Personal Development Plan

Personal Development Plan

Introduction

For many management theorists, there is no such thing as a strategic manager. According to one popular view of management and leadership, the role of the manager is to maintain the status quo, to keep current operations working smoothly. This implies that there are only strategic leaders. There is good reason to challenge this orthodox conception, however. If we can free leadership from position, then all employees can be said to show leadership whenever they promote a better way, such as a new product, service or process. This move takes empowerment a stage further, very appropriate in our knowledge driven age where innovation is increasingly the key form of competitive advantage. In a world of growing complexity, those at the top don't have all the answers so we need a model of leadership that explains how all employees can show leadership(Bryson 1988 pp.78-83).

Organization Background

Kudler Fine Foods, owned by Kathy Kudler, is a local upscale specialty food store with locations in the San Diego city area. Currently, the company has three locations (La Jolla, Del Mar and Encinitas) with 16,000 square feet of retail space in each shopping center. Each store is supplied with the finest domestic and imported food. Each location has a bakery, produce, meat, wine, and cheese department. “Kathy Kudler's mission is to provide the customer the finest in selected foodstuffs, wines, and related needs in an unparalleled consumer environment” (Apollo Group, Inc. 2007).

LO1. Be able to identify personal skills to achieve strategic ambitions

Many attempts have been made to define leadership and management as separate roles or functions. The most fashionable approach is based on style.

Learning Outcomes

Leaders are said to be inspiring and people oriented while managers are described as having a task focus and being controlling. Their influencing style is transactional - they reward employees for their performance.

Analyse the strategic direction of the organisation

Leaders are defined as being transformational which means, among other things, being inspirational. This approach has serious problems because we know that some managers are good motivators and sensitive to people.

1.2 Evaluate the strategic skills required of the leader to achieve the strategic ambitions

We know that some leaders have a factual, quiet style. They are convincing because they know what they are talking about, even if they are not inspiring in their communication style. Also, the style approach makes it seem that leaders and managers have the same focus, getting things done through people, except that the leader is more inspiring(Nutt Backoff 1987 pp.44-57). This makes it seem as if leaders are really superior managers, so why bother having managers at all?

1.3 Assess the relationship between existing, required and future skills to achieve the strategic ambitions

If we remove the style criterion, a simple way of defining management and leadership is to say that leaders promote new directions while managers execute existing ones. If leadership is totally position free, then it can only work through informal influence. This means that leadership is never ...