The Emerging Leaders Program: Kirkpatrick's Four-Level Training Evaluation Model

I, Jonathan Hollander would like to join the Ladders for Leaders program so I can get experience for my future career. I hopefully can learn new techniques to old tricks, how to handle certain situations and more. I hope to get a summer job/internship out of Ladders for Leaders for two reasons the first being: I’m on a set schedule in the summer, I’m not wasting my time over-sleeping and doing nothing. The second being: a future career or experience for my job. I think I can contribute to ladders for leaders by being a role model for future applicants proving to them you can do something with your summer vacation and more importantly life. I once heard a quote that had a major affect on me “one life can make a difference in the lives of many”.

Within this paper, I will evaluate myself and the rest of my group on how overall our leadership project went and the pros and cons of each member within my group. The members of my group include myself, Michael Williams, Divya Reitz, Zack Benner, and Travis Geidroc. Reviewing and looking at how well each student worked individually will help show where things went wrong or went well throughout the planning of the leadership project.

I interviewed Louis Kang, the senior pastor of the House LA Church, who runs the Discipleship Group program for young believers in the church.

In addition to completing the Strengths Based Leadership assessment, I completed Robert Kelley’s Followership Survey. According to the survey, I am an exemplary follower (Kelley, 1992). According to Kelley (1988), exemplary followers, or effective followers, mange themselves well and are courageous, honest, and credible (p. 144). These types of followers are additionally committed to the organization and to a purpose, principle or person outside themselves (Kelley, 1988, p. 144). Lastly, exemplary followers are independent thinkers who act on their own initiative, engage actively when working in a group and provide constructive input (Kelley, 1988, p. 144). Another assessment that I completed was the Authentic Leadership

It is our duty to the profession to educate ourselves. We can learn Army doctrine, policy, and regulation by reading. Army Doctrine Reference Publication (ADRP) and Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 7-0 will teach us structure and focus how to train. This will allow us to understand the procedures in training fundamental doctrine of developing leaders. Understanding these two publications will support how to develop programs in the Operational and Institutional domains. Recommending readings for Senior Leaders should be the following at a minimum: Army Regulation (AR) 350–1, Army Training, and Leader Development;

One of my top strengths, according to the VIA test, is leadership, which is shown in almost every aspect of my life and it changes how I interact with people. To begin, this year is my fourth year teaching Sunday School at my church and leading various events with children, ages preschool through fifth grade. This requires skills, like leadership, to keep the preschoolers entertained and learning things, all while making sure the entire lesson is taught within the time frame. For the most part, the kids will respond to the encouragement to stay focused on the task at hand, but sometimes, if a kid is having a bad day or you step over the threshold, they will lash out at my leadership and attempt to keep things running smoothly. In addition,

Leadership development plan is only practical like the theories behind the idea. Basically, before a person plan, one must know and understand the mission to be accomplished. Good theories are significant and logical and important to comprehend that many accepted leadership principles are difficult to integrate an actionable behavior. A leadership plan helps in understanding and enhancing to lead organizations, employees and groups. The most valuable skill for a leader is the capacity to manage their individual learning. A highly motivated and principled person can attain a great degree of understanding, when they form a leadership plan. The document needs to be written down and be accessible and accommodate new insights. Preparation of a leadership plan has to take into consideration the first plan being a rough draft.

What is a Graduate School? I wonder how to best define it, I think I could describe as a pathway to leadership development. A week ago when I first started the MOPA Program, I was asked to read both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution—the purpose of the reading was to analyze the function of government in our current political system. This assignment made me think outside the box, and consider why do I strongly believe in the role of government. This experience in class brought me back to when I first decided to apply for the MOPA Program, and I realized the reason I wanted to be part of this cohort was because I wanted to be part of a program that would challenge my knowledge, and stimulate my professional growth.

