Running head: LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PLAN 1

ELPS 222 Leadership Development Plan

Mary McDermott
Loyola University Chicago
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My personal leadership theory draws mainly from the Team Leadership Theory, the Strategic

Social Change Leadership Theory, and the Leader-Member Exchange Theory (LMX). These

theories align with my personal beliefs on group leadership and social justice which made them

the perfect theories to draw from when creating my own informal theory. Group leadership is a

much more effective leadership method to me based on the ability for leaders to work together

with different perspectives instead of one person leading from their perspective and with

unchecked implicit biases. The core premises of my Informal Leadership Theory (ILT) are that

leadership is viewed as a group function, that leadership promotes social justice, and that leaders

and followers develop strong, healthy relationships with their followers. These premises reflect

key aspects of the three theories I considered when creating my own theory and reflecting on

how my personal beliefs and experiences have impacted my view of leadership.

ILT is a group method of leadership in which a team of leaders act together as the leader

instead of an individual. This allows for more creative and productive work as group members

each bring their own varied lived experiences and beliefs based on their stocks of knowledge,

ideology, hegemony, and social location. The diversity within the group leadership will provide a

more productive team that can better accomplish goals and work well with all of the followers in

the organization. ILT promotes social justice by providing an opportunity for all members of the

organization to be a part of the leadership team. The group will promote social justice by

bringing their unique experiences together to provide equitable treatment and opportunities for

their followers. ILT includes the group of leaders building relationships with all of the followers

to create a sense of community. The strong relationships built in will provide better job

performance, faith in the leaders, and a stronger commitment to the organization. These three

premises work together to provide a stronger and more effective method of leadership.
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One of the core premises of ILT is the concept of group leadership. Group leadership allows

for multiple perspectives and insights to be shared in a collective form of leadership and provides

a better flow of power as it descends from a group and not from an individual. Group leadership

provides diversity to the leadership structure and strengthens the actions of the leadership by

having various perspectives work together on an even playing field. This premise of my Informal

Leadership Theory is built from elements of the Team Leadership Theory and the Leader-

Member Exchange Theory which both recognize and incorporate the importance of groups in

leadership. Groups are vital to success in my Informal Leadership Theory because the leaders are

a team and because of “the critical role teams now play in the workforce as a necessary vehicle

for accomplishing complex goals” (Dugan, 2016, p.160). A group of leaders are better prepared

for tackling difficult tasks because each member can draw from their unique perspective which is

something that cannot be done by an individual alone. Dugan explains that “teamwork is the

process of enacting collective team knowledge, skills, and abilities in service of a group’s shared

goals” which proves useful in the context of leadership because the group of leaders and the

organization must work together to meet their goals (Dugan, 2016, p.161). The Team Leadership

Theory also focuses on “what the leader or leaders do to facilitate team performance” which is

relevant to my informal theory because leaders need to get their followers to work together

(Dugan, 2016, p.161). Not only does the group of leaders need to learn to function together as a

group, they need to be able to create a team atmosphere in their followers so they can all work

together effectively. The ideas behind Team Leadership help lay the foundation for ILT because

of the importance of group dynamics within the leadership and organization as a whole in ILT.

LMX on the other hand focuses mostly on the relationship aspect of group leadership but

also creates a setting with in-groups and out-groups. In my informal theory, the in-group is the
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group of leaders and the out-group is the followers. While LMX “never calls for out-group

members to be treated poorly” they are often treated as lesser and are given fewer opportunities

(Dugan, 2016, p.153). While problems arise from group separation in LMX, this will be avoided

in ILT because the in-group is the team of leaders. This dynamic between a group of leaders and

a group of followers will allow for growth from any member of the followers to become a

member of the leadership team. Instead of an in-group vs. out-group dynamic created within the

followers, the split will occur between the already existent leader vs. follower dynamic and

expand to be more inclusive as the leader is actually a group of leaders.

