Scenario

The organization you work for as a director of leadership and learning is looking to create an adaptive leadership toolkit to help improve employee leadership skills and behaviors over the next two years. To begin this work, you conducted a personal leadership self-assessment to take a leadership inventory of yourself. Now that you know areas that you can improve upon as a leader, you decided to create a personal development plan that will identify actionable steps toward improving these areas you’ve identified. Your intensions are to incorporate your personal development plan into the adaptive leadership toolkit to serve as an exemplar that can be used by all people leaders in the organization.

Prompt

Using the provided template, address the following:

Leadership behavior: Based on the results of your personal leadership self-assessment, describe the leadership behavior you scored lowest in and explain how developing this could have a positive impact on your ability to lead.
SMART Goal: Apply SMART goal setting to create a personal development plan that aligns with the leadership behavior you’re looking to improve. Keep in mind that your personal development plan will be used as an exemplar for the adaptive leadership toolkit in Milestone Two. Your SMART goal should address the following:
“S” Specific: Your goal must be specific. i) State your personal development goal. ii) Describe the reason for this goal. iii) Describe the objective(s) needed to ensure this goal it met.
“M” Measurable: Your goal must be measurable. i) Describe the metric(s) that will be used to determine if you meet this goal. ii) Describe the metric(s) that will be used to measure performance of meeting objective(s) along the way.
“A” Achievable: Your goal must be achievable. i) Describe the tools and skills you will need to achieve this goal. ii) Describe who needs to be involved to allow you to be successful in achieving this goal.
“R” Relevant: Your goal must be relevant. i) Explain how this goal can be linked to an overall business objective. ii) Explain how this goal will increase your knowledge and improve your overall performance as a leader.
“T” Time-Bound: Your goal must be time bound. i) Provide an overall timeline for the completion of this goal. ii) Provide tangible deliverable(s) with due dates that support the objective(s) you indicated above.

 

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.

God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

Leadership Behavior: Emotional Intelligence

Based on my self-assessment, I identified emotional intelligence as an area for improvement. While I possess strong technical skills and a strategic mindset, I recognize the importance of effectively managing my emotions and understanding the emotions of others. Developing my emotional intelligence will enhance my ability to build strong relationships, resolve conflicts, and inspire my team.

SMART Goal:

Specific: Improve my ability to empathize with others and respond effectively to their emotional needs.

Measurable: I will achieve this by completing an online emotional intelligence course and tracking my progress in a journal. I will also seek feedback from colleagues and direct reports on my emotional intelligence.

Leadership Behavior: Emotional Intelligence

Based on my self-assessment, I identified emotional intelligence as an area for improvement. While I possess strong technical skills and a strategic mindset, I recognize the importance of effectively managing my emotions and understanding the emotions of others. Developing my emotional intelligence will enhance my ability to build strong relationships, resolve conflicts, and inspire my team.

SMART Goal:

Specific: Improve my ability to empathize with others and respond effectively to their emotional needs.

Measurable: I will achieve this by completing an online emotional intelligence course and tracking my progress in a journal. I will also seek feedback from colleagues and direct reports on my emotional intelligence.

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