Given the importance of intentional personal change discussed above, it is important that I develop a plan that will ensure I become the leader I want to be. Below I will discuss the leader I want to be and follow up with a detailed plan of how I will eventually get to the leader I want to be.

• The leader I want to be

My ambition is to be a leader in the information technology arena, is responsible for digitizing a lot of our current manual processes, powered by the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution. It is very important for me to be a leader that makes a positive impact to the organisation in general and to people in particular. With people being the building block of any organisation and society at large, helping people become better versions of themselves as an ability to create better organisations and societies. Below are the three key pillars of the leader I want to become:   

1. People Developer

A lot has been articulated in the literature review above about the organisational benefits on empowering leadership. I have been able to advance so much in my career because of leaders who empowered me, giving me the skills and experience, taking a chance on me and then helping me to achieve my career goals. I have experienced first-hand how deliberate people development can make a difference in a person’s life. I therefore want to pay it forward and be a leader who deliberately spots talent and develops people to make a meaningful change in their lives.

1. Innovation Builder

As articulated in the literature review about, IT savviness can lead to increased innovation in an organisation. As an IT specialist by training and experience, I feel I am well placed to be an innovation builder in organisations. Innovatively digitizing organisational processes in this digital era will give organisations the competitive advantage needed to compete in this increasingly digital economy (Velocci, 2016). I want to be the leader that is relied upon when organisations want to build such innovative organisational capabilities.

1. Gets things done

Lastly, I want to develop my personal brand to be synonymous with effective execution. The literature review above provided clear benefits on how effective execution leads to organisational success. I want to be a leader that is called upon when there are challenges in getting things over the line. The building blocks for this have been laid as I have been often relied upon to intervene in projects that have stalled and provided leadership that was able to get the projects completed.  

• Detailed Plan

In line with the literature on intentional personal change, I will outline ideal behavioural goals that I want to achieve for each of the pillars of the leader I want to be mentioned above. 

Next, I will articulate my current position in relation to each goal which will assist in highlighting the gap or areas of development that I would need to work on. After that I will outline the learning interventions needed for me to build on my strengths to achieve my goals. 

And finally, I will discuss ways in which these new learnt behaviours will be sustained.

1. Ideal Sustained Behaviours

Below I outline the ideal sustained behaviours I want to exude inline with my ideal-self articulated above.

1. Coaching

As we have found from the literature review above, coaching refers to a set of behaviours that educate team members and help them to become self-reliant (Arnold et al., 2000). I want to be involved in coaching at least one person per year every year.

1. Encouraging

Encouraging included behaviours such as acknowledging team efforts and encouraging team members to solve problems together (Arnold et al., 2000). As this has been found to be an integral behaviour in leaders who are effective people developers, it is a behaviour I want to display.

1. Showing concern

This refers to behaviours that demonstrate a general regard for team members’ well-being (Arnold et al., 2000). This is a powerful behaviour that can assist in relationship building and increase the perceived authenticity of a leader. Because of my passion for people development, this is amongst the key behaviours I want to exude.

1. Keeping up with technology trends

As the literature review has suggested, business leaders need to keep up with the latest global technology trends which could lead to increased use of technology, leading to increased innovation. As a leader with ambitions to be an innovation builder in organisations, this is a behaviour I ought to have sustained.

1. Use technology as a strategic tool

The literature has suggested that organisation can use technology as a way to gain a competitive advantage. As a technology leader with aspirations of being an innovation builder in organisations, I need to be constantly advocating for IT use as a strategic tool to gain a competitive advantage. This could include sharing case studies with the rest of the executive team on how other companies had achieved this. It could include inviting experts to come give presentations to the executive team.

1. Decentralised Decision making

As had been suggested by the literature review, decentralised decision making is critical in ensuring effective execution. As a leader with ambitions to build a personal brand around being someone who gets things done, I need to ensure that I sustain this behaviour overtime.

1. Ensure Alignment

Alignment between the functional areas in a company severely impacts on the ability to execute effectively (Sull et al., 2015). Therefore, to ensure effective execution, leaders need to ensure that there is alignment of effort across functional areas. 

Since ensuring alignment cannot simply be achieved by just sending out an email, effective executors need to ensure that they show behaviours that ensure alignment between functional areas. 

1. Current Behaviour and Areas of improvement

Below I will discuss what my current behaviours are in relation to the pillars of my idea self and highlight the gaps / areas on improvement that are needed.

1. People Developer

Currently I am not coaching anyone. I am not actively encouraging anyone and also show little concern about team members general well-being. This is because:

1. I do not have the skills on how to be an effective coach
2. I had not been aware of the importance of encouraging behaviour from a leader who wants to be an effective people developer
3. I was also not aware about just how powerful showing concern is in building strong work relationships and effective people development

The above clearly highlights the need for upskilling in coaching and also starting the new behaviours on encouraging and showing concern for people.

1. Innovation Builder

I have been keeping up with the latest technology trend. This has allowed me and the team to develop the product inline with current trends and best practice. This has been able to give us some competitive advantage over our competitors who are not using these latest technologies. With there being no clear gap, the challenge remains on ensuring that this behaviour is sustained.

I have not been actively advocating for IT to be seen as a strategic tool in the organisation. This is because due to legacy structures, technology leader often relegated to the running and maintaining of technology rather than an advocate for strategic IT use by the entire business. This points to a clear gap that needs to be address by a new behaviour.

1. Effective Executor

Current I do ensure that my team is empowered to make decisions in their areas of speciality. Because of a framework that has been developed, the team know which decisions to make/not make with/without consulting me. This removes bottlenecks and ensures effective execution in the team. 

Ensuring alignment remains a challenge and more could be done to achieve this.

1. Learning Interventions

I have identified that I do not have enough required skills to be an effective coach. This means that I need to get enrolled in a coaching training program that will ensure I am a successful coach. At work there is a program for training coaches that has intakes bi-annually. I aim to enrol for the June 2020 intake which will equip me to start coaching in January of 2021.

I need to be constantly learning or upskilling on new technologies and trends to ensure I am effective in innovation building. This includes keeping my current subscription on news feeds from technology news websites and attending the annual Gartner IT Expo with the next one scheduled for 16 – 18 September 2019.

In advocating for the use of technology as a strategic enabler for the business, I will have to read up on the best techniques on how to do this.

1. Experimenting with new behaviours

I will immediately start the new behaviour of encouraging and acknowledging teamwork within the team. I will implement, in my monthly meetings, a feature where I openly acknowledge great teamwork and will use this segment to stress the importance of working as a team and elicit views from the team on how this can be improved.

I will immediately start showing concerns for people in my team by starting our monthly one-on-one meetings with a check in on how the person is doing, how the kids are doing, etc. I will also encourage this by sharing my own experiences to create a safe space for the team members to also share. I will make it a point to ask informally, how the weekend was, what you got up to, and take genuine concern on the issues affecting each member.

In advocating for the use of IT as a strategic tool, I will lobby for the inclusion of tech entrepreneurs as speakers in the quarterly offsite executive business review sessions with the aim of presenting how businesses have been able to use technology to make money. 

Ensuing alignment between functional areas means that new behaviours of working with cross functional teams will have to be embedded in the organisation. This could take the form of monthly cross-functional meetings with the technology teams.   

1. Helpful Relationships

I will pass this plan by my mentor in the organisation, the CEO. We might have to refine it a bit and adjust for any input he might give before implementation. We have monthly mentorship sessions where we will review progress on the plan and agree on next steps.