The final course deliverable is an extensive real-world project: an individual leadership portfolio. This portfolio will yield a product for you to share with prospective or current employers in order to enhance your employment possibilities and promotion potential. The portfolio is the second of two deliverables comprising the assessment; a Personal Leadership History Report (discussed in the section below) is due first and leads to the Personal Leadership Portfolio.

The course project promotes your development and personal commitment to the required knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) required for understanding, assimilating, and demonstrating professional public safety leadership. In preparing your portfolio, you will have the opportunity to review leadership from a historical and an operational perspective and will be able to evaluate your own leadership style and effectiveness.

Completion of the course-long personal leadership project solidifies foundation KSAs in order to:

• evaluate decision making in relation to historic and current issues in public safety through case studies and simulation
• explain the relationship between successful leadership, organizational development, and technology and the way these factors affect decision making
• discuss the importance of ethics, globalization, systems thinking, proactive leadership, and leader-follower relationships to successful leadership in public safety
• identify and discuss the major leadership theories and concepts applicable to public safety
• explain the importance of leadership in organizational processes and change
• cite examples of successful leadership styles and techniques in progressive public administration
• complete case study reviews and an operational simulation based on major public safety issues
• identify future public safety challenges and potential solutions
• synthesize your learning experience in your major discipline to apply the knowledge and skills to practical individual and organizational challenges

The Leadership Development Project Process

The project is a course-length process managed using specified development steps that correlate with specific course materials. Aspects of this process will be addressed in the course conferences each week. The first of the two project deliverables is the personal leadership history report.

Personal Leadership History Report

Discuss leadership experiences, what you learned from them, factors that influenced how you led, and how you look back on that leadership experience.  This does not have to cover your entire leadership experience, but should cover enough to write the Personal Leadership Portfolio assignment.  Be sure to read the requirements for that assignment before you complete the Personal Leadership History Report.  Be careful not to focus on a leadership style in general, but discuss specific personal leadership experiences, both positive and negative, successes and failures.  Be sure that your conclusion focuses on summing up your points on leadership discussed in the essay, not just a style.  This is an essay on leadership, not management; sometimes the distinction is a fine line.  

The personal leadership history report will review your leadership experiences and describes your leadership style during those experiences. The body of the personal leadership history report shall be 4-6 pages, excluding other material such as the cover page, table of contents, abstract, graphics and tables, and references.  The paper shall be presented in APA (6th edition) format, all margins should be 1”, 12 point font, and be in either Arial or New Times Roman font style. In the following descending order of preference, information sources must be either peer-reviewed articles, government reports, or other sources approved by your instructor. Internet information sources from other than authoritative sources are discouraged.