Task Description

For the Assignment 2: Personal Profile you will develop a portfolio of the self-leadership skills that you have developed over the course of the unit. The portfolio will contain self-reflection, integrated with the appropriate self -leadership literature, and where possible feedback from others. You will conduct an analysis of your skills, strengths and areas for improvement and will develop an action plan for skills development.

Overview

We ask that you complete the self-reflection questionnaires provided as well as work through the questions and exercises across the unit modules to assist with your leadership skill reflection. In order to facilitate your reflection, it is recommended that you make notes for yourself in your 'journal'.

The purpose of the personal profile assignment is to bring all of those activities together and ask you to consider those reflections to determine whether your thoughts have lead you to acknowledge that some form of change is necessary. We ask you to focus on your strengths to enable you to understand where, in a given situation, you may be able to use your strengths to change your actions and potentially improve the outcome. Reflection does not always offer a solution but we may learn to understand and clarify situations that would otherwise have remained in our blind spot (refer to the Johari window concept – Week 1).

Assignment Structure Suggestions

The assignment is designed to encourage your ongoing professional and personal development, therefore, a restricted structure has not been recommended. However, for many a suggested structure helps you to organise your own thinking and provide a framework to help you get started. The structure is provided as a way of helping you to organise your thoughts – as always you are empowered to create your own structure, one that helps you to conceptualise your own learning.

Introduction

All assignments, reports, papers, academic notes and so on should begin with an introduction that provides a rationale for the paper, orients the reader to the purpose of the paper and provides an overview of the material that is to follow and the order of that material. The introduction does not need to be lengthy – a single paragraph is all that is necessary (e.g., approximately 250 words).

Step 1: Self-leadership skills literature summary

There are many authors now recommending that managers and professionals acquire greater development of 'soft' skills. In order to provide a context for your professional development providing an overview of the arguments evident in the literature provides you with a base to work from. You may like to focus explicitly here on the topic area that you are particularly interested in developing in yourself. The focus of this paper is on your skill development, so I do not recommend spending a lot of time on the foundation literature – approximately 250 words would be sufficient.

Step 2: Your current skill level incorporating 3600 feedback

The purpose of this section of the assignment is to encourage you to develop greater insight into your current level of self- leadership skill development. Throughout the unit you have been encouraged to complete a range of questionnaires and self-development tools and to also have colleagues or associates complete a strengths profile on your leadership skills.

You will notice that this unit has been founded in the theories of positive psychology; therefore we have asked you to consider your areas of strength as opposed to focusing on areas of weakness or areas that need development. The ambition of positive psychology is to use your strengths in order to improve the other skills areas.

To analyse your data you might look for scores where there is some difference between your perceived skills and the strengths identified by your associates. Take the opportunity to explore these differences and seek, if possible, to reconcile or at least understand the source of the difference. You might also compare your score with the maximum score possible. Carefully consider the items in each scale. These items might help provide you with specific information that you can use for developing change goals.

The analysis of your strengths can focus explicitly on a specific area if you wish, or alternatively you may like to explore a couple of topics.

You do not need to analyse every tool that has been provided for you in this paper. This analysis forms the foundation of the assignment and the learning being encouraged – approximately 750 words is likely to be needed.

Step 3: Reflecting on an area of strength and an area for improvement

After you have provided an analysis of the self-development instruments that you have used to identify your areas of strength and limitation it is important to reflect upon these areas in order to fully learn from your past experience in order to make change in the future. There is a fact sheet provided regarding reflective practice that may help you here.

It is important to identify experiences related to the topic area that you have identified above in your previous analysis. For example, suppose your have 'realistic optimism' as an area of either strength or something that you would like to improve. Using the STAR-L system recall a past (or current) situation that illustrates your level of realistic optimism. You will need to briefly describe the situation, the task that you were engaged in, your actions and your reactions.

Your reactions are likely to include your emotional reactions, your thoughts about it, and certainly your behaviour in the situation. You do not have to provide the names of other people involved in the situation. The final step in the process is to identify your learning. Your learning, when acknowledged explicitly, encourages you to continually use this learning to improve on your skill when faced with a similar situation in the future.

You will be quite surprised at how many 'words' this type of reflection can take. These types of reflection form the foundation of learning journals and are something that I would like to encourage you to continue with as a regular part of your personal and professional development. This section is likely to take approximately 1,000 words.

