Self-Assessment of Leadership Practices
The road to becoming an exceptional leader while rewarding, is one filled with numerous challenges. Developing the necessary skills required in order to successfully lead others is a life-long process. In this paper, I will discuss in details my leadership qualities. I will include results from my Seven Habits Profile, evaluate my strength and weaknesses and adopt leadership theories that will help guide my self-evaluation. In addition, I will analyze proven theories that will help me address skills, weaknesses, and behaviors in my leadership skills. These theories-based changes will help form and guide my set of SMART goals. I will draft a plan for success in my journey towards becoming a great leader.
Reflection on Seven Habits Profile and Findings
The Seven Habits Profile is a tool created by Dr. Stephen Covey, bestselling author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”. In his book, Dr. Covey describes important characteristics of people who are not only great citizens of this world, but “highly effective” leaders and role models. It is imperative to understand that these characteristics or traits can be developed or acquired by everyone who wishes to obtain them. Covey (2004) Leaders should strive to attain each of the following character traits; by using this tool, I gained useful information that will evaluate my leadership skills. The areas measured by the Seven Habits Profile are the following:
1. Be proactive
This following will outline my personal leadership practices and potential future leadership. To analyze my leadership qualities I will use the Seven Habits Profile and a leadership theory to determine my strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for improvement. In conclusion, I will determine the best recommendations for long-term improvement as well as SMART goals, or short-term courses of action, for leadership improvement.
Over the past couple of months, we discussed several traits, skills, and behaviors that have contributed to the success of both past and present leaders. Intelligence, integrity, charisma, and confidence are some of the traits that characterize many of these leaders. Interpersonal skills, oratory skills, and conceptual skills are some of the more important skills that helped to shape their leadership style. Some of these skills go hand in hand with the traits that are essential for strong leadership. Meanwhile, the behaviors that drive these leaders include inspiring and motivating others, collaboration, having a strategic perspective and trust. Combined, these traits, skills and behaviors make for effective leadership.
This following will outline my personal leadership practices and potential future leadership. To analyze my leadership qualities I will use the Seven Habits Profile and a leadership theory to determine my strengths, weaknesses, and areas of opportunity for improvement. In conclusion, I will determine the best recommendations for long-term improvement as well as SMART goals, or short-term courses of action, for leadership improvement.
Stephen Covey authored the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, to offer his expert, professional, and personal insight of seven habits, or traits, exhibited by effective people. While outlining the seven habits, he emphasizes that each previous habit is the building block for the next. He also shows how all the habits are tied together to effectively transition through the growth stages of dependence to independence to interdependence to become an effective person.
In the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey, lessons for personal change are presented in a very powerful and understandable way. The Habits can be applied to our own lives, our leadership of other people, a school or any other organization that can be run more effectively. However, before an application of these Habits can be made, a basic understanding of the material presented in the book must be obtained. Comparison with other leadership styles and theories can also clarify and reinforce this understanding as well. Finally, application can be made to a particular setting, a school.
The first part of becoming an outstanding leader is becoming more conscious of self by identifying your weaknesses, strengths, opportunities and threats. The following will outline my current and future leadership style. To analyze my leadership I will use the Seven Habits Profile as well as the leadership theory to evaluate my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats and recommendations using the smart goals.
Strong and effective leadership is one of the most significant factors in determining the success and durability of an organization or group (Huber, 2014). A health care professional that is able to identify their own style of leadership can develop their unique characteristics and skills and become a better leader, as well as develop and improve relationships with other leaders and colleagues (Giltinane, 2013). In this paper, I will discuss my style of leadership based on the completed self-assessment and describe what leadership and management theories align with my leadership style. I will also discuss the type of work environment and three key actions or behaviors that I must demonstrate to be a successful leader.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a best selling book by Stephen R. Covey. The book has become a management tool for many companies. Covey wrote the book after reviewing literature on success from the last two centuries. Covey discovered that as he reviewed the literature on success, that the most current literature was based mainly on success based on having the “right” personality traits. Covey calls this the “Personality Ethic”. The Personality Ethic focuses more on success being a product of personality traits and maintaining a positive attitude. The author stresses that people need to go back to the “Character Ethic” which is based on what Covey calls “natural laws” that have always existed. The Character Ethic focuses on principles such as fairness, integrity, honesty, human dignity, service and quality. Covey wants people to examine their way of thinking from the “inside out” to see if we are applying the Personality Ethic or the Character Ethic.
