Executive Summary

This report is to provide my Leadership Development Planning in the next 5 years based on
my previous experience, strengths, weaknesses, cultural influence as well as the development
model I use to carry out this plan. In the introduction, a brief aim of this report will be
provided. In the   Leadership Development Planning, a plan will be modified and examined
based on my previous leadership experience, personality tests and surveys such as Genos or
VIA Character and peer feedback. From this, a discussion on cultural intelligence will be
proposed. Besides, Hofstede's Six Cultural Dimensions will be utilized to explain the impact
of national culture on my leadership direction. Finally, the Intentional Change Model will be
adapted to explain step-by-step my development plan in the next 5 years.

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 Table of Contents
Executive Summary............................................................................................................1
I. Introduction....................................................................................................................3
II.  Leadership Development Planning................................................................................3
1. Leadership experience............................................................................................................3
2. Summary of personality and leadership styles.......................................................................4
3. Giving and receiving feedback................................................................................................5
4. The impact of national culture on my leadership direction...................................................6
4.1. Individualism and Collectivism.............................................................................................6
4.2. Power Distance......................................................................................................................7
4.3. Masculinity and Femininity...................................................................................................7
4.4. Certainty - Ambiguity............................................................................................................8
4.5. Short term - Long term Orientation........................................................................................8
4.6. Restraint - Indulgence............................................................................................................8
5. Conceptual Framework..........................................................................................................9
III. Conclusion...................................................................................................................11
Reference List...................................................................................................................12
Appendix..........................................................................................................................14

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I. Introduction
Leadership journey is never effortless with the combination of experience, constant learning
and development. Thus, this report is to reflect on my leadership experience from the past to
the present. Based on my strengths, weaknesses and other factors such as natural culture, a
leadership development plan will be proposed based in the Intentional Change Model

II.  Leadership Development Planning

1. Leadership experience
Leadership can be defined as “a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well
communicated, building trust among colleagues and taking effective action to realize your
own leadership potential” (Bennis 1984 cited in Kirimi, 2007). Throughout my education and
working experience, I have the opportunity to observe and learn from a number of leaders.
That leader can be my father who teaches me valuable lessons about management. It can be a
variety of valuable experience I gained when leading a history group assignment or a
marketing team. Recently, I have experienced a memorable leading position when I was
selected as the leader for a group assignment in MGT602, a decision-making subject. In this
assignment, my team was relatively dynamic with members from 3 different cultures and
currently residing in different countries. As a result, I had to arrange group meetings online
through social platforms such as Zoom. The group assignment was a success when I was able
to effectively organize it and lead the team to the final achievement. Thanks to this
experience, I can apply the leadership with cultural intelligence to advantage similarities and
narrow differences in a multicultural teamwork context (Ang & Dyne, 2015). Cultural
intelligence refers to 
“a critical part of setting yourself apart in today’s globalized world. It’s the ability to
relate and work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds and it
goes beyond existing notions of cultural sensitivity and awareness. With cultural
intelligence, you’ll know how to strategically use cultural differences to come up with
more innovative solutions.”
(Cultural Bridges Inc., n.d.) 

In this group assignment, me and 3 other Chinese members have little cultural differences as
Chinese and Vietnamese culture have a lot of things in common. However, two of the
Chinese members may find it difficult sometimes to communicate with other 2 Australian
members due to language barriers as their language ability is not too skillful. This caused a
small miscommunication within my team when the two members failed to comprehend their

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tasks. As a leader, I asked another Chinese member with good English ability to explain the
requirements again in their mother language and I persuaded other members to help each
other as much as possible. From this experience, I have realized the importance of cultural
intelligence as I am supposed to take over the family business, which has a quite culturally
dynamic working environment with staff from different Eastern and Western cultures. This
development will be further discussed later.

