Your leadership guide
To prepare for your assessment check the Unit of competency for BSBLED701A Lead personal and strategic transformation (available in CIDO).
You’ll also need to confirm your assessment events and evidence requirements with your facilitator/assessor.
This guide provides options for what you could prepare in order to demonstrate your performance, review your capability and present supporting material evidence.
Applying your leadership skills to your projects and job role
To demonstrate your ability to lead personal and strategic transformation you may be asked to present evidence of your:
· workplace performance over time
· knowledge and understanding of transformational leadership to achieve specific outcomes
· self analysis and personal development plan to improve developing your leadership style and self-management skills.
Throughout your learning you are encouraged to reflect on how your leadership knowledge and skills apply to your role and projects. Aim to gather evidence arising from developing your leadership role and leading projects on the job. For example a project may involve:
· establishing an innovation system
· managing a change project in response to changing business and/or client needs
· implementing a major learning strategy within a work area in response to business and/or client needs
· managing performance of others within your organisation.
Workplace performance
Methods to demonstrate your on-the-job performance and ability include the following:
· assessor questioning
· workplace portfolio
· assessor or third party observations
· third party reports.
Sample questions
Here are some sample questions to help you reflect on and discuss your progress toward developing as a transformational leader.
ÿ What is the vision you have for your team/organisation and how is it aligned with the strategic plan of the organisation?
ÿ What has been your approach in order to share this vision and involve your team in developing objectives and priorities?
ÿ As a result of organisational business reform and environmental changes, what are the key changes impacting your business and client expectations? How would you support these conclusions and ensure your priorities remain current?
ÿ How would you describe your role and purpose as a leader during organisational change or specific change projects you have/will manage?
ÿ What approach have/will you take during a change process to maintain effective and positive participation by staff and mitigate barriers and risks during change? Why will/is this the most effective approach?
ÿ How would you describe your current workplace culture in terms of supporting business objectives, day-to-day participation and collaborative work? Where do you need to be to achieve strategic results? How will you approach cultural change barriers?
ÿ Give examples of varying situations or project stages where your leadership style changes appropriately.
ÿ How do you measure yourself as an effective leader? (How effective are you and how do you know?)
ÿ How have you identified your personal development goals in relation to transformational leadership? What specific areas of knowledge and skills are your priorities for self-development and why?
Be prepared to show supporting documentation or work samples to support your responses.
Workplace portfolio
Work samples to gather for a workplace portfolio could include:
ÿ Collaborative communication and learning strategies, eg methods, tools, programs/strategies instigated
ÿ Data collection and analysis tools and reports, eg used for feedback or consultation mechanisms
ÿ Written texts, eg a business case or feasibility study, project plans, detailed strategic plan, research into business and technological environment and trends, discussion papers and articles (dealing with complex ideas or concepts)
ÿ Organisational policy and guidelines impacting your day-to-day leadership role and business objectives, eg state plans, organisation’s mission, values and objectives, professional and technical standards, codes of practice, quality and/or internal governance requirements
ÿ Legislation impacting your business operation and team management, eg in the areas of OHS, equity and industrial relations.
Be prepared to discuss how you use and/or interpret your sample documentation, and to evaluate the approaches and outcomes achieved in relation to work samples.
Observations and third party reports
Identify opportunities for an observer or third party to report on your performance when:
ÿ receiving and acting on feedback, eg at team meetings, presentations, post-performance review
ÿ demonstrating teamwork and communication skills, eg at team meetings or day-to-day teamwork tasks
ÿ demonstrating an appropriate leadership style, eg for a specific situation, or phase of change
ÿ situations demand the focus is on you, as a role model
ÿ managing communications and work-based relationships in an inclusive and empathetic manner
ÿ deploying an effective workplace culture in order to achieve results.
Be prepared to review your own performance and discuss the aspects of your performance and related knowledge and skills which you will develop.
Learning and development activities
Your learning and personal development activities may include a range of methods involving self-directed learning and as well as collaborative processes. For example, they may range from structured tasks, using flexible resources, researching information to implement new ideas, practising new work-based methods, continuous reflection and self-analysis, collaborative projects, professional conversations, and learning with mentors.
Tasks such as reports and case study analyses you develop should incorporate your research and demonstrate understanding of applied knowledge, theory and practices in leading personal and strategic transformation.
A ‘learning journal’ and ‘learning portfolio’ are ways to document your learning outcomes and demonstrate your continuous development and learning, as well as personal reflection and self review processes which are critical to your leadership capability.
A report on leadership strategy
Prepare a report detailing your own leadership strategy for strategic transformation within your workplace. Suggested components of the report are:
ÿ Table of contents
ÿ Executive summary
ÿ Introduction and purpose of the report
ÿ Keywords and definitions
ÿ The organisational context for transformation (strategic requirements) and your operational accountabilities and responsibilities
ÿ Your leadership styles, in particular the transformational leadership style, and how your approaches are appropriate for the context and people involved. Consider the importance of leading consistently.
ÿ Strategies for effective feedback from role models, peers, staff and customers
ÿ An analysis of the cultural environment, barriers to cultural change, and approaches for building an effective workplace culture
ÿ Communication and learning strategies to support change processes and strategic results
ÿ Examples of managing work-based relationships to foster team-building, inclusive problem-solving, collaborative thinking and human resource management responsibilities
ÿ A review of your capacity as a role model to lead change processes and motivate staff
ÿ Conclusions, incorporating self-review and forward directions
ÿ References
ÿ Bibliography
ÿ Appendices where applicable
Case study analyses
Analyse case studies or interviews on leaders and their transformational practices to demonstrate your understanding of applying leadership principles and qualities in practice. You can also record in your journal reflections on your own learning and development goals while reflecting on the expertise and experience of effective leaders. Interviews with leaders are provided in this resource and you are also encouraged to source or record your own interviews.
Learning journal and portfolio
Keep journal entries as you engage with your learning:
ÿ record your learning outcomes, useful research and summary notes
ÿ record personal achievements and set new personal goals
ÿ record ideas for personal learning activities
ÿ get feedback on your learning journey or performance from mentors and peers
ÿ reflect continuously on how you are applying your learning, and demonstrate self awareness of your capability and development needs.
A ‘learning journal’ could be paper-based or online such as a personal blog.
Personal development plan
As well as journaling your personal development planning, your plan can be a living document to set and review your goals in relation to improving your own development, leadership style and specific knowledge and skills related to your accountabilities and responsibilities. For example a personal development plan can be formalised by simply recording your learning goals, outcomes and how you will achieve them:
Learning goals / Outcomes you wish to achieve / Proposed activitiesPreparing an e-portfolio
An e-portfolio is way you can submit your material evidence to support additional assessment methods your assessor may use such as questioning, reviewing or observations. Your portfolio could include a range of evidence you have gathered as part of workplace performance, learning and development activities and your personal development plan.
The following resources will give you some practical tips for creating an e-portfolio:
Designing e-learning – E-portfolios (web link to http://designing.flexiblelearning.net.au)
Samples of e-portfolios (link to a delicious site)