1. Leadership and Personal Development
Contributions of personal development in leadership
Submitted to: Honours College, Uganda Christian University, Mukono-Uganda,
Author: Barnabas Reech Wol Thiik,
Registration number: S14B13/101
Faculty: Science and Technology,
Program: Bachelor of Science in Information Technology,
April 2016

2. Table of Content
1. Thesis statement
2. Introduction to leadership
3. Bass’s theory of leadership
4. Four factors of leadership
5. Attributes of leadership
6. Principles of leadership
7. The great leadership process
8. Personal development
9. Why personal development in leadership
10. Conclusion

3. Thesis statement
What is the contribution of personal development in leadership?
While leadership intertwines with personal development, personal development is a foundation
stone on which leadership stands. It also provides nutrients for the growth of leadership when
continuously given attention by an individual and organization. In order to understand how
personal development is embedded and clearly see how important it is in leadership, let’s look at
key aspects of leadership such as; Bass’s theory, four factors of leadership, attributes of
leadership, principles of leadership and the great leadership process. We’ll then connect them to
personal development to correlate them.
Introduction to leadership
“Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and
directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent”, Dr. Manoj Kumar
Sharma and Miss Shilpa Jain (2013). Leadership is explained using four themes; process,
influence, group and attainment, Richard Bolden (2004). Leadership is therefore the process of
impacting an organized group of people and resources in order to achieve a goal. In leadership, a
leader applies skills and knowledge by taking steps to create a sense of direction and vision for
people to rethink about an issue at hand and accept to change towards the vision of the leader.
This implies that there is a leader only if there is a group of people and signifies the significance
of followers in leadership. Having looked at the meaning of leadership, let’s look at ways people
get there as stated in the Bass’ theory of leadership.

4. Bass’s theory of leadership
According to Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma and Miss. Shilpa Jain (2013) Bass’s theory states that
there are 3 basic ways how people become leaders such as;
1. Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles. This is the Trait
Theory.
2. A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out
extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory
3. People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the
Transformational or Process Leadership Theory.
Bass’s theory explains that people get to power through 3 ways. Some people present special
qualities that influence people’s perceptions in order to push for them to take up a leadership
role. This theory of character is common in identifying class representatives. They are identified
by their fellow students based on their character showing they can advocate for others, ensure
justice and fairness, integrity, unity and honesty.
Others are pushed to the leadership positions depending on the situation. If the previous
leadership is seen as being characterized by dictatorship for example, a leader who looks
democratic will be installed or if there is a lot of corruption, the intolerant leader on corruption is
sought after. This theory influenced the recent elections of Tanzania that saw John Magufuli
3 Ways
Trait Event Process

5. emerging as the president amidst his historic criticism against the former government where he
served for long on roads and other national projects battling corruption with unbeatable success.
Finally, the learning theory involves a continuous personal assessment and development by an
individual and building leadership career. “It is the most widely accepted theory today and the
premise on which this guide is based”, Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma and Miss. Shilpa Jain (2013).
Honours College of the Uganda Christian University aims at building leaders based on this
theory of leadership. In this theory, a leader is is given an opportunity to study leadership
qualities, roles, types of leadership and case studies of some prominent leaders among others.
This helps the leader in-making to shape his/her leadership career, identify strengths and
weaknesses and strives to work towards successful leadership goals. Allen Johnson Sirleaf, the
Liberian President is one example of leaders built this way.
Four factors of leadership
There are four factors of leadership that are necessary for a leader to exert influence on others to
follow him/her and he/she elevates in his/her career. These factors include; communication,
leader, follower and the situation as seen herein;
The first factor is the leader him/herself. A leader must understand him/herself; what he/she
knows, what he/she can do, identify weaknesses and outline strategies to work on them.