2. Summary of personality and leadership styles

During the Dynamic Leadership course, I have done several surveys, tests and reports related
to personality and leadership styles including Genos Emotional Intelligence Report (see
Appendix 1), VIA Character Strengths Profile (see Appendix 2) and 16 Personalities (see
Appendix 3). Regarding Genos Emotional Intelligence Report, it is to test the emotional
intelligence (EI) of an individual at the workplace based on 6 competencies which are self-
awareness, awareness of others, authenticity, emotional reasoning, self-management and
positive influence. Emotional intelligence refers to “the ability to understand and manage
your emotions, intentions and responses, as well as those of others” (Hansson, 2015). In this
report, I found out that I perform well in terms of emotional reasoning and self-management
as I can better control my anger and manage my time more effectively than the average. I also
have advantages in self-awareness and authenticity when I can control my feelings and value
my promises. However, I need to improve in terms of sharing feelings with others,
responding to peers' and colleagues' feedback and paying more attention to others' feelings.
Like leadership, EI can also be practiced and enhanced (Kotsou et al., 2018).

With respect to VIA Character Strengths Profile, my strengths mainly focus on 7 groups
including Wisdom, Courage, Justice, Humanity, Transcendence and Temperance (see
Appendix 2). This indicates that I have the inclination to go through various viewpoints
before making any decisions. I am also willing to raise voice over debated issues and have a
sense of sympathy. This can be proved when I show great sympathy with my Chinese
members as they were facing language barriers while group working. The strengths of VIA
Character closely match my 16 Personalities Test, which regards me as an ENFJ-T - a
turbulent protagonist (see Appendix 3). This means that I am also a giver, an extrovert who
has all the factors of being Extraverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging and Turbulent. 

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Interestingly, not only VIA Character Strengths Profile but also Genos Report and 16
Personalities Test suggest that my leadership style is a combination of rational thinking and
intuition when I not only make decisions through various viewpoints and thorough
consideration but I also pay great attention to other people. I reckon this to be true in my
situation when I aim to develop my leadership style in a more balanced way.

3. Giving and receiving feedback

Throughout the Dynamic Leadership course, I have received from as well as given numerous
feedback to my peers. However, the most memorable feedback that I have ever received and
given is all from and to my valuable friend, Shirley Boon. We really had an interesting and
deep talk regarding our leadership Journey on 17th March over Zoom Meeting. I admire
Shirley for her great passion in helping the disadvantaged. She left me the image of a
vigorous and energetic girl who led a medical team to one of the most rural areas to set up
mobile clinics. I can easily feel that her leadership style is significantly influenced by
sympathy, kindness and honesty. Based on the Genos Report's components, I believe that
Shirley will have great performance in awareness of others and positive influence. These are
also the two components that I need to improve. Thus, I can learn a lot from Shirley in
enhancing my leadership style.

Regarding Shirley's feedback to me, she could easily see the passion to take over the family's
business in me as well as my ambition and my willingness to change (see Appendix 4). I
shared with her a lot about my father, whom I admire and respect the most and as well as my
concerns about his leadership style. He is a typical middle aged man with a dominant mindset
and reluctance to change. I appreciate Shirley for her high trust in me that I can bring some
positive influence and changes to my future company. She also complimented me on my
good self-management. The feedback of Shirley plays as a motivational message as she
encouraged me to follow my wings, be open-minded and dare to try. Her feedback made me
realize that I should take advantage of my “instinct” ability and enhance my shortcomings to
be a great leader in the future.

4. The impact of national culture on my leadership direction

As aforementioned, culture has a great influence on leadership. The Hofstede’s Six Cultural
Dimensions will best explain the impact of culture on my leadership direction. Hofstede

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classifies differences in different cultures according to six dimensions and the score for each
dimension of my home country, Vietnam is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Score for each dimension of Vietnam sourced from Hofstede Insight  (n.d)

4.1. Individualism and Collectivism

This dimension refers to whether people prefer to work independently or interdependently
(Holtbrugge, 2022) . In this sense, individuals' self-image will be categorized into “I '' or
“We". People tend to  pay more attention to themselves and their direct family in an
individualist society. In contrast, in a collectivist society, people “belong to ‘in groups’ that
take care of them in exchange for loyalty” (Hofstede Insight, n.d.). Vietnam with its score 20
out of 100 is a collectivistic society. As a Vietnamese, my leadership direction is highly
influenced by this. Promoting a collectivistic organizational culture and structure is a wise
method to improve employees' loyalty (Meschke, 2021). Hence, my leadership direction is
towards building, leading and managing groups with loyalty and mutual cooperation as
priorities. 