The Leadership Practice Inventory that I took at the beginning of my Student Orientation Counselor or S.O.C. experience was eye opening. It teaches and surveys people about five leadership skills these skills were further explained in The Student Leadership Challenge text by the authors James Kouzes and Barry Posner (2014) the different practices of leadership were: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart. These principles each have their own challenges and frustrations, and as a leader they have helped me realize what I can improve on. Modeling the Way was one of my top two practices that I had ranked high on during the skills inventory, and its focus is on finding your

The Harvard Business School (HBS) has developed a novel Business Model Innovation (BMI), by creating an alternative to the traditional Executive MBA (EMBA) format entitled the “Program for Leadership Development” (PLD). Deviating from typical Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s), the PLD is an intensive 28-week program that combines online and on campus training with a highly selective admissions process. HBS Alumni Status can be obtained through the completion of 2 additional weeks of their open enrollment or custom programs. PLD Alumni can contact HBS with specific needs, which can be fulfilled with custom course content. They also routinely receive questionnaires, through which HBS offers specific resources and courses, that are subsequently heavily marketed to them as a target audience. In doing so HBS employs push to talk, automated hovering, and tweak behavior connection strategies to various degrees.

It’s no secret that the world is changing every day; socially, technologically, and economically. In fact, sociologist Herbert Spencer claimed that change is the characteristic feature of human society (Mondal).This means that in order to develop the key competencies the new generation of leaders must possess, they must be able to change with the world. Because the world is always changing, the new generations of leaders must be able to adapt to the changes and constantly expand their knowledge on the society that they are a part of.

Human resources are the most valuable assets of any organization, with the machines, materials and even the money; nothing gets done without man-power. In today’s business climate, businesses are faced with stiff internal and external competition. There are various human resource functions that give an organization a competitive edge, but most scholars argue that human resource functions becomes only operational when training has run through them all. This places training and development as an essential function in the survival of any organization. Increasingly, high performance organizations today are recognizing the need to use best training and development practices to enhance their competitive advantage.

Before this class, I had a very primitive and vague definition of leadership. Not only did I define it as per my views and ideologies, but I also said that each individual has their own definition of leadership. My initial belief was that leadership does not have a clear cut definition, but there were well defined leadership traits which made an individual. I also initially believed that personal traits did not translate into leadership traits with no strong correlation. After going through the various modules this class offered, it is safe to say that I have significantly redefined leadership and underwent a strong personal assessment. This paper talks what I took back from each of the class activities, assignments and how my self-assessment compares to the perception of others.

Heading into this course, I wasn’t exactly sure what it was about. Aside from reading the description on the KU website, I had no idea what to expect. I thought it would be centered around what would make a good leader, and the things I should do to achieve this. After the first couple weeks, I finally grasped the purpose of this class, and slowly started to work what I was learning into my day to day life. Through this class I have been able to identify what adaptive leadership is and how to apply it to my day to day task as well as how to work within the disequilibrium. I was also given the opportunity to reflect on what I was learning, through journals and amongst my peers through discussion boards, and how I was using my knowledge to identify different challenges I was facing in my life.

I also believe that an effective leader plays a significant role in promoting and molding individuals’ readiness as it relates to motivation and commitment. As such, I developed my leadership assessment with these points in mind. The assessment focuses on 14 attributes that I believe are important not only for a leader to be successful within the parameters of the SLT, but for most any leadership model adopted by a successful leader in the modern business environment. The assessment was completed by Bobby, my manager of nearly six years, and by Katrina, my highest-ranking direct report of nearly four years. Each was asked to assign a candid rating to each attribute using a one-to-ten (worst-to-best) scale as well as to make notes or offer any suggestions so that I may incorporate it into my leadership style in an effort to improve the areas of weakness and become a better leader. In addition, I did a self-assessment using the same criteria. It should be noted that while Bobby offered both a ranking and narrative feedback, Katrina completed the assessment using the numerical ranking only. The results were consistent in some areas and mixed in others, but revealed some valuable information that I can use not only within the context of this course, but also as my career is better defined over time.