My personal ethics and lived experiences with group leadership informed this portion of the

theory by considering the successful experiences I have had with group leadership. When I

played softball in high school, I was one of three leaders for the softball teams. This group of

leaders allowed for different opinions to be shared when making decisions that impacted our

teams. Ethically, I find it more just for a group of people to determine the course of action or

rules for another group of people as opposed to a single person determining the fate of a group. It

was also more effective because the decisions made in the group of leaders better represented the

softball teams overall and was more successful than my experience having one leader on my

volleyball team responsible for making decisions that impacted the entire group.

Another premise of my Informal Leadership Theory is that leadership promotes social

justice. This portion of my theory stems from the Strategic Social Change Theory which is

centered around grounded humanism. Grounded humanism “is derived from a realistic appraisal

of how society functions and recognition of the role power plays in leadership and social

change” (Dugan, 2016, p. 299). Leaders on their own hold a great deal of power over their

followers. By changing this dynamic to one of a group of leaders, more opportunities are given
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to organization members to be a part of the leadership. Dugan points out that Ospina “defined

social justice as ‘a call for fairness and equality of opportunity for all human beings’” (Dugan,

2016, p. 299). By advocating social justice under ILT, equitable treatment is given to members

of the organization and more opportunities to be a part of the leadership are available to all

members of the organization regardless of the social identities that member has.

My lived experiences and personal ethics contributed to this section of ILT because of my

experience with social justice here at Loyola University. Social justice is a key part of the

school’s community and it is emphasized within my major in the School of Education as well.

Social justice has become something I interact with every day and therefore I feel that it is

necessary to incorporate it into my informal theory on leadership because everyone deserves

equitable treatment and the opportunity to succeed.

The final core premise of ILT is that leaders develop relationships with their followers. This

premise contains elements of LMX which focuses on building healthy relationships between

leaders and followers. “The leadership-making process is premised on the concept that leaders

should extend invitations to all subordinates to build high quality exchanges even if not all

subordinates will accept those invitations” because it will allow for a stronger sense of

community within the organization and a greater commitment to the organization (Dugan, 2016,

p.156). Building relationships with followers will allow for the group of leaders to discover

potential in their followers that might be valued in another position, task, or in leadership.

Creating high-quality exchanges with other organization members results in greater “follower

attitude, satisfaction, and performance; role clarity; organizational commitment; organizational

citizenship behaviors, trust in the leader; turnover intent; and unit-level performance and goal

attainment” (Dugan, 2016, p.158). By getting to know their co-workers, leaders can produce
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better results from their teams and organizations by creating a community with mutual respect

and understanding based on at least a minimal level of friendship.

My personal ethics and lived experiences combined to inform this section of my Informal

Leadership Theory by reflecting on my experiences with leaders that I knew well and followers

that I knew well as a leader. From the viewpoint of a follower, I have always had much more

respect for leaders that got to know me and that I knew fairly well. From this common ground of

understanding we were able to move forward with our goals in mind but openly communicate

ideas and concerns. When I have been in the follower position to leaders I did not know very

well, I often found myself questioning their reasoning and authority because it often was not

explained or seemed to have considered the followers at all.

My Informal Leadership Theory infuses ethical considerations and critical perspectives

by taking social justice and deconstruction and reconstruction discussions into account. ILT is

ethically grounded in its social justice premise that promotes equitable treatment and

opportunities for all organization members regardless of the social identities that person has. By

advocating for social justice in ILT, I am addressing the injustices that occur against people

based on various social identities and providing a system in which these systemic injustices

cannot influence a group member’s performance or opportunities. I reflected on and incorporated

the deconstruction and reconstruction analysis from class when considering the theories I drew

from in creating ILT. In the case of in-groups and out-groups, I critically examined the problems

that stemmed from the separation of followers under the LMX theory. By applying in-groups and

out-groups to the already existent divide between leaders and followers, more members are given

the opportunity to be leaders and followers are not divided amongst themselves.
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By translating ILT into practice, the dynamic of leadership will change as groups are

given the opportunity to lead as opposed to individuals. Leaders and followers will build healthy

relationships and promote social justice within their organization. The shift in the leadership

dynamic will benefit all members of the organization as the leaders are strengthened by their

collective experiences and the followers benefit from multiple perspectives. Building healthy

relationships between leaders and followers will also benefit all members of the organization as

the leaders can consider what is important to their followers when making decisions and the

followers respect their leader more and feel heard by the leadership. Promoting social justice

benefits everyone as all members are treated equitably and given equitable opportunities which

will result in fair practices not based on systemic societal injustices.