4.2. Power Distance

Power distance expresses the degree “to which the less powerful member members of a
society accept and expect that power is distributed unequally” (Hofstede et al., 2010 cited in
Cheema, Munir & Su, 2021). In large power distance culture, people tend to accept the
hierarchical structure and the unequal power distribution and that some individuals will be
more powerful. The opposite is true for small power distance cultures in which individuals
will strive to fight against or eliminate inequalities. In Vietnam, the power distance is large,
scoring 70 out of 100 (Hofstede Insight, n.d.). This indicates that Vietnamese people accept

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the hierarchical structure without much justification. This is like a tradition (Nguyen & Vu,
2020). However, I myself realize that I am not much influenced by this dimension. In other
words, I am not much influenced by this large power distance culture of Vietnam. The reason
for this is that I have spent a long time studying and working in Australia, a small distance
power culture (Cheema, Munir & Su, 2021), thus, I find it more comfortable to work in such
an environment. As a leader, I expect my staff to raise their voices and opinions to make
contributions to the overall success. Moreover, a number of youngsters in Vietnam are now
willing to challenge power inequalities in the workplace and ask for justification for it.
However, the overall power distance in Vietnam is still high and I prefer a middle point in
this distance for my leadership direction.

4.3. Masculinity and Femininity 

In this dimension, masculinity refers to “a preference in society for achievement, heroism,
assertiveness and material rewards for success” while its counterpart represents “a preference
for cooperation, modesty, caring for the weak and quality of life” (Hofstede 1998 cited in
Baporikar, 2017). The high and low scores in this dimension respectively refer to “masculine
culture driven by competition and material success and a feminine society driven by the
quality of life” (Hofstede Insight, n.d.). In a business environment, the former indicates a
rough culture in which employees' discussions are often negligible in the decision-making
process of the boss. The latter represents a tender culture in which employees' discussion and
intuitive analysis are considered and praised in the decision-making process of the boss
(Jandt, 2017). 

The score for Vietnam in this dimension is 40, indicating that it is a feminine culture. I
myself see that I also have the inclination towards a feminine culture and my leadership
direction also follows this natural culture. The Vietnamese favor compromise and negotiation
to address conflicts (Giao, 2019). Besides, they also seek consensus, solidarity and value
equality. These traits clearly demonstrate a leadership direction that I desire. I hope to create
a working environment with effective and supportive managers who can motivate their
employees and involve their participation in decision making.

4.4. Certainty - Ambiguity

This is also known as the uncertainty avoidance. This dimension is defined as “"a society's
tolerance for ambiguity", in which people embrace or avert an event of something

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unexpected, unknown, or away from the status quo” (Baporikar, 2017).  Vietnam has a score
of 30 in this dimension and thus has a positive/low preference for avoiding uncertainty. This
means that the Vietnamese are not afraid to take risks and they dare to fail. Experiments and
making mistakes are how they learn, test and develop products. There are few general rules
and everyone is encouraged to develop freely and also take responsibility for their own risks.
As a Vietnamese, I apparently inherit these characteristics and direct my leadership as I dare
to take risks, dare to change and dare to take the responsibility.

4.5. Short term - Long term Orientation

This dimension “associates the connection of the past with the current and future
actions/challenges”. (Sands et al., 2018). It not only refers to future orientation, but also to
how society values long-standing and traditional social values. Vietnam is regarded as a long
term orientation culture which concentrates on long term goals. The Vietnamese often make
use of past experiences to solve current and future problems. I have learnt a lot from this
culture. Thus, after any leading experiences, I withdraw myself a lesson that I can further
improve or fix in the future. 

4.6. Restraint - Indulgence

This dimension refers to “the degree of freedom that societal norms give to citizens in
fulfilling their human desires” (Azoury, 2022).  This index represents the extent to which
people try to control their wants and needs. The indulgence culture will give individuals the
freedom to do what they desire. A society that allows enjoyment often creates a belief in
individuals that they themselves, in control of their lives and emotions. In contrast, people in
restraint society often do not pay much attention to leisure time to meet satisfaction. Vietnam
is a restrained culture with a score of 35. The Vietnamese tend to feel guilty if they do any
self-indulgent activities and their actions are limited by rules and regulations. These
characteristics significantly influence my leadership direction. I myself have a lot of things in
common with the restrained culture, however, I do not want to be a restrained leader. I desire
to create a direction with the combination of restraint and indulgence to involve employees in
the hard working and self-indulgence for them to relax and come up with creativity in the
workplace (Mallia, 2019).

