| Course | LI410 Leadership in Practice |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 10 |
| Paper type | Leadership development plan |
| Length | About 1,470 words, 8 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for LI410 Unit 10
Four Findings, Four Checkers: A Sort-Line Supervisor's Unit 10 Leadership Development Plan
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
LI410: Leadership in Practice
Unit 10 Leadership Development Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Kettle Run Recovery, its crew, the checkers and every figure are composite and illustrative; the questionnaire and sources cited are real.
What the Term Found
Nine earlier papers produced more findings than a ninety-day plan can carry. I chose the four that recur most often on my shift and cost the most when they do.
Relationship behavior thins under load. My Unit 2 self-assessment and the observer ratings behind it showed that on heavy nights, when the agency sends fewer temporary sorters and the regulars carry the line, my explaining and checking in with people nearly disappears.
Correction comes before questions. My Unit 3 log showed that active management by exception, spotting and fixing errors, made up most of my recorded behavior, although I described myself as transformational.
Development goes to the same people. My Unit 6 reflection found that baler and quality-control training on my shift had gone almost entirely to one long-serving sorter, while agency sorters stayed on the platform.
Hard conversations wait, and so do explanations. My Unit 5 conflict reflection, my Unit 8 scenario and my Unit 9 coaching plan share a pattern: I escalated a dispute before talking it through, held twelve bales without telling the crew why, and postponed feedback to a senior operator for eight months. In each case the delay or silence did more harm than the issue itself.
Why If-Then Actions
Each action below is written as an implementation intention: if a specific situation arises, then I will do a specific thing. Gollwitzer (1999) argues that tying an intended behavior to a concrete cue makes it more likely to happen, because the situation itself prompts the action instead of relying on memory or willpower in the moment. Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) combined nearly a hundred studies and reported a reliable advantage, of medium to large size, for goals backed by if-then plans over goals stated on their own.
That fits a sort line well. The moments I need to act on are not rare: surges, jams, wet loads and handovers happen every week. A goal such as "be more supportive under pressure" is easy to agree with and easy to forget when the belt surges. An instruction tied to the surge is harder to forget, because the surge itself prompts it.
The Plan
Finding one: relationship behavior under load. If the line falls more than [fifteen] minutes behind its hourly tonnage, then before I give any instruction I will walk the presort platform and ask the two nearest sorters what is slowing them, taking about two minutes. Start date: the first Monday after this term ends. Checker: the first-shift supervisor, who will read [two] of my handover logs each week, where I will record each surge and what I asked. Measure: the share of logged surges where a question came before an instruction, reviewed every two weeks.
Finding two: correction before questions. If I see a sorting error on the fiber line, then I will ask the sorter what they saw before I name the error, unless the error is a safety hazard, in which case I stop the line first and ask afterward. Start date: the same Monday. Checker: the presort lead, who will tally, on [two] nights a week, how often I open with a question and how often with a correction. Measure: the ratio of questions to corrections, compared with the baseline from my Unit 3 log.
Finding three: development for the same people. If a cross-training slot opens on the baler or the quality-control station, then I will fill it from the list of agency sorters with at least eight weeks on my shift, ranked by presort audit accuracy, and I will not reorder that list by instinct. Start date: the next open slot. Checker: the training log, reviewed monthly by the plant manager. Measure: the number of agency sorters trained in ninety days, against zero in the prior six months.
Finding four: hard conversations and explanations. If I make a decision that costs the crew money, time or a preferred station, then I will tell them the reason in person before the end of that shift and send the plant manager the same reason before he writes anything to them. If I notice a performance problem, then I will raise it within [ten] working days, using the opening format from my Unit 9 plan. Start date: immediately. Checker: the union steward, who has agreed to tell me if crew members hear about a decision from anyone but me, and my own log of concerns noted and the date each was raised. Measure: the number of days between noticing and raising, and the number of times the steward reports a decision the crew learned secondhand.