Step 4: Achieving personal and professional change

Once you have clearly identified an area for improvement you will need to set a change goal. This should be framed such that it is consistent with goal setting theory, i.e. your goal should be SMART specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-framed.

You have identified what you need to change. You then need to focus is on how you might go about changing behaviour or belief or an emotional reaction. This is also a useful point to re-connect with the theory that you have introduced earlier to explain why this is an important area for your career development.

Make sure your action plan is complete in that it identifies all of the critical activities necessary to achieve your goal. You may like to use tables and dot points in order to describe your plans. This section is likely to take approximately 500 (two double-lined spaced pages).

Conclusion

Just as with the introduction all assignments, reports, papers, academic notes and so on should be effectively concluded. The conclusion draws together the main points of the paper in order to emphasise to the reader the importance of the views raised. Like the introduction, the conclusion does not need to be lengthy – a single paragraph is all that is necessary (e.g., approximately 250 words).

Introduction

The Generalised Self-Efficacy Scale assists in exploring and evaluating individualized professional attributes with the objective of determining the level of dependence and self-sufficiency (Romppel, et al., 2013). The development of self-efficacy is highly required in professional life for effectively overcoming stressful and frustrating situations. The individual capacity assessment helps in exploring the individual strength, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Outcomes acquisition through an effective goal-setting proves highly advantageous for the professional development across the healthcare sector. The development of clinical skills and confidence is highly required for handling complex patient situations and overcoming healthcare barriers in the clinical settings (Cross, Roe, & Wang, 2014). Mindful Awareness Attention Scale helps in assessing the mindfulness traits of the individuals in various dimensions. This scale substantially assists in evaluating an individual's attention span and ability to focus on significant tasks. I have effectively utilized these evidence-based tools in the context of evaluating my self-efficacy and mindfulness attributes that I continue to utilize in the nursing practice. The presented portfolio provides a self-evaluation of my confidence and focuses that I consistently utilize as an assistant-medical manager in the nursing care setting. Furthermore, the portfolio gives an insight of my soft skills and leadership attributes that require constant improvement for effectively promoting the quality of healthcare interventions and patient outcomes in the medical facility. Soft skills include the attributes like leadership capacity, coaching, communication, optimism, empathy, and personal attitudes that I believe the nurse leaders must possess for improving their influence, authority, and control in the healthcare setting (Ridder, Meysman, Oluwagbemi, & Abeel, 2014). Effective leadership (i.e. hard) skills include the intrapersonal and interpersonal aptitude/capacity that a nurse leader gains and develops through experience and operational execution (Boyle & Robinson, 2013). Indeed, my portfolio emphasizes the need for developing various hard and soft skills (including leadership and communication) for effectively improving the overall organizational results and wellness outcomes of the treated patients.  

Self-leadership Skills (Literature Summary)

I understand the requirement of improving my confidence, focus, communication, and interpersonal skills with the objective of expanding my leadership capacity. Evidence-based research literature emphasizes the requirement of soft skills development in the context of enhancing the safety and quality of patient care in the healthcare settings (Ray & Overman, 2014). Soft skills along with the personal values and technical proficiency help in improving a person's capacity for acquainting with complex healthcare situations (Gonzalez, Abu, & Naimie, 2013). This eventually assists the individual in mitigating a multitude of complex patient circumstances. I have consistently strived towards the accomplishment of organizational goals while facilitating a range of group activities. The configuration of shared goals and development of strategic planning are the key attributes that I continue to emphasize in the healthcare setting (Al-Sawai, 2013). The greatest challenge in the healthcare setting attributes to the facilitation of coping activities in the context of acclimatizing the healthcare professionals to any major change in the clinical setting. I have synchronized my experience, knowledge, and skills in accordance with the mission and vision of the organization. I have developed my leadership skills through consistent learning and experience. The configuration of several milestones in the context of accomplishing the prospective action plans, team motivation, and collaborative activities include some of the significant steps that I have executed during my deployment as a staff nurse, head nurse, nursing department head, and medical manager. I feel the requirement of improving my leadership attributes for the generation of collective vision while inculcating hope and motivation for the healthcare team members (Khoshhal & Guraya, 2016).     

(Some parts of the solution has been blurred due to privacy protection policy)