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5. Conceptual Framework
In order to achieve my leadership development goals, I have made a plan for my development
path to enhance my leadership for the next 5 years. Based on the aforementioned discussions.
I plan to build a leadership style according to the Intentional Change Model in the next 5
years. This model “recognizes that any personal change takes place in a complex, multi-level
system of personal, inter-personal social and organizational dynamics. In such complexity,
personal change is discontinuous, non-linear, cyclical and unpredictable” (Marshall, 2018).
There are 5 steps to develop a leadership plan, which are analyzed as follows:

Discovery 1 - My Ideal Self

The first step is to define my ideal self as there is always a gap between who we are and who
we want to be. My ideal self, my role model is a great leader like Pham Nhat Vuong, who is
the chairman of Vingroup, the largest conglomerate of Vietnam. He is an eminent leader with
ideal traits such as high emotional intelligence, great passion, open-mindedness, etc. He had
all the needed traits for being a well-rounded leader and I am working hard to be like a part of
him in the next 5 years. Besides, I aim to become a considerate, fair and knowledgeable
deputy director in the marketing department in my family's company who can lead his team
with great passion and efforts.

Discovery 2 – My Real Self - Strengths and Gaps

The next step is to identify my real self, my strengths and gaps at the current situation. Based
on the 3 mentioned tests and my peer feedback, it is observed that my strengths are Wisdom,
Courage, Justice, Humanity, Transcendence and Temperance while expressing my feelings
and emotional reasoning are my weaknesses. This is a great gap between my real self and my
ideal self as Pham Nhat Vuong has already asserted himself as a respectful leader while me
myself has just started my leadership journey. Thus, in order to gradually reduce this gap, I
make a 5-year leadership development plan with the vision that I can be an effective and
helpful deputy director in the marketing department. This will be further discussed in the next
steps

Discovery 3 - My learning Agenda

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Now that I have defined who I am and who I want to be, it is time to create a learning agenda
that aligns reality with a vision to keep me on track (DiClemente, 2018). First of all, I need to
determine what I need to do to move from who I am to my role model. Studying the MGT601
course is also a way for me to gain more insight into leadership. Besides, I can learn a lot
from the experience of peers and colleagues. I have already done well in emotional reasoning
and self-management, thus, it is high time for me to improve expressing my feelings and
emotional reasoning. These two weaknesses of mine are highly affected by my national
culture as aforementioned. Hence, I need to maintain and further develop my strengths while
improving my shortcomings. 

Discovery 4 - New Insights and Behaviors

This is where the real learning occurs. As aforementioned, I really want to improve and learn
more about cultural intelligence (CQ). Thus, I follow David Livermore’s (2009 cited in Liao
& Thomas, 2020) a four-step model to improve my CQ:

(1) Identify motivation (Motivation)

To effectively work and manage in a multicultural environment like my company

(2) Seeking to learn (Knowledge)

From actual experience, reality and gain more knowledge about culture through reading
books or traveling and exploring.

(3) Step out of the comfort zone and challenge the limits of your knowledge (Strategy)

When I come back to Vietnam, I will work in a multicultural environment and there are a lot
of employees from different cultures that I hardly had a chance to investigate before. Thus,
my strategy is to accept all the differences and deal with conflicts through negotiation and
mutual understanding

(4) Action

Learning and respecting all the differences.

Discovery 5 - Relationship that Support my Learning

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If an individual wants to succeed, it is necessary to have relationships that support him.
Friends, family, colleagues, and the community can encourage us and provide support to
advocate for us through challenges. In my case, I have much trust in my father, who has
established the company himself and is a respected leader. He can guide me well with his
deep and diversified experience. Besides, colleagues such as Shirley Boon can obviously give
my feedback on my leadership and provide me with some honest and constructive advice

III. Conclusion
In brief, my leadership development direction for the next 5 years is clearly demonstrated
based on the Intentional Change Model. I believe that this plan can help me further develop
and enhance myself, enabling me to achieve my leading objectives. 

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 Reference List
Ang, S. & Dyne, L.D. (2015). Handbook of Cultural Intelligence: Theory, Measurement,
and  Applications. London: Routledge.

