From Executive Presence to Intentional Leadership Growth

In Part One of our Career Elevation Series, we explored executive presence as the foundation for leadership readiness; how confidence, clarity, and composure shape how your leadership is perceived. Executive presence opens doors, but sustained growth requires more than visibility alone. 

That’s where a leadership development plan comes in. Think of it as a living roadmap that evolves with your role and the pace of change in tech. In this post, we’ll walk through a practical, step-by-step approach you can adapt immediately to guide your leadership growth with intention. 

What Is a Leadership Development Plan and Why It Matters in Tech

A leadership development plan is a structured approach to growing as a leader in tech that intentionally blends leadership capabilities with technical acumen. It helps you build skills like strategic thinking, communication, and people leadership while staying aligned with evolving business priorities such as AI adoption, scaling teams, or managing globally distributed organizations. Most importantly, it’s designed to evolve as your role and the industry change. 

For mid- and senior-career women in tech, this kind of plan is especially powerful. Career growth isn’t always linear or clearly sponsored, even for high performers. A leadership development plan creates clarity around where you’re headed, ownership over how you get there, and momentum you can sustain over time. When built thoughtfully, it becomes a tool for career elevation and for driving meaningful impact within your organization. 

Step One: Define Your Leadership Vision and Core Competencies

A strong leadership development plan begins with clarity. Before identifying what to work on, it’s essential to define where you want your leadership to go. 

Clarify Your Leadership Vision

Ask yourself: What kind of leader do I want to be in the next two to five years? Your vision should reflect both your aspirations and the direction of your organization, whether that’s AI adoption, product expansion, or large-scale transformation. 

Helpful reflection prompts include: 

• What problems do I want to be trusted to solve? 

• What decisions do I want to be known for making? 

• How do I want teams to experience my leadership? 

Identify Critical Leadership Competencies

Once your vision is clear, identify the capabilities required to get there. Leadership in tech demands balance: technical fluency alongside people-centered skills. This may include technical capabilities like data literacy, cybersecurity awareness, or AI fluency, paired with leadership skills such as communication, strategic thinking, coaching, and emotional intelligence. 

Step Two: Assess Your Current Strengths and Gaps

With your leadership vision defined, the next step is understanding your current starting point, honestly and objectively. 

Use 360-Degree Feedback

Gather feedback from managers, peers, and direct reports to gain a well-rounded view of how your leadership shows up today. This perspective helps surface blind spots—not just validate strengths—and provides valuable insight into where growth will have the greatest impact. 

Conduct a Gap Analysis

Compare your current capabilities against the competencies required for your future leadership vision. Focus on identifying the most meaningful gaps rather than trying to address everything at once. This is data, not self-criticism, it’s information you can use to prioritize development areas and build a focused, achievable plan. 

Step Three: Set SMART Leadership Goals

To move from insight to progress, translate your priorities into SMART goals—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This framework helps turn development ideas into clear, actionable steps. 

Focus on goals with the highest career and business impact, rather than trying to do everything at once. 

• Example SMART goal: Within six months, complete a Machine Learning Essentials course and lead a cross-functional project applying this knowledge to a new product feature, measured by outcomes and peer feedback. 

To stay focused and sustainable, limit your leadership development plan to two to four goals per cycle. 

Step Four: Design Your Leadership Development Pathway

An effective leadership development plan blends different types of learning. The goal isn’t to do more, it’s to choose experiences that reinforce each other and accelerate growth. 

Formal Learning

Use courses, certifications, and workshops to build targeted skills in emerging technologies and leadership best practices. Be intentional in your choices and focus on learning that directly supports your leadership goals rather than collecting credentials. 

Experiential Learning

Look for opportunities to learn by doing. Stretch assignments, cross-functional projects, and job rotations allow you to apply new skills in real time and build credibility through action. 

Mentorship and Coaching

Mentors, sponsors, and coaches each play a different role. Mentors offer guidance, sponsors advocate for opportunity, and coaches help refine skills. Regular check-ins create accountability and keep your development on track. 

Networking and Community

Leadership growth is accelerated through shared experience. Engaging with professional communities (such as AnitaB.org or Women Who Code) creates space to learn from peers, exchange insights, and build lasting professional relationships. 

Step Five: Monitor Progress, Get Feedback, and Adapt

Leadership development is an ongoing process, not a fixed plan. Regular check-ins with yourself, your manager, or a mentor help ensure your goals stay relevant and aligned with your growth. 

Use continuous feedback to assess real behavioral change, not just task completion. As the tech landscape evolves, flexibility becomes a leadership skill in itself. Revisit your leadership development plan quarterly or biannually to adjust priorities, refine goals, and stay responsive to new opportunities and challenges.  

Your Leadership Development Plan Is a Living Document

A leadership development plan isn’t meant to be static. As your career evolves and as technology, roles, and industries shift, your plan should evolve with you. Starting small and refining over time is both realistic and effective. 

When approached this way, a leadership development plan becomes a confidence-building tool rather than another obligation. It provides clarity, direction, and a sense of ownership over your growth, helping you move forward with intention, even in moments of uncertainty. 

Build Your Leadership Development Plan with Community

 Leadership growth doesn’t happen in isolation. AnitaB.org Membership connects you to the resources, relationships, and support designed specifically for women navigating tech leadership. 

Ready to turn intention into action? Join AnitaB.org Membership to access the resources, community, and support that help women in tech build and sustain leadership growth.