PDP | leadership

Personal Development Plan (PDP)

Personal Mission Statement

I am a person with a strong sense of social responsibility. I have always been dedicated to my community an interested in doing something meaningful for society, and even the world. I feel compelled to do good deeds, however small, which might have a positive impact on my local community and the society. It is my goal that one day I might even step up to the challenge of doing something that impacts the world.

I have always pondered the question: “how could I fulfill this ambitious vision and release my passion for advancement?” Now after three years learning in the Department of Electrical Engineering, I have heard a clear calling placed on my heart:

It is my personal mission to make a significant contribution to the world using my technical capabilities and technology innovations.

Born in a fast-developing country, I had a deeper realization of how technology can empower people to better lives. This experience has contributed to solidifying my resolution that I should practice the technical knowledge I am gaining in a meaningful way.

With this passion, I keep focusing my efforts on developing innovative skills, deeper experiences and a strong work ethic. I am hoping to count on the leadership certificate program to help me fine-tune my abilities and develop greater maturity required for my mission to contribute through technology-innovations. I seek to develop all-around leadership abilities to help me succeed.

Last Winter Break, I was selected to participate in LeaderShape Insititute which is a national-recognized leadership program held at Allerton Park. LeaderShape provided a great definition of leadership: “Leadership involves living in a state of possibility, making a commitment to a vision, developing relationships to move vision into action, and sustaining a high level of integrity.” With this definition in mind, I have outlined five core values, which are critical leadership traits to the functioning of ideal communities and societies, and important standards and principles that I hope will guide my actions, beliefs and decisions.

Integrity is the most important value. The only way to have great innovations is to establish a high level of trust among team members and remain committed and passionate. Also, when doing the research, it is better to stand on what you think is right, tell the truth to others and consistently make ethical decisions and take ethical actions.

Curiosity is essential for making breakthroughs. Ideas drive progress; without curiosity, no ideas can be generated. As the CEO of Clorox Don Knauss pointed out in his speech “Leadership Traits”, world class leaders are world class learners. We should always remain curious heart to observe, think, and learn.

The path to innovations is full of obstacles. Therefore optimism often turns out to be essential. We should always be proud of the result we have achieved, and realize that character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through the experience of trials and sufferings can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

When we have made some progress, we cannot forget humility. We should still be approachable to others and keep working and growing.

The last attribute is compassion. Life is not fair, but we can use our capabilities to attempt to increase fairness. This value concludes the description of my personal mission.

Learning leadership skills fit into the realization of my mission. I hope to learn to energize others toward a vision, to achieve the common goal. I hope to enhance my ability to develop and meaningful relationships and produce extraordinary results. Eventually, I hope I can create a better future for the world.

Significant Learning Goals

I have pursued many activities and projects, organized many events, using my own initiative. Many of these projects have been successful and effective. However, I consistently find that my effectiveness is limited when I do teamwork. I tend to find difficulty motivating others to perform with the same level of enthusiasm I might have. Therefore, my first goal is to learn how to achieve more effective teamwork.

I think the key points to achieve better teamwork, especially in an environment where team members are not actively engaged, is to first understand the goal and have the whole team committed to attaining them. Then explore everyone’s unique experiences, points of view, knowledge, and opinions they bring to the table. Leadership of the team should then be focused on taking advantage of the various talents on the team and allocate them accordingly. Of course, open, honest and respectful communication within a team is always essential.

I believe this will prove to be an essential trait that will serve me well throughout my career. I will always retrospect myself if I have taken care of those key points I analyzed above when I work in team. If the teamwork turns out to be more effective, I am confident to say I have achieved some progress on this learning goal.