Azoury, N. (2022). Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship in the MENA region.

Springer Nature.

Baporikar, N. (2017). Global Practices in Knowledge Management for Societal and 

Organizational Development. Pennsylvania: IGI Global.

Cheema, M., Munir, R. & Su, S. (2021). Corporate Governance and Whistleblowing: 

Corporate Culture and Employee Behaviour. London: Routledge.

Cultural Bridges Inc. (n.d.). About Cultural Intelligence. https://culturalbridges.ca/cultural-

iq/ about-us/ 

DiClemente, C. (2018). Addiction and Change, Second Edition. Guilford Publications.

Giao, K. (2019). The Effect of Corporate Culture on the Staff’s Commitment in CMC 

Telecom Vietnam. Science Journal of Business and Management, 7(1), 23-32.

Hasson, G. (2015). Brilliant Communication Skills. London, the UK: Pearson.

Hofstede Insight (n.d.). Vietnam. https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country/vietnam/

Holtbrugge, D. (2022). Intercultural Management: Concepts, Practice, Critical Reflection.

California: SAGE Publications.

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Jandt, F. (2017). An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global 

Community. California: SAGE Publications.

Kirimi, B. (2007). Successful Leadership: 8 Essential Principles You Must Know. Sydney, 

Australia: ABC Book Publishing.

Kotsou, I., Mikolajczak, M., Heeren, A., Grégoire, J., & Leys, C. (2018). Improving 

Emotional Intelligence: A Systematic Review of Existing Work and Future

Challenges. Emotion Review, 11(2), 151-165. 

Liao, Y. & Thomas, D. (2010). Cultural Intelligence in the World of Work: Past, Present,
Future. Berlin: Springer Nature.

Mallia, K. L. (2019). Leadership in the Creative Industries: Principles and Practice. New 

Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Marshall, R.J. (2018). MGT601: Models for Leadership Development [Class Handout]. 

Torrens University Australia.

Meschke, S. (2021). Employee Loyalty: Intercultural Comparison of European and East

Asian Approaches. Berlin: Springer Nature.

Nguyen, T. & Vu, V. (2020). Vietnamese Cultural Identity in the Process of International

Integration. Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy, 220-225.

Sands, J., Winata, L., & Su, S. (2018). Managerial Accounting. Cengage Learning Australia.

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 Appendix

APPENDIX 1 GENOS REPORT

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APPENDIX 2 VIA CHARACTER TEST

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APPENDIX 3 16 PERSONALITIES REPORT

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APPENDIX 4 FEEDBACK FROM PARTNER

Shirley Boon:

“My leadership peer-mentoring partner is Vu Trung Dinh. My first impression of Vu is that

he is a mature, friendly and open person. We truly enjoyed our chat and we had a great time
sharing our leadership journey with each other on 17th March over zoom meeting. Vu came
from Vietnam and is currently living in Sydney and studying MBAA in Torrens University
Australia. Vu came from an entrepreneurial family. He is a focused and determined person.
He believes that there are great businesses opportunities in Southeast Asia. His father runs a
big company back in Vietnam. Vu came to Australia to pursue his studies wishing to bring
his knowledge, and experience back to Vietnam one day to help with his family business. He
and his brother who are also in Australia are exploring new opportunities here to expand his
family business. Vu shared about the things he observed from his father, the things that he
can learn from and the things he should not follow. He shared that his dad built the business
from scratch and today it is a successful business in Vietnam. However, his dad is resisting
change, he refused to listen to the feedback and suggestions of others on how to improve the
business in this modern world. Vu feels that his dad is too ‘strong’ and dominant in his
leadership, he feels that his dad should listen to his employees and their needs. Vu told his
dad to pay attention to his employees feedback and suggestions. Vu hopes to bring
transformation to his family business one day when he takes over. He wants to be more open-
minded and he is willing to take risk to bring the business to the next level. I found Vu as
someone who will be a positive influence, he has good self-management ability as well as
empathy. I observed that is also a people-person that will lead with his heart and not just his
head. These are great qualities of leadership. We have many similarities in our personalities
and leadership style. I am glad that we met in this course and we will surely stay connected to
continue to encourage each other in our leadership journey as we pursue our goals and
dreams in life”

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