6. “If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality
yourself”, Jim Rohn (April 22nd 2014). A leader must develop qualities that will pull people
towards his/her greatness.
The second factor in leadership is the follower. Different followers require different leadership
styles based on experience, emotions, motivations among others. A new recruit expects more and
closer supervision than the experienced one. People who are motivated perform better than those
with low motivation. The success of a leader depends on his/her understanding of the nature of
his/her followers to address their needs accordingly. The followers continuously follow because
of your continuous support for them. Remember, no business without profits!
The next factor is communication. Communication is the meaningful exchange of information
between two entities through an appropriate channel. As in the real life, communication in
leadership is two-way. A leader speaks to his/her people and listens to them. Much of
communication in leadership is nonverbal. A lecturer who comes to class 30 minutes late tells
students that the lecture is for one and half hours and they can use the first thirty minutes to
complete their course works. Remember, communication is the dustbin of friction and stress at
work but poor relationship and lack of communication is puts followers in a furnace.
Finally, situation is another factor in leadership. Leadership situations are dynamic and change in
a blink of an eye. Situations change in leadership as many times as the number of followers of a
particular leader at a given time. A leader is expected to change leadership style and respond to
different situations as need may require. Any solution in one situation does not apply to another

7. but innovative change of actions is what brands some leaders greater than others. No solutions
fits all.
Attributes of leadership
“An attribute is a quality or character that someone or something has”, Cambridge Advanced
Learners’ Dictionary. A leader must have qualities that influence people to follow him/her.
If you are a leader who can be trusted, then those around you will grow to respect you.
A good leader operates under the guidance of a framework. Though frameworks are designed
differently, the content remains the same to a greater extend. Dr. Kumar outlines the leadership
framework in three ways such as Be, Know and Do. A leader should be able to present some
characteristic traits, have some knowledge and perform certain duties in his/her leadership
capacity.
A leader should be ;
Able to establish a sustainable relationship and support for the people and the organization while
performing selfless duties and act responsibly. He/she should be professional with good
character such as honesty, integrity, competence, commitment, courage, imagination,
straightforwardness, candor among others.
Attribute
s
Be Know Do

8. A leader should know ;
Four factors of leadership like leader, follower, communication and the situation. These help the
leader to act well, learn continuously and deliver the needed services to the people and the
organization in every situation. His/her characters, knowledge, skills, strengths and weaknesses
so as to be able to climb the ladder of leadership successfully.
Needs of his/her people/followers and their responses to stress so that he/she can design rightful
strategies to help them to cope with or mitigate the situation, hence the performance keeps on
track and the organization succeeds. He/she should have some counseling skills to support the
emotional needs of the team he/she is interacting with.
His/her job; a leader should have significant experience and skills and be able to build a strong
performing team in the organization through training, mentoring, coaching and advise. This
helps the leader execute his/her duties well and supervise the staff.
The organization’s culture so as to gain acceptance and engage using the principles of that
organization. A leader should know where to run for help in difficult times to seek for help
whenever he/she falls short.

9. A leader should do the following;
Give directions to the team to set goals, solve problems, make decisions and plan for the
organization and the team. Supporting the team solve their problems or develop themselves in
their career is one of the factors for motivating them and ensure productivity of the employees.
This service also enables the employees understand why they should follow a leader.
He/she should communicate, coordinate, supervise and evaluate the activities and the people
reporting to him/her. The leader should motivate, train and coach the team to build common
loyalty of the members in the organization.
Principles of leadership
Know yourself and seek self-improvement; a leader should be able to identify weaknesses and
strengths to take initiative and courage to change the weaknesses to strengths or design ways to
mitigate the effects of weaknesses or delegate duties. The personal evaluation and assessment
may be done by utilizing feedback from the appraisals, training, self-study, more academic
studies, social interaction and reflections among others.
Be technically proficient ; a leader must know his/her duties and those of the people reporting to
him/her or the people in the organization. This helps him/her to make proper evaluations in order
to understand where improvements are needed and where to support the staff in the team. You
can only do a comparative analysis and reasonably critique on a familiar subject matter.

10. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for his/her actions; a leader should be able to ensure
the accountability of his/her people and accept the challenge wherever he/she went wrong.
Remember, blames bring about a downfall but corrective measures contribute to capacity
building.
Make sound and timely decisions ; a good leader should be able to clear his/her desk before the
end of the day. Pending issues multiplies stress but early intervention brings happiness and
motivation. A table cleared today allows space for the items for the next day but a full table spills
over to your chair resulting into your displacement.
Set the example; Mahatma Gandhi argued that we are the change we want to see. “If you want
to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself”, Jim
Rohn (2014). Change must start from the leaders through actions; though words are important,
actions speak louder than words.
Know your people and look out for their well-being; understand the people you lead and be
ready to attend to their needs accordingly. Leadership is about people and the organization is
about people. Strong organizations are build by strong teams.
Keep your workers informed; good leaders never allow anything to guessing and speculations.
Good leaders should be able to speak to their people irrespective of the rank in order to clear the
atmosphere. Rumors cook conflicts.

11. Develop a sense of responsibility in your workers; build a strong and accountable team that is
able to move the organization even after you leave that organization. Remember, a good meal is
that which nourishes the consumer.
Ensure that tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished; provide clear duties with well
defined means of verification of the outcome and keep an eye on them to engage the team. The
failure of an organization begins from ambiguous job profiles and blurred indicators in the
planning matrix. Remember, a rat plays during the day where there is no cat.
The great leadership process
A leadership process is a step-by-step method the great leaders use to unveil the plans and tactics
to tackle an issue at hand in order to move the organization forward.. According to Dr. Kumar
(2013), there are five steps on the road to great leadership such as;
Challenge the process; identify a process in the organization that needs improvement for
instance, the admission process of the Uganda Christian University.
Inspire a shared vision; present your thoughts clearly to the team so that they can understand,
critique, add value and accept the need for the change. For example, we need an online system
where a student can apply, monitor and confirm their admissions without traveling to campuses,
reduce paper work and increase manipulation of the data at hand.

12. Enable others to act; provide necessary tools, skills and techniques required for the change to
happen. Identify Information specialists in the team and outsource where necessary, provide
funding and training required for the team to perform the job of designing the system with clear
specifications on how the system should look like.
Model the way; where the team faces challenges, get involved so that the team is motivated that
the job is do-able. Attend group meetings and brainstorm together with them. Suggest necessary
solutions and participate in programming in case you know it or do analysis. Remember, the
distance between you and the team is equal to the amount of the problem they face. In the real
life, the advancing troops retreat when their commander flees. When you distance yourself from
the team, whoever assumes that you fled may be right.
Encourage the heart; motivate the team and show them the morale that there is a way to success.
When the team is facing an obstacle, their source of comfort is the leader and any leader who
shows grieve in the face of setbacks fails a strong team. Remember, when the father drips tears,
the children wail.
Personal Development
Personal development is a set of activities that a person takes in order to learn and develop
him/her self and/or acquire skills necessary in a career. It involves self awareness, understanding

13. weaknesses, strengths and engage efforts that enhance strengths while managing weakness to
ignite one’s maximum potential in leadership.
"Development is about moving to a different state of being or functioning", Pedler, Burgoyne,
and Boydell (1989).
“What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on
themselves until they become effective”, Jim Rohn (April 22nd 2014)
In order to achieve personal development, plans, time and money are invested. Many
contemporary organizations and businesses encourage their employees to develop Personal
Development Plans (PDP) and incorporate it into the performance appraisal at a given regular
period of employment. This shows the connection between work and personal development.
Modern businesses and institutions hardly make profits without marketing and sales or public
relations personnel. Acquiring and maintaining customers is a central role of these professionals
which determines the business financial health. Strategic location of the business, target market,
quality of the products and promotion strategies are other important factors in business. In
leadership, the leader is the commodity and the salesperson. A leader’s choice of the role to play
and the people to lead are as important as choosing the location and the market. The quality of
the leader depends on how much he/she knows about his/her weaknesses just like a
businessperson knows his/her products. It is therefore important for a leader to begin developing
him/her self before developing the subordinates otherwise it is a journey of a blind leading
another blind.

