocity, and mutual enjoyment. My key words on building leadership relationships on the personal level are: trust, respect, dignity, and confidence. Loyalty and integrity are also important to offer strong leadership.

Leaders are made, developed by experience, and they learn to lead. This is my leadership vision. As a leader I must be able and willing to learn from supervisors, supervisees and peers. I must also give feedback to those I relate to and seek to empower them to learn from their mistakes.  Working for CRS, a reputed international organization provides me with a great learning opportunity to become a great leader. In that respect, I must work hard to be a credible leader in my character, leadership, and job competence, in addition to having people skills, and a vision for the future. I must also develop emotional intelligence to be effective. This includes being self-aware, self-regulated, motivated, empathic, and having social skills.

As a leader I must be positive, have a servant’s heart, follow-through, exhibit growth potential, by loyal, be resiliency, have integrity, see the big picture, be disciplined, and express gratitude As Maxwell,  puts it, a  leader must speak in terms of the follower’s interest and sincerely make him an integral contributor to the organization. There must be a willingness to understand others and an appreciation for differences in an organization.

Personal analysis as a leader

My Leadership Development Plan for the next three years is to work towards becoming the CRS Kenya Head of Peacebuilding program. To achieve this I endeavor to develop my educational qualification and experience. Already I have 14 years of work experience in international development having worked in the middle level positions in Kenya and in the Philippines.   

I already graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in counseling and undertaken various assignments in peacebuilding, something that has always attracted my attention and my interest. After completing my undergraduate studies I took up positions in as a community worker and project officer for the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK) where I worked for 9.4 years. My achievements during this period were impressive.  In 2005 I joined Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and I was placed to work for the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) Philippines, an international relief and development agency of the US Conference of the Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as the Peace Research and Advocacy Advisor. CRS works in over 100 countries across the globe. There I worked with the Program team based in Davao City, Mindanao, Southern Philippines where I designed and implemented research and advocacy initiatives in support of CRS local Implementing Partners. Herein I was asked to be the Team Leader for a research, documentation and advocacy project that supported the rights of the local indigenous people.  

In 2008, after the end of my two year contract, I returned to Kenya and joined CRS Kenya as a Project Officer for the Justice and Peacebuilding Unit. My responsibilities grew with the designation and also my willingness work with the Country programs and across other projects. My first assignment was a project that responded to the 2008 post-elections violence. Here I worked tirelessly with Partners in the volatile areas in the Rift Valley that were hard hit by the violence.  I was later promoted to the Emergency Unit as the Conflict Mitigation Specialist, after an outstanding performance that earned me the 2010 Special Recognition Award. This increased my recognition. With this position, I was required to provide guidance to all conflict-related initiatives within the Emergency Unit of the Country program and my reporting line was to the Head of Programs. I was named as among the top performing Officers in the Country program.  But still my qualification was an obstacle for achieving my goal and hence I decided to complete my Masters in international peace studies as a priority. In 2012 I enrolled for a two year MA program at the University of Notre Dame, USA.

To develop and affirm my success as a good Head of Peacebuilding Unit for CRS Kenya, I need to have a broad range of skills in management and leadership. Based on my current role and situation, my personal leadership development plan will prioritize important areas that I need to concentrate on that will help me focus in the direction that I need to go.

Stakeholder analysis        

To be a Head of Peacebuilding Unit one must have good experience and qualification. The right qualification that one must have is a Master’s degree in either of the following: Development studies, Social Sciences, or Economics.  Experience will come after a good investment of time in learning and development.  To achieve my goal of being the Head of Peacebuilding program I need to have a Master’s degree in International Peace Studies which I have already started and hope too complete successfully within next one and half years’ time i.e. by May 2014. And I already have international development experience of 14 years now. With 4 years of experience as the Project Officer and Peace Research and Advocacy Advisor, and that too with a reputed international nonprofit organization in Kenya and Philippines.

I have already laid the foundations to achieve my goal effectively within the set time. I have always been a good performer in my work. I am quick learner; a key quality which I believe is required to be successful in life. My past track records at my work and academics have always been good. I received a CRS Special Recognition award in 2010 and my previous study records are also good.

