Your leadership development shouldn't be an accidental process. There should be nothing random about it, and it should be ordered and disciplined. In that regard, I've developed a six-step planning process that I think applies to most circumstances that you're likely to encounter in the workplace. It begins with identifying and prioritizing the competencies from whatever leadership framework you're using, whether it's the RCEL framework that we use in this course or the one from your own particular workplace. Second in this process is to assess the current and target skill levels that are needed to perform effectively in your current role. Next, we compare the current skills with the target skills to determine the gaps in performance, those that might need to be addressed through the development of a supporting action plan. We then select the competencies for future development, then work on developing an action plan that consists of SMART goals. This is an acronym that describes the format for crafting a well-developed and effective goal for your competencies. Lastly, you execute and track that plan. And this, obviously, then become an iterative process where you cycle through these steps many times until you achieve the desired skill level for any particular competency. We'll refer to this particular process throughout this course as way of not only owning your own leadership development, but as a process that you can use when you're in the lead role and developing your followers.
