Amsterdam Leadership Programme 2018/2019 - Individual Assignment

Amsterdam Leadership Programme 2018/2019 - Individual Assignment

Course: Amsterdam Leadership Programme

Target audience: Students from Full time MBA, Part Time MBA (first year), Big Data MBA (first year)

Deadline for submission: 11 February 2019 (to be submitted on Canvas)

Instructors: Joris Nuijten (for questions: J.A.Nuijten@uva.nl), Raymond van Driel (raymond@f-act.com)

In order to become an effective leader, it is not sufficient to cognitively understand the required competences, skills and behaviours. One will need to take action, and take time to reflect on the learning from this action, on an ongoing basis. Therefore this Leadership assignment is not about theories and concepts, it is about you taking action. At the same time, in the appendix an overview is provided of relevant books, since these may provide you with inspiration for ideas.

Note: The assignment is building on the activities pursued during the ALP Weekend at Leadership Deep dive, and therefore you are recommended to start working on this only after your Leadership Deep dive weekend.

Description of the task

There are 3 parts to the assignment: identifying your core qualities, identifying and working on your Leadership Challenge and reporting out on your learnings/insights  from your Leadership Challenge.

1. Core qualities

Create at least 3 different core quality quadrants for yourself. For each of these, answer the following reflection questions.

- Name a concrete situation where you noticed this allergy (you were irritated).

- What was the impact at that moment in time?

- What insight do you get when linking the allergy to a challenge?

- What learning is in there for you?

- How could you apply this in the future?

Daniel Ofman's theory of Core qualities:

A core quality is an individual's specific strength, something he/she is good at, or for which he/she is often praised by others. Each person typically has at least 3-5 core qualities. When people are asked to describe you, they typically share what are your core qualities.

A pitfall is a transformation of a core quality; 'too much of a good thing'. The positive aspect goes too far, turning a strength into a weakness.

A challenge is the positive opposite of a pitfall. Having identified the negative, transformed behaviour, one can start looking for the challenge.

The allergy is 'too much of a good thing'. People tend to be allergic to too much of their own challenge in other persons.

• Everybody has core qualities, therefore everybody has pitfalls
• Your allergy is the other person’s pitfall.
• So if you are allergic to somebody’s behaviour, consider it as the other person’s pitfall. Then try finding the quality behind it. You might be able to improve your relationship with that person. Everytime I get irritated I realise 'What I don't like in this person is just 'too much' of something beautiful.'

To learn more about Core Qualities, see Youtube video "Core qualities and the Core Quadrant By Daniel Ofman": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFxr8GBiEoI (±12 minutes)

2. Identify and working on your Leadership Challenge

Identify a Leadership challenge and fill in the questions below (building on the work during the ALP Leadership deep dive weekend). It is recommended to fill this in as soon as possible after the weekend - preferably within a week after the weekend. Note: there is no need to submit this information separately - this can be done as part of the final submission.

Choose a leadership challenge that will push you outside of your comfort zone - something that you normally would not do. For example presenting in front of (large groups), have difficult conversations, gaining clarity on your personal purpose, etcetera. Again - be honest to yourself - are you really stretching yourself with the challenge you select?

Once you have identified your leadership challenge (and for some you will already know after the Leadership deep dive weekend what your challenge is), you are asked to 'work' on it in the period until final submission date - trying things out, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone and learning from successes and failures.

Leadership Challenge

Some suggestions:

- Focus on the most essential areas. Do not try and change  long list of areas all at the same time, chances are that you will lose momentum soon and give up on most if not all of them.

- See growth and development as an integrated, lifelong process. Accept gradual progress.

- Take total accountability - focus on what you as an individual can influence, and do not let yourself distracted by circumstances beyond your sphere of influence.

- Value consistency over intensity: It is more effective to work on something / change a habit consistently everyday, rather than making one huge change at one moment. Start with focusing on one habit only, and once this is developed into a routine, see what could be a next habit to add/change/let go of.

- Do not let yourself distracted by worry, doubts, and negativity. Be aware of potential saboteurs in your head. Doubt your doubts and nurture your dreams.

- Students who have completed ALP last year have indicated that you will gain most value from this assignment if you choose to regularly spend time on it throughout the months between Leadership Deep dive weekend and the deadline. Therefore it is recommended to find a strategy that works for you to maintain momentum over the next few months (so that you avoid only starting to work on this a few weeks before submission date). Some examples that might work:

• Build awareness through journaling. Write down regularly your successes and challenges, and the impact they had on you. Review your notes and notice patterns. This does not necessarily take a lot of time - you could for example take 10 minutes once a week (eg Sunday evening) to write down (1) what did you do last week in relation to your leadership challenge, (2) what was the impact and what did you learn from that, and (3) what are you planning to do in relation to your leadership challenge the coming week
• Agree with your buddy (somebody else from your ALP group) how you will connect regularly (eg weekly, biwekly) to share progress and learnings
• Set up Whatsapp group and share with each other relevant experiences, quotes, links to video's/books with intent to inspire each other

Reporting out the assignment

Deadline: 11 February 2019

Requirement: Submit one coherent and integrated document (±3000 words) with the following chapters:

1. Overview of your 3 core quality quadrants, and answers to the reflection questons for each core quality quadrant

2. Write an essay about your Leadership challenge. This essay should include answers to the following questions

- What is my Leadership challenge and why is it important to me?

- What have I done in the past few months to work on this Leadership challenge?