1.0 Introduction

Having a self-awareness about our leadership and management skills will help us immensely to be better leaders and business managers. Leadership is all about influencing people towards the attainment of goals (Daft, 2014). The easiest way to achieve self-awareness is taking self-assessment tests to understand the current strengths and weaknesses of ourselves. This is the core purpose of this exercise. However, when developing a strategic professional development portfolio (PDP), it’s important to understand how these assessment findings could be incorporated into a comprehensive action plan to achieve the real growth or professional development.

1.1 Personal goals

I have identified following personal goals which are important to me within the next few years. The achievement of these personal goals will deliberately enhance the performance of my business as well.
• Developing my networking skills to expand the business globally
• Understanding the fundamentals of strategic goal setting and strategic planning
• Creating a highly effective corporate culture within the business and making sure it matches with my style
• Developing myself as a successful strategist and innovator to redefine the industry value proposition and thereby win global markets
In today’s competitive business world, change seems to be the most certain thing. The external rate of change is so high and business leaders should constantly update their business models accordingly. Hence, intuitiveness is important to take decisions based on the gut feeling. Some level of risk should be taken to achieve great things in both business and life. Thus, one should have a better self-analysis about his / her self. There are different techniques and tools which facilitate self-analysis such as psychometric tests, self-assessment libraries, 30 degree feedback, etc. The self-assessment kit titled “how do you fit the design” will be used as the base within this exercise.
Strategic management could be identified as one of the interesting disciplines which has a higher practical significance in both personal and business matters. According to Porter (1996), strategy is all about deliberately choosing to be different. Most businesses carry out a comprehensive strategic audit prior to the initiation of their strategic plans. Similarly, business leaders should also audit themselves (i.e. personality, motivation, self-confidence, task-orientation etc.) before initiating a professional development plan. This will help them to identify current gaps which need to be developed in facing the competition at a strategic level (Daft, 2015). The self-assessment kit can be identified as the main platform which facilitates the strategic professional development portfolio (PDP) and it clearly audits the different aspects of a one’s self which are crucial in planning the future career progress.
The Self-Assessment exercises introduced by Daft (2015) is a valuable tool to spot weaknesses in our profiles and take corrective actions to be better individuals with higher level of commitment and dedication. I carried out some of the tests which have a strategic importance to my career and found out few areas that need be developed to expand my horizons and deliver better results. According to the Daft (2014), people can develop leadership traits once they develop with more experience and knowledge. Being self-aware of your weaknesses and strengths is the starting point.
Having identified the importance of self-assessment and professional development, the next few sections of the report will focus on the key leadership aspects which are strategically important for my professional development. The self-assessment results of the following areas will be discussed below.
• Personal networking
• Are you ready to fill an international role?
• Is goal setting your style?
• What size organization for you?
• Corporate culture preference
• Are you innovative?
• Political Skills