The Seven Habits profile reveals that I tend to score between good to outstanding with an average score of 16 in the nine categories. After reviewing the results I feel that they indicate that I have strong skills, knowledge and motivation habits as a highly effective leader. I value a team approach and strive to encourage and develop an environment of trust and support. I listen to the thoughts and opinions of others in my team and seek to find solutions that benefit everyone as we progress towards our goals. I feel that I would be best described as a Transformational Leader. Transformational leaders are distinguished by their special ability to bring about innovation and changed by recognizing followers’ needs and concerns, providing
The results of the self-assessments are not consistent. According to the Authentic Leadership Self-Assessment, I rated low on self-awareness. This is due to my inability to recognize my strengths and weaknesses. I did, however, rate high on internalized moral perspective, balanced processing, and relational transparency. Next, the LMX 7 Questionnaire, I rated high. This questionnaire was given to my supervisor and one of my followers. The results of my Path-Goal Leadership Questionnaire, I rated average in all leadership styles. I rated highest in the directive style. The Skills Inventory Assessment resulted in a high score in technical and human skills, and moderate in conceptual skills. Having a moderate score in conceptual skills results in my inability to see the goals of the organization. I should familiarize myself with the organizations aims and objectives and align my goals with theirs. Furthermore, the Leadership Trait Questionnaire scores averaged between a 3 and 4, the highest scores being in dependability and friendly.
The main factor in assessing leadership effectiveness is improving personal capacity to lead in a changing world regardless of reform. This change may involve improving skills, competencies, and behaviors through purposeful, self-directed, personal learning, and skills to anchor directions for work groups, teams, or organizations. These leadership skills have the capacity to align people, systems, and resources with a common vision; motivate and inspire; and successfully handle change. In order for leaders to expect change, they must understand the change process and how members will react to change. Every member of the organization must be receptive to change to keep the vision
Dr. Kenneth Allard’s Conceptual Foundations of Management course has improved my performance as a manager and future as a leader. I have learned the distinction between managers and leaders and what skills are required to fulfill each position. As a result of this course, I have made plans to continue my development as both a great manager and leader.
I scored an eighty-seven (87) on the How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? Self-assessment quiz, which rated my skills as excellent. This score was not surprising to me because I’ve worked hard to become the best leader possible, and leading people is something I enjoy. Motivating people to achieve or surpass a particular goal is rewarding to me.
The eight habits of highly effective people are made up of eight simple parts. From being proactive to finding your voice and inspiring others to find theirs. Stephen Covey, the creator of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Stephen Covey--The 8th Habit from Effectiveness to Greatness, while discussing these topics Covey international stature in the professional world enlightened to the mere public greatly. In the presentation of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people, Covey provides his advanced reasoning on whether the seven habits are of highly effective people or not. The viewpoints from educators, students, and professionals may differ widely for their successes they are reaching for. From a student viewpoint, the seven habits define many of the things that I need to start doing or even have been doing to advance my successes for the real world. Starting off the seven habits is to be proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, and thinking win-win for every situation that is presented for people. One of the many seven habits, being proactive, plays a huge role in the life that I try to live today and it keeps me motivated to try to live by the seven habits to become an effective person.
During the past ten weeks, I have strengthened my concept of what constitutes effective leadership. Importantly, it is a leadership style that maximises the contributions of followers to achieve the desired outcomes for the organisation they represent. As Nanjundeswaraswamy & Swamy (2014, p.57) explains, effective leaders need to balance the drive to achieve a task with managing relationships. Therefore, it is essential for good leadership to not only focus on the task but develop, motivate and empower team members to strive for the achievement of task goals.