If I were in charge of my own leadership development, I would focus on leadership

efficacy, metacognition, critical self-reflection, and identity development. These skills are

incredibly useful within my informal theory and are skills that I and others can always work to

improve throughout our lives. By directing attention to these skills, people can become more

confident and successful as leaders by improving skills regarding a leader’s actions and

interactions with followers as well as their confidence in using these skills and others as a leader.

One of the four domains of leadership development is leadership efficacy which are the

“internal beliefs [one has] regarding the likelihood of success when adopting leader roles or

engaging in leadership processes” (Dugan, 2016, p. 322-323). By improving one’s efficacy in

terms of a leadership role, a person will gain confidence when it comes to being in charge and

will be more likely to take on a leadership position in the future. This makes leadership efficacy

an important skill to develop because leaders that are confident in themselves will perform better

than leaders that are not. This would be useful for me to focus on when considering my own
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leadership development because believing that I can succeed will help me to focus on the talents

and experiences that I can bring to the table as a leader. By doing this, I can focus on what skills

to use and lived experiences to reflect on as a leader and trust my course of action instead of

constantly being in my head about whether or not I am leading well.

Metacognition is one of the five useful skills listed in leadership development. It is

“thinking about how we think” which is a beneficial skill to have (Dugan, 2016, p. 324). I had

not really thought much about metacognition until taking the implicit biases tests. The results of

those tests made me pause to think about decisions I routinely make without much consideration

and examine what led me to make certain choices. This skill pairs well with critical self-

reflection which is “deep contemplation about one’s own positionality within broader systems”

(Dugan, 2016, p. 324). By pausing to reflect on my reasoning, I realized how interwoven implicit

biases that I do not agree with impact my life. By developing the metacognition skill in my

leadership plan, I will become a better leader by examining the reasons behind decisions. If I can

justify the actions I take and reflect on what thoughts led me to make the choices I made, I will

be able to make more ethically-grounded decisions. By developing critical self-reflection skills

in my leadership plan, I will be able to ponder what choices I make as a leader that work well

and that do not work well. As I work to improve my critical self-reflection skills, I hope to be

able to accurately reflect on my actions so that I can always work to improve what does not go

well and fine-tune what does. This is an important skill for a leader because a leader that does

not reflect will not improve and will continue to make the same mistakes or miss opportunities to

improve.

Identity development is an important area to develop because one needs to know

themselves in order to understand others. Identity development is defined as “the formation,

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understanding, and fluid performance of self in context and as a member of multiple, intersecting

social groups” (Dugan, 2016, p. 325). As I develop as a leader, I need to gain understanding of

who I am and what that means in different settings. My social location and beliefs will have

different implications in different settings and it is important to know how I perceive myself in

situations and how others perceive me. Developing my understanding of my identity will allow

for me to better reflect on what my beliefs are and how my actions reflect them in my leadership

as well as how my identity is perceived by my followers that may or may not share my beliefs.

I believe that the best ways to facilitate leadership development are by engaging in

critical self-reflection, by taking classes and courses on leadership when available, and by taking

on leadership roles. If leaders or aspiring leaders constantly engage in self-reflection then they

will improve as leaders because they can look back on their thought processes, the setting for

their leadership role, and what went well and what did not. Self-reflection lends itself to

leadership development particularly well because as leaders evolve in their roles they are able to

write out their improvements as they occur and consider how their positionality impacts different

situations. Critical self-reflection includes “understanding how one’s identities shape access to

and uses of power and capital” (Dugan, 2016, p. 222). This review will help me as I develop my

leadership skills because I can consider how the position I am in as a leader combined with my

social identities gives me systematic power and privilege or prevents me from entering different

settings. Self-reflection “forces intentional engagement with one’s ego” which will help to keep

the leader grounded and not too absorbed in power to the point that the leader forgets to consider

their followers (Dugan, 2016, p. 222). Self-reflection has always been something that has helped

me improve so I feel that this method will help me to improve as a leader.