14. Why personal development in leadership;
The first and the second Bass’ theories relate to special characters that enable a leader to assume
leadership. Whether by good leadership character as seen in the first theory or special characters
viewed to quell any unfavourable situation, both relate to ethics. Ethics are learnt in academic
setting like the Honours’ College or in the church (spiritual development). These aspects of
leadership depict personal development as a cornerstone in the identification of leaders.
The third Bass’ theory is the most common theory and forms basis why Uganda Christian
University established the Honours college. The objective of the college is to develop quality
leaders from across different disciplines around the campus. Students learn from each other
through interactions, class presentations, mentorship and gatherings like Agape Wednesday
while their interaction with visitors, university top leaders and alumni ignites hidden potential in
students, hence sparks personal development and consequently building quality future leaders.
This also builds communication skills through research and presentation as seen in the four
factors of leadership above.
On the other hand, leadership attributes include; be, know and do. Before one becomes a leader
of good character with honesty, integrity or proficient, he/she must have developed and practiced
it for sometimes. Before someone knows him/her self, communicate well, understand the
followers and the situations, one must have learnt it and before a leader gives good directives,
coordination, builds a loyal team, practice and learning have happened. The process of achieving
the three (be, know and do) is a personal development process. In case a leader fails to do

15. something because he/she does not know or has not learnt, we conclude that there is a need for
personal development for that leader to be successful.
From the principles of leadership, nobody is born with all those principles nor does a person
learn them in a day-leaders are made. Some of them may be hidden either from the individual or
public or both. This shows the power of self-awareness component of personal development.
When an individual realizes the weakness and he/she begins to find ways of developing strengths
along that area, it is personal development although understanding one’s self is very hard.
African proverb says, “the longest journey is the inward journey”.
Finally, personal development plans and their subsequent evaluations expose areas of
weaknesses where a leader is challenged to device ways of managing them or develop skills.
Where skill gap has been identified for instance, if public speaking skill is found to be one of the
skills lacking in a particular leader, he/she is compelled to think of starting a public speaking
course or find means of practicing to develop public speaking skill. This equates successful
personal development to successful leadership.
“Good leaders are made not born”, Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma and Miss. Shilpa Jain (2013).
Given the growing number of institutions and programs on leadership, the world aims at building
leaders through training and mentoring in order to make good leaders. Therefore, we need early
personal development to construct sustainable foundation of future leaders, thanks to the Uganda
Christian University. A number of programs on leadership run parallel with the major courses
students offer to study like the Honours College and the African Youth Leadership Forum among

16. others. Based on the third bass’ theory that emphasizes process leadership, I am convinced that
we need personal development for leadership but not leadership for personal development.
In conclusion, leadership is about inspiring people to move towards executing a common task
that bears positive outcomes for an organization and the consumers. Leadership is a growing
process that takes efforts of the leader to develop over time. Proper understand of the leadership
principles, leadership factors, Bass’ theory and great leadership process and striving to align
yourself to them is a very important asset in the leadership career. A leader should be able to
learn continuously over time. Personal development is the ladder to the success of a leader.
Positive thinking and continuous quest to succeed without giving up is character important in life
and particularly in leadership. As he thinks, so he becomes (Prov. 23:7). “You become what you
think about most of the time”, Earl Nightingale.

17. References
Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma and Miss. Shilpa Jain (2013), Leadership Management: Principles,
Models and Theories, S.P.U. (P.G.) College, Falna Dist. Pali, Rajasthan, India
Richard Bolden, (July 2004), What is Leadership?, :Research Report 1. South West England,
Exeter University
Cambridge Advanced Learners’ Dictionary, 3rd edition, Cambridge University, England
Jim Rohn (2014), 7 Personality Traits of a Great Leader, http://www.success.com/article/rohn-
7-personality-traits-of-a-great-leader#sthash.m2NDiHqg.dpuf accessed on 24/02/2016
Herbert Harris, The 12 universal Laws of Success, 1st Indian Edition (Nov. 2004), New Delhi.