Why the Checkers Sit Outside My Control
A plan I rate myself would report success. I would remember the surges where I asked a question and forget the ones where I shouted over the belt, just as my Unit 3 self-description remembered the transformational moments and missed the corrections. Day (2000) distinguishes leader development, building one person's skills, from leadership development, building relationships and shared capacity across a group, and argues that both depend on feedback from others. Each checker here was chosen because they see the behavior directly and gain nothing from flattering me.
The first-shift supervisor sees my handover logs and has her own surges to compare. The presort lead stands beside the fiber line and will notice which way I open. The training log is a record nobody can misremember. The union steward hears what the crew says when I am not around, which is the most useful and least comfortable source on the list. I have asked each of them to tell me when the plan is not working, not only when it is, and I have told the steward that hearing bad news from him will count as the plan working.
A development plan that only I can check is a plan for feeling better, not for getting better.
What I Will Stop Doing
Adding behaviors without removing any would overload a shift that already runs at full stretch, so three habits come off the list.
I will stop taking the presort station myself on wet nights. As my Unit 1 post found, that habit protects one night's tonnage and keeps every newer sorter from learning to run presort under pressure. I will stand behind the sorter instead.
I will stop giving the crew my private reading of decisions before I have the facts. My Unit 7 analysis showed how one remark about the pick-rate dashboard turned a sound objection into a five-week delay.
I will stop agreeing in supervisors' meetings to rules I doubt. My Unit 4 reflection described a unanimous rotation vote that two of us quietly ignored. If I doubt a rule, I will say so at the table or follow it.
Checkpoints Across Ninety Days
Day 14. I meet the first-shift supervisor and the presort lead to review the first two weeks of handover logs and question-to-correction tallies. If either measure has not moved, I adjust the cue, for example by lowering the surge threshold to ten minutes.
Day 30. I review the training log with the plant manager, check that at least one agency sorter has started baler training, and go over the steward's reports.
Day 60. I repeat the day 14 review and ask the presort lead whether the crew has noticed any change. A change the crew cannot see has not happened yet.
Day 90. I retake the Leadership Behavior Questionnaire from Northouse (2021) that I completed in Unit 2, and ask the same two observers to rate me again. A self-score can rise simply because I have spent ninety days thinking about the items, so the observer ratings carry more weight than mine. If the observer gap on relationship behavior has not narrowed, finding one stays in the next plan with a new cue.
The Hardest Row
The action I expect to find hardest is the first part of finding four: telling the crew the reason for a costly decision before the shift ends. It means standing in front of people who have just lost something and owning the decision while they are still angry. Every time I have avoided it this term, I have told myself the explanation could wait until tempers cooled. The twelve bales showed me what waiting costs: the crew learned the reason from someone else, and the story they told each other was worse than the truth. I am keeping that row exactly as written for the same reason I want to drop it.
References
Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: A review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(4), 581-613. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(00)00061-8
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation intentions: Strong effects of simple plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493-503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Sheeran, P. (2006). Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta-analysis of effects and processes. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 69-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(06)38002-1
Northouse, P. G. (2021). Leadership: Theory and practice (9th ed.). Sage.
LI410 Unit 10 instructions, in plain terms
The final unit asks you to build a leadership development plan from what the course revealed about you. Start with findings from earlier assignments rather than new goals, naming the unit that produced each one, since the plan should rest on evidence already gathered. Choose a manageable number, often three to five. For each, write an action specific enough to carry out, with a start date and a way to measure it. Many strong plans use an if-then format that ties each action to a situation sure to recur. Name who or what will check each action, and explain why a self-rated plan is not enough. Consider what you will stop doing, since adding behaviors without removing any rarely lasts. Close with checkpoints across the plan's horizon and what would trigger a revision. Five pages in APA 7 is common, sometimes with the plan as a table or appendix.
