Reference no: EM133180056

The following questions can be used to help you frame your paper, and can drive your paper if you want them to. They do not have to.

Setting direction and making sure that everyone understands it:

• How are you going to persuade others, and ensure the message of your institution is your own?

Aligning critical constituencies with that direction:

• What the core pieces of an organization you are going to focus on? Will you construct teams? How will you build them?

Developing an executive temperament for coping with the leadership role:

• What are the important talents, attributes and values you are going to depend on in your future? How are you going to gain exposure to positive role models, develop and ingrain this mentality in yourself?

Setting and living values that define the organization:

• It is important to 'walk the walk'.  How are you going to live your values, and make certain your reputation is based upon the things you want to project, instead of what others can project upon you?

Growing yourself and others as the environment changes:

• What sort of protégées do you want around you? How are you going to adjust as the world around you demands it?  Remember:  what got you here will most likely not get you there...

There are also some additional questions which can be used to discuss your development. 

About your own development:

• When you think about your career as a leader, manager or executive, certain events or episodes stand out in your mind-things that changed you in some way and have ultimately shaped you as an executive. You can choose several of these experiences that had a lasting impact on you:  For each event, what happened?  What did you learn from it (how did it change you)? How are you going to use this/these experiences to help you develop as a leader?

About how you develop others:

• What is your approach to developing leadership talent in others?
• Please think of a specific person for whom you played a significant role in his/her development as a leader. Tell us the story-how you decided to invest in this person, what you did, what the person did, why you think things turned out so well.  How are you going to continue to perform as a mentor in the future?

The Paper

As stated above, the paper should address the five factors using relevant course material to clarify, support, and concluding with some specific implications for what this might mean for your own development as a leader.

The paper should accomplish the following:

• An introduction should begin with a brief discussion of your interpretation of the five factors. You should then analyze your own trajectory using these factors.
• In the final section of the paper draw conclusions about the implications of what you learned from this exercise in terms of your own development as a leader.

Specific Grading Criteria:

• Depth of your understanding of the "five factors" as stated in the introduction and demonstrated throughout the paper.