To grow from a project officer level to a Head of Peacebuilding level I need to grow to designation, which include being Unit Manager. In addition to this, I am also required to develop my certain skills i.e., prompt decision making, strategic planning, strategies and leadership. Because these are important and necessary skills to be a good Head of Peacebuilding Program, as the quality of the skills which I currently possess are only good enough to be Project officer, and to improve them to the level I am required to gain good experience and knowledge which will come with time and practice.  To achieve my goal of being the Head of Peacebuilding Program, I have distributed my achievements into short-term, medium-term and long-term goals in order to have an organized approach as follows:

Short Term Goal: To successfully complete my Master's in International Peace studies by 2014. As, to be a good Head of Peacebuilding Program one needs to have the right qualifications.

Medium Term Goal: To serve as the Deputy Head of Peacebuilding program will help me gain some experience and develop relevant skills i.e. presentation, prompt decision making, strategic planning, and leadership that are required for periodic promotions and good performance. This is because the skills and qualification experience is required to get promotion on timely basis.

Long Term Goal: My long term goal is to give the best performance in order to get promoted as the Head of Peacebuilding program.   To achieve my short term goal, I am already doing my Masters in International Peace Studies. After completion, I will further enroll for a three months management course at Strathmore University, Nairobi, Kenya.

To achieve my medium term goal, I will be required to join in either at my previous level or at a higher level as the Unit Manager or Deputy Head of Peacebuilding Program. Still at either of the positions I need to focus on is performance, as all promotions, salary appraisals and bonus in CRS depend on it. Along, I will be checking out my development i.e. skills required to be a good Head of Peacebuilding Program. This I will check out on timely basis so as to have a clear picture of my improvement. This can be done by constant audit of skills at regular interval of time.

If my plans go well my goal to become the Head of Peacebuilding program will be achieved in the anticipated 3 years. 1.5 years will be completing my MA qualification, 3 months to complete Management course and the rest 1.2 years are for serving as the Deputy Head of Programs and getting timely promotions. Hence, the goal can be achieved if it is well planned and organized.

A Plan to strengthen my leadership abilities

The following is my SWOT analysis which will be helpful for achieving my goal:

Strengths:  I am good and quick learner and therefore have a good educational record. This will help me in successfully complete my MA qualification. I am also very passionate for peace and I have good skills in peacebuilding. This is also one of my top qualities. Without a passion for peace, it is impossible to lead and inspire a team being a Head of Peacebuilding program.  I have a positive attitude, which is important in leadership to put smiles on the faces of the team and set the tone for the organization. I have successfully led a peacebuilding team in my previous assignments with good success and I am a good motivator as well. This is required to motivate team members so as to encourage them to start tasks with full energy.

Weaknesses: I lack time management skills. I am a good listener but not a good communicator, and this is the most important thing to have a proper rapport amongst colleagues. I am also less skillful on financial management matters as my education background is in counseling psychology and peace studies.

Opportunities: I am currently pursuing MA in international peace studies, with organizational management and leadership track. This will help me improve my time leadership and management including aspects of financial skills. By practicing to give presentations in front of fellow students and colleagues, I hope to improve my communication skills. I am sure if I practice regularly and update myself I will be able to fully develop better my communication skills before the end of my MA.

Threats: CRS is currently going through financial hardship because of the impact of the recent global recession hence the jobs cuts. Not getting admission to Strathmore for my Management training can also curtail my abilities to achieve my goals.

If all goes well as per the personal leadership plans, I will be able to complete my MA in May 2014, take up the 3 months Management course at Strathmore University in August 2014 and complete it in latest by the end of December 2014. So, I will be having a time of 1 year left to achieve my goal. This time will be plenty.  I am therefore confident that by that time I would have overcome my weaknesses and improved my skills to a level from where I will get timely promotions and increments. By this plan I am confident that will become the CRS Kenya Head of Peacebuilding program within the set time frame of 3 years.