Becoming a more decisive person and enhancing the ability to react promptly to specific issues is my second significant learning goal. Most of time when I am asked a question or have to make a decision, I find myself spending a great deal of time in consideration. I tend to think deeply and critically and this process yields terrific ideas, but this process always takes longer than I would expect. In terms of making decision, I always hesitate and usually unsure about which side to choose. At the beginning of the semester for example, I found it difficult to decide if I should drop a class. This was a difficult senior level class with complex materials and a lot of graduate students enrolled. With an extremely competitive class and the significant workload for other classes I was taking, I was not confident that I could complete this class with a relatively good grade, which would be essential for graduate school applications. However, I am the kind of person that wants to fulfill a goal I set. I do not like yielding to obstacles, and I could have definitely gained a lot of knowledge from the class. I spent several days making this decision and finally I decided to drop this class. There are many decisions people need to make each day, it is unwise to waste time on those small ones, we just need to make them and move on. For important ones, we have to make sure we choose the right option. For me, I think I need to develop more confidence in my ability to make the best decision I can at the time, and become more knowledgeable and analytical regarding the short and long term implications of each decision.

Skills and Attributes Development

Self-Development

I understand that for effective leadership, it is imperative for me to always keep in mind my capabilities and limitations and to employ a structured approach towards myself development.

Self-Awareness

I want to be sure to know how my feelings affect my performance; be always aware of my own strengths and weaknesses, and present myself in an assured and unhesitating manner. I plan to reflect on my behavior on a daily basis as well as analyze where I stand in a long-term picture.

Self-Management

What I want to learn is to follow through on my commitments; take tough, principled stands on issues even if they are unpopular. I also want to learn to manage my feelings and comport myself in a composed and positive way. Time management is also very important. I can use a calendar more effectively and prepare a list of tasks to execute every day. I also plan to prioritize tasks and allocate time-limits based on their priorities.

Interpersonal Development

People do not live alone in this world. Interpersonal development is vital to achieve effective connection with others and is extremely important for teamwork.

Relationship Building

In order to build good relationship between others, I hope to develop my characteristics of empathy by “standing in the shoes” of another person and attempting to see the issues from that person’s point of view. With that trait, I think I can understand others better. In the groups with which I am affiliated, I want to strive to maintain an open-minded environment where group members would feel free and willing to share new ideas and have healthy debates to thoroughly analyze each other’s’ ideas and approaches.

Communications Skills

I want to overcome my shyness to speak out first when communicating with others. Sometimes in a relatively unfamiliar environment, I can be a good listener, but I tend not be confident enough to lead the conversation. In order to change this I will try to step out of my comfort zone, and come up with apt ways to propose my ideas.

Ethical Practices

Leaders often face issues that will challenge their personal ethics. I wish to make sure that no matter what circumstances I am in. I will remain faithful to my ethical values.

Team Development

I plan to learn the steps involved in building an effective team. I hope to learn routinely to follow a systematic planning and implementation process during team building and development; I also want to make sure I learn from the team members and benefit from their abilities. I intend to practice these skills throughout my team projects and RSOs.

Organizational / Group Development

Leading Change

I am a person that usually adopts changes instead of initiating them. In order to be more confident to lead change, I plan to practice this attribute now through my organization. I can initiate professional and technical events through my committee that can benefit engineering students here at Illinois. In the longer term, it is my mission to make changes to the world by using my technical capabilities and technology innovations.

Project and Program Effectiveness

As I have discussed in my second significant learning goal, the way to increase project and program effectiveness is to carefully plan and subsequently evaluate the performance for each step while ensuring all available resources are being utilized to complete the project as quickly as possible. Since I still have many projects to do during my collegiate career, develop this attribute through practicing as well.

Systems Thinking I think I have good system thinking ability. I can always analyze things thoroughly by listing pros and cons. In order to improve, I hope to discuss my ideas with inspirational people. Learning from others can dramatically extend my horizon.

Community Building I am always motivated and passionate about community building. My colleagues and I, study hard, and try to apply what we have learnt to real life and solving real-world problems that positively influence the community. I believe if I keep making these kinds of efforts, while being faithful to this passion, I may be in a position make a difference when I go back to my country, and perhaps even the world.

Transitional Development

Smooth transitions are extremely important for sustainable efforts.

Sustaining Leadership

Since I have been participated in many leadership programs as well as courses, I hope to sustain my leadership abilities and expand them to all my aspects of life. I hope to continue my leadership development by continuing to take the initiative in the various organizations to which I belong to. I believe my work with these organizations will serve as good evidence of mastery this attribute.