Leadership and Management in the Social Work Profession and Organizations: Theory and Application

SOWK 611 Leadership and Management in the Social Work Profession and

Organizations: Theory and Application

Assignment 1 Guidelines – The Leadership Discovery Plan:

Development of a Professional Leadership Vision and Self-Efficacy Plan

The Leadership Discovery assignment serves two key purposes. First, students will have the opportunity to thoroughly complete a self-assessment exercise. This initial assessment can help guide you to further develop your leadership skills and attributes. This self-discovery process will help you to identify strengths you have, attributes you wish to augment and improve, and potential weaknesses to eliminate. An array of inputs will inform the plan, including results from the various leadership assessments and survey questionnaires you have taken. Second, you will have the opportunity to create a personal plan outlining how you can (1) enhance your attributes and strengths as a current or future social work leader and (2) increase your self-efficacy within your chosen field of practice. By creating your personal vision and identifying your intermediate-term (3 years) goals, you can begin to develop a solid self-efficacy plan for your career as a social work leader. The paper should be 6-7 pages in length.  Page numbers in each section are minimum requirements.   

PART 1 – The Building Blocks: Your Strengths, Skills and Abilities

Begin your leadership journey by identifying your strengths. 

a)     
Share and examine the 5 strengths identified in you by the Strength Based Leadership (SBL) online assessment. Include a short description of each of the five strengths (the download from the Gallup site that provides brief descriptions of each theme can be useful here) and examine how each strength manifests in your work/life (3/4 page).

b)    
Identify and examine the strengths that were revealed from other sources of information, such as the leadership orientation quiz, servant leadership questionnaire, discovery and delivery skills quiz, and other assessments you may have taken in this class, as well as other classes or different settings, and examine how each strength manifests in your work/life (3/4 page).

c)     
What strengths do you believe you have that were not revealed through any of the assessments?  Please briefly discuss why you think your unidentified strengths were not represented through these assessments and feedback endeavors (1/2 – 3/4 page).

d)    
Which of the strengths identified in a and b (above)do you believe are inaccurate or questionable and why do you believe them to be inaccurate (1/2 – 3/4 page)?

e)     
What strengths that were not identified in any of the assessments would you like to have or develop? Why do you think these strengths are important in the social work profession (1/2 – 3/4 page)?

To help you organize the leadership assessment results and your thoughts, include the following tables in the Appendix.