There are two steps in my plan to achieve the first goal. First of all, I will find three mentors to guide me and gain valuable insights about skills, methods, and experience of self-control (Parent, 2015.para10). These three mentors include the teacher from RRU, a professional person with rich working experience and a friend so I can discuss theoretical knowledge with the teacher, learning practical experience from the professionals, and exchange learning experiences with my friend. I will observe how these people normally handle emotions and stress and record key findings as the reference. The second and the longest step is self-improvement which requires repetitive exercises, assessment, corrections, and feedback. I will make two emotion control boxes which are the deposit box and withdraw box. Every time I feel stressed and out-of-control, I put a dollar on a sticky note writing time, person and reasons for incidents in the deposit box. If I analyze my activities afterward and take immediate remedial measures to eliminate the negative moods or behaviors and received positive feedback from friends or person involved in that incidents, I can take out the dollar and put it in the withdraw box. If I successfully handled stress and challenges, I will put a dollar on a sticky note writing skills, insights and methods in the withdraw box. At the end of every month, I will compare the dollars in these two boxes to summarize what have learned and happened this month relating to self-management and what kind of actions are valuable and what’s are not and gradually develop my emotional intelligence and self-management skills.

To start with, I will identify my personal needs for self-motivation. I clearly understand what inspires me to pursue leadership and the factors includes both internal and external. After that, I will practice the technical during teamwork to motivate others to work as a team. According to Daft, it is the leader’s responsibility to discover people’s needs and motivate correspondingly. I will talk with each member in our team to design the reward system or methods to mobilize team members during team project. I will apply the Acquired Needs Theory (p234) and write thank you card to those who accomplish complex tasks to fulfil the need for achievement. I will organize team activities, pay attention to personal life to strengthen interpersonal relationships to fulfill need for affiliation. I will listen and welcome new ideas as well as allow members to participate in strategic decision makings to meet the need for power. Lastly, I will provide immediate feedback and personal support and supervision on poor performance as it is more effective than money rewards(p237).  

Parent, J. L. (2015). Developing the Leader in You. Woman Advocate, 20(2), 28-30.