I can think of no better way to develop as a leader than by being a leader and adjusting
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and evolving as new challenges pop-up. Experience in this field is the best way to develop

efficacy and skills that make up a good leader. Experiential learning is one of the most effective

methods when it comes to learning and practicing new skills. As a Secondary Education major, I

have been practicing experiential learning since I started at Loyola. In the Education program all

students are immersed in the field so that we can practice being in classrooms and learn the skills

we need to be effective teachers and manage our classrooms. These experiences have taught me

how valuable time in any field can be before taking on a bigger role. By taking on leadership

positions, I can practice the development areas outlined in my plan required to be an effective

leader and develop my leadership skills. Then once I take on bigger leadership roles, such as

when I am a teacher and lead the entire class, I will have developed leadership efficacy from

having already been a leader and will have at least gotten my feet wet in terms of metacognition,

critical self-reflection, social perspective-taking, and identity development. Some things one

cannot truly learn until they are doing them and by gaining experience I will be able to put my

knowledge from my studies to work and grow as a leader.

My leadership development plan will prepare me for my career as an educator because it

includes skills that I will be required to have as a teacher. All teachers need self-efficacy when it

comes to teaching their content and managing their classrooms. Confidence in my content area

will come from studying and researching English, but confidence as a leader, managing my own

classroom will stem from practice as a leader. By gaining experience leading, I will develop

leadership efficacy and will believe that I can be successful when leading my class. The skills of

metacognition and critical self-reflection will also be key aspects of my job as a teacher because

I will constantly have to question why some students are succeeding and some are not and why

what I am saying or doing is affecting that. By pausing to reflect on what lessons are successful
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and which are not, I will be able to improve future lessons for my students. Lastly, identity

development is important as an educator because it will enable me to find common ground with

my students and areas where there is a disconnect that I should explore in order to have a better

understanding of my students. Overall, the skills from my plan will work to help me be a more

empathetic and approachable teacher that can relate to my students and manage my classroom.

Three years from now I will be able to see if I have made progress in terms of my

leadership development by looking back on my critical self-reflections and considering how

effectively I lead as a teacher and in other leadership roles I possess. By looking back on my

self-reflections, I can assess what improvements I have made as a leader by seeing how far I

have come from where I started. I will be able to determine the extent of my improvement in

terms of leadership efficacy, metacognition, social perspective-taking, and identity development.

I can also assess my success as a leader in the future by thinking about how effective I am and if

the goals I have set are met by me and my group. Another way to see if I have improved as a

leader is to ask a follower or a third-party member to assess my performance. All of these will

allow me to consider what aspects of my leadership have improved. One way to show that I have

made progress would be to have self-efficacy. I am sometimes nervous about taking on

leadership roles and if I gain confidence in myself and my ability as a leader that would

demonstrate growth in leadership efficacy. Another way to demonstrate improvements I would

have made as a leader are by the action of self-reflection and utilization in three years to assess

how I am doing as a leader. By looking at and improving from my critical self-reflections I am

improving my leadership from previous instances when I had not reflected on my experiences

and what I have learned. By engaging in self-reflection, I will be using metacognitive skills to

determine why I think and act the wat that I do and how effective those thoughts and actions are.
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STRATEGIC SOCIAL LEADER-MEMBER

TEAM
CHANGE EXCHANGE
LEADERSHIP

GROUP LEADERSHIP SOCIAL JUSTICE HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS

INFORMAL LEADERSHIP
THEORY
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Dugan, J. P. (2016). Leadership theory. Place of publication not identified: John Wiley & Sons.