Section 1
I evaluated my strengths and weakness in public health leadership using the MBTI type and emotional intelligence tools. The MBTI indicator provided information about personality type, how I perceive my environment and decision-making abilities. The results of my MBTI type indicated that my personality type is ESTP. Individuals with personality type ESTP score high in extraversion, sensing, thinking and perceiving. As a leader, I have strengths in evaluating scenarios and evaluating others. The test on emotional intelligence showed that my strongest areas of leadership are self-awareness and cultural competencies in communication. My weaknesses from the self-evaluation tests include self-management and the ability to influence others. Although I am able to analyze and interpret other people’s emotions, I have challenges implementing my approach to certain issues in a way that appeals to others. The weaknesses in personal management are related to failure in communication by sending the wrong signals to other people.
There are opportunities to learn new information on personal management and also opportunities to organize people in a team project that requires participation as a change agent. In the course of practicing as a public health officials, I will have many opportunities to learn skills on personal management from colleagues and experience. The nature of teamwork collaboration in the delivery of public health provides opportunities for practice as a change agent in public health practice. However, there are threats in creating a feedback mechanism for leadership development. Feedback is important in showing progress, and the feedback mechanism includes views from other people. My weaknesses on personal management may affect the quality of feedback delivered by other people.
Section 2
The leadership framework recognizes the importance of communication skills among professionals for internal function of organization and proper external relationship with other stakeholders, such as the public. Requirements on communication skills include the use of all new information technology sources that are applicable to public organizations and performing specific tasks in organizations. Leaders should be able to effectively use all the communication tools at their disposal in maintaining good relationships and facilitating the flow of information at all managerial levels. Effective communication considers cultural dynamics and other issues that may affect interpersonal relations. According to Rowitz, professionals in public organization should be able to analyze their audiences and adapt their messages to suit cultural and language needs of specific audiences (2014).
Crisis abilities in public healthcare include skills to deal with community concerns about healthcare and getting information to the public about community health welfare issues including disease outbreak and impacts of natural and man-made disasters. My plan on crisis abilities development is the development of skills in communication with media. According to Rowitz, a public health official should be able to communicate with the press and serve as the voice of people on public health issues in television, radio and other types of media (2014). The plan includes developing skills in providing accurate and up-to-date information during health crisis. There are many possible sources of crisis in public healthcare, such as disease outbreaks, and it is important for the health officials to have the skills to face the media and direct the public towards the right interventions out of the crises.
The framework on public health leadership advocates for collaborative and shared leadership that embraces the need to involve and engage all the stakeholders in inter-disciplinary projects (Czabanowska et al., 2014). Transformational competencies include skills related to visioning, creating a mission, development of change strategies and becoming a change agent. The current plan will involve developing skills in influencing others towards change. From my leadership evaluation, the major weaknesses on transformational competencies involve lack of experience in serving as an agent for change. Because leadership in public health requires collaboration and engagement of all stakeholders, core competencies on transformation and political requirements can be addressed through team work dynamics. The plan will target to develop skills in group facilitation, mediation roles and ability to function in a team. My plan on leadership development follows the major competency areas for public health leaders: Core transformational competencies, political competencies, trans-organizational dynamics and team building competencies (Rowitz, 2014).
Political competencies are the abilities in working within the political structure of work teams, community, state and legal systems. The political competence requires skills on policy development, conflict resolution, and negotiation, ethics, and value-based strategies, marketing, and education skills (Rowitz, 2014). My plan will determine the progress on political competency by the level of influence to other people, ability to improve people skills and improvement in self-discipline. A leader should be able to influence others as a change agent in organizations. The ability to influence is related to organizational and team building competencies. The plan on political competencies will consider evidence of my influence both up and down the ladder in public health systems. Leaders must have self-discipline in order to create a positive influence on their followers. Self-discipline in leadership includes personality and adherence to ethical values and legal systems. Crisis abilities are concerned with self-discipline when dealing with crisis issues affecting an organization or a team (Czabanowska et al., 2014). Leaders should show the right attitude even during times of crisis and maintain their formal professional values.
My plan on leadership competency development is related to the change needed in the public health system. There is the need to change societal norms and influences through increased emphasis on prevention, a population-based practice, and acknowledgment of certain determinants of public health outcomes (Rowitz, 2014). Competencies are required in strengthening the public health infrastructure through partnership, improve accountability and enhance communication among stakeholders.
- Czabanowska, K., Smith, T., Könings, K. D., Sumskas, L., Otok, R., Bjegovic-Mikanovic, V. & Brand, H. (2014). In search for a public health leadership competency framework to support leadership curriculum–a consensus study. The European Journal of Public Health, 24(5), 850-856.
- Rowitz, L. (2014). Public health leadership: Putting principles into practice. Burlington, Mass: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