How this LI410 Unit 10 example is built
The plan opens with four findings, each traced to its unit: the Unit 2 self-assessment, the Unit 3 style log, the Unit 6 seminar reflection, and a pattern across Units 5, 8 and 9. A rationale section explains the if-then format, citing Gollwitzer and the Gollwitzer and Sheeran meta-analysis, and why it fits a line where surges and jams recur weekly. The plan section gives each finding an action, a start date, a checker and a measure: a first-shift supervisor reading handover logs, a presort lead tallying questions against corrections, a training log reviewed by the plant manager, and a union steward reporting decisions the crew heard secondhand. Day's distinction between leader and leadership development supports the outside checkers. A stop list drops three habits from earlier units. Checkpoints at days 14, 30, 60 and 90 follow, and the close names the hardest row.
Where the points sit in the LI410 Unit 10 rubric
This plan is graded on how well it rests on the term's evidence, how specific its actions are and whether its checks are credible. Tracing each finding to the unit that produced it earns more than a list of fresh goals. Actions that name a situation, a behavior, a date and a measure score higher than intentions to improve. Checkers outside the writer's control show the writer understands why self-assessment flatters, and a plan that explains that choice demonstrates insight. The stop list and the checkpoint schedule show the plan was built to be carried out on a real workload. Naming the hardest action and keeping it in the plan shows honest self-assessment. The plan's four references, two by Gollwitzer, one by Day and the course text by Northouse, follow APA 7. Clear structure, so the grader can find each finding's row quickly, is part of the rubric too.
LI410 Unit 10 help: mistakes that cost points
Weak development plans list aspirations, be a better listener or lead by example, with no connection to anything the term revealed. Others carry ten findings forward and act on none of them well. A frequent gap is the checker: plans assign every check to the writer, which tends to report success. Dates are often missing or so distant that nothing happens in the first month. Writers also forget to remove anything, so the plan adds work to a schedule that was already full. If your earlier papers did not produce clear findings, go back to the questionnaire and the logs before writing goals. A ninety-day horizon is easier to keep honest than a year. Send us the findings from your earlier units, and our writers can sort out which deserve a row and phrase each as an action another person can verify.
Get an LI410 Unit 10 example written to your instructions
Gather the findings from your earlier LI410 papers, or summarize what each unit showed you about your own leadership; those findings travel with the Unit 10 instructions and rubric. Each finding becomes a dated action with a check someone else performs, and any date only you can set stays bracketed. A first sample is free, delivered in 24-48h. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More LI410 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
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- LI410 Unit 4: Team Dynamics Reflection
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- LI410 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection on LMX
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LI410 Unit 10 questions, answered
How long should the plan run?
Horizons vary by section; ninety days is common because it is long enough for habits to show and short enough for dates to stay honest. Some prompts ask for a year. A longer plan works best with its first quarter in detail and later quarters sketched, since a finding from this term may look different after the first checkpoint.
Who can serve as a checker?
Anyone who sees the behavior and has no stake in flattering you: a peer supervisor, a trusted team member, a mentor outside your chain. Records work as well or better, including schedules, logs, ticket histories or meeting notes. The checker should know what they are looking for and when, which the plan states in each row.
Should the plan include earlier self-assessment scores?
Where they produced a finding, yes. A questionnaire result from early in the term gives a baseline, and retaking the same instrument at the plan's end shows whether self-perception moved. Pair it with an observer measure, since a self-score can rise simply because you have spent a term thinking about leadership rather than because anything changed.
Where can I find a free LI410 Unit 10 sample paper?
This page holds the complete LI410 Unit 10 leadership development plan with four findings from earlier units, if-then actions, outside checkers, a stop list, ninety-day checkpoints, four references and margin notes.
Why does every action have an outside checker?
Because a plan the writer rates alone tends to report success. Each checker sees the behavior directly and has nothing to gain from flattery, and a record such as the training log cannot be misremembered.