Your final assignment in your first course will bring together all the aspects of leadership that you have examined and discussed over the last nine weeks as you analyze your own leadership qualities to create a portrait of the effective public service leader you aspire to be.

Although this assignment requires you to develop a leadership portrait of yourself, it is important to remember that all academic writing should be done in the third person. There are very few exceptions to this. If you have any questions about this, please contact your courseroom instructor, or post a question in the Ask Your Teaching Assistants area of the PSL Learner Success page.

To complete this assignment, you will need to:

Select and identify one leadership theory or style that you believe best aligns with your own thoughts of what leadership means. You will use that theory or style to analyze your strengths and weaknesses.
Describe the leadership characteristics you already possess; then describe at least two additional leadership characteristics you would like to develop. Explain how these characteristics will allow you to guide, educate, inform, and influence others to manage change in the field of public service.
Explain how your personal and academic experiences will contribute to and guide your development as an effective leader. For example, how will developing academic skills such as evaluating resources and scholarly writing help to strengthen your position of leadership in the field of public service?
Describe how you will use your leadership attributes to build and maintain strong relationships with others in the community.
Identify the main tenets of ethical behavior for a public service leader and analyze how you will use those tenets to guide your leadership.
Explain the importance of diversity and inclusion in the field of public service and analyze how you might incorporate those tenets into your leadership.
Analyze how your personal and academic experiences will contribute to and guide your development as an effective leader. (Hint: you may want to review the media piece on Capella’s scholar-practitioner model. This piece is found in Unit 2, and in the Resources for this assignment).
Summarize how the concepts and information you gained from this course and your own research will guide your continued leadership development.
This completed assignment should be at least 4–6 pages in length, excluding title page and reference page. For this assignment, you will also need an abstract. Use at least three different resources (peer-reviewed journals or sources, assigned unit readings, learner success lab articles) to support your choices and explanations. Be sure you follow APA (6th edition) guidelines for style, format, and citing.