Leadership Self-Assessment

I had an idea of my leadership style prior to taking the assessments. In some cases, the assessment confirmed the things that I already knew about myself. I have spent time honing my leadership skills and building on what I figure or have learned to work best. In the 3-4 assessment on leadership style, my score indicated that I have a participative leadership style. This style is indicative of leaders who seek to involve other people in the decision making process (Friedman & Schustack, 2012). The belief is that people are more committed to action when they are involved in the relevant decision making process (Rad, 2006).

An additional style of leadership that’s important to me is transformational leadership. I believe that if you can motivate the people around you, they will get things done. The ability to adapt as this type of leader is key and I believe I have that ability. Transformational leaders tend to communicate well, and they’re humble, empathetic, and self-aware (Mind Tools, 2009). This type of leadership appeals to me because of the people I have been exposed to in the past as well as different tech leaders I have studied over the years. Some of the people I admire the most have been transformational leaders and I seek to be just like them.

In my 15-1 assessment, I had a T score of 30, a P score of 20, and an I score of 28. This indicates that my interpersonal style is traditional and focuses on a personal being known for a sense of tradition and high standards (Friedman & Schustack, 2012). In the 15-2 assessment from the big five, I am high in openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and low in neuroticism. In short, I enjoy new experiences, I am well organized and I can be relied upon, I tend to be social, which is true since I am always seeking out new experiences with other people, I am conscious about the feelings of others, and lastly, I am generally a relaxed person. I was a person raised to be aware of other’s feelings, always inclusive in the arts, and I traveled a lot of a teenager and young adult. I was always willing to try something once. Most of those things I enjoyed. I hate disorganization and clutter and my ability to get work done is my hallmark.

Often, I have been told that I am a good leader because I take the whole picture of things into consideration. If someone is not working as well as everyone else, I seek to find out what is going on with him or her on a personal level. Most of what I have learned from the Big Five would help me. I believe dealing with people is a strong suit for me. Since I am not high strung and I am relatively a calm person, I am able to focus in order to get work completed without bringing stress to my team. I have worked with managers where who were always tense and as a result, they would yell at their subordinates. In one of the classes I took at Walden, we had a group project and I was elected the leader for my group. Out of seven people, two of them were not very cooperative. Instead of reporting them directly to the teacher, I wrote them personally to find out what was going on. One person, her daughter ran away and she was embarrassed about saying anything. Another person had a full work schedule. I kept the teacher in the loop with regards to everything that was happening, but for the most part I dealt with it on my own.

When it was time to get work completed, I delegated work to everyone and followed up with them individually. Also, I specified times for us to get online and chat and work together to complete different tasks. It took a while to gauge everyone’s personality. Some people would rather not say anything, but they completed their work. Others were very vocal about the work. In the end, everyone in my group received and A in the class. My professor for the class told me that whatever I do, get into something that could put my leadership skills to use.

References

Friedman, H. S., & Schustack, M. W. (2012). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (5 ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. ↩1 ↩2
Mind Tools. (2009). Leadership styles. Retrieved from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm
Rad, A. (2006). A study of relationship between managers“ leadership style and employees” job satisfaction. Leadership in Health Services, 19(2), 11–28. ↩