Strength, Personality, and Behavioral Style Assessments & Motivation

Both assessments were accurate in the description of my strengths and leadership style. The test results offered me tools to reinforce the strong aspects of my style without negative feedback. I will use the positive results of both assessments to align my job and goals with my natural talents. Sharing this plan with those around me will help me develop their strengths and lead to a more positive and productive environment (Rath, 2007).

Throughout the entire course of this class, I have been asked to fill out different self-assessments related to whatever topic or approach to leadership Peter Northouse (2013) was discussing in his book Leadership Theory and Practice. Each one of these self-assessments were intended to help me in discovering who I was as a person and a leader. Some of the leadership self-assessments included the Least Preferred Coworker Measure from the Contingency Theory chapter, the Leader-Member Exchange Questionnaire from the Leader-Member Exchange Theory chapter, and the Servant Leadership Questionnaire from the chapter that discussed Servant Leadership. Many of these questionnaires I found to be very effective in helping me discover more about my personality traits and leadership style.

Assessment tools can be a good start for individuals to assess their leadership characteristics and skills, such as Grossman and Valiga’s Leadership Characteristcs and Skills

The “new” leadership driver self-assessment tool was mostly accurate in evaluating my leadership style. I found that the overall scores in the four categories reflected my strengths. The tool also pinpointed specific points regarding my leadership abilities.

For this assignment, I have decided to use the leadership trait, skills and style questionnaires. For this questionnaire, I asked 5 different people that know me in different contexts in life, such as personal, school, and work environments. For the majority, I rated myself higher on the traits than my fellow colleagues. On some of the traits however, I was rated higher than what I thought. Overall, I averaged a 4/5 which means that everyone agreed with the traits that were given. For the style questionnaire, I found out that I place more emphasis in building relationships rather than completing tasks. Finally, the skills questionnaire, my leadership skills are in the high range for technical skills, and my human and conceptual skills are in the moderate range.

CooKie, a member of the learning team, fits into the interactive style behavior dimension. The snapshot of her sub style marked her as “The Impresser.” The assessment described her as seeing winning as an all-or-nothing proposition, judging people by their ability to make things happen, and working harder when there are bigger risks and rewards at stake. Weaknesses presented in the assessment included disorganized, careless, exaggerating, and poor follow through. Strengths presented in the assessment included persuasiveness, optimistic, motivating, and enthusiastic.

During this past week, I completed my leadership traits assessment and tallied the results from my friends and coworkers. This process was interesting because it has been several years since I have completed an activity like this one. My results were as follows, I received my highest ratings in being persistent, determined, trustworthy, dependable, friendly, diligent, and conscientious. On the other hand, my lowest scores are in self-confident, self-assured, and perceptive. These results were not surprising to me because they are developmental opportunities that I have been working to overcome. It was good to see that what my results are consistent with what I already knew.

When taking the two leadership surveys, it was interesting to see my personal leadership profile. My leadership style according to the survey is the instructional type, which in another world is direct leadership. My culture, upbringing, and work environment have transformed me to be direct leaders that are looking for stability. My staff members sadly do not have the opportunity to have a job that is autonomy; working in a manufacturing occupation, one has an organize agenda that cannot be deviated from the task ahead. When team members are needing help or trying to build the familiarity to run their equipment my personal leadership profile can be helpful, since being direct is a starting point to build knowledge. The more one individual shows knowledge, familiar, and passionate for their own results, the further laissez-faire I will become when proving they

As humans, and particularly individuals, we all have personal strengths that we bring to our interactions with others as well as areas that perhaps need some more time and attention in order to improve upon them. In this journal, I’ll be focusing on four areas of strength I believe I have, as well as four areas the require further growth and personal change.

Using the Strength Finders 2.0 Assessment, I was able to identify my personal strengths, which would identify my personal leadership skills. My strength assessment results where Harmony, Consistency, Empathy, Achiever, and Belief. This paper will identify each strength, how they relate to my leadership style and approach to leadership.

During week one of the course, I completed a project that allowed me to identify my strongest and weakest leadership traits. The project required input from six individuals with whom I have a professional relationship. They rated me in different areas based on a scale, to determine the results. I also rated myself, and when I compiled the data I was able to identify the areas of leadership that I am strongest and weakest. The results are:

I also believe that an effective leader plays a significant role in promoting and molding individuals’ readiness as it relates to motivation and commitment. As such, I developed my leadership assessment with these points in mind. The assessment focuses on 14 attributes that I believe are important not only for a leader to be successful within the parameters of the SLT, but for most any leadership model adopted by a successful leader in the modern business environment. The assessment was completed by Bobby, my manager of nearly six years, and by Katrina, my highest-ranking direct report of nearly four years. Each was asked to assign a candid rating to each attribute using a one-to-ten (worst-to-best) scale as well as to make notes or offer any suggestions so that I may incorporate it into my leadership style in an effort to improve the areas of weakness and become a better leader. In addition, I did a self-assessment using the same criteria. It should be noted that while Bobby offered both a ranking and narrative feedback, Katrina completed the assessment using the numerical ranking only. The results were consistent in some areas and mixed in others, but revealed some valuable information that I can use not only within the context of this course, but also as my career is better defined over time.

There are multiple theories of personality and leadership assessments that have proven effective in helping individuals achieve their full career potential. The “Big Five” theory of personality, for example, measures the five broad areas of personality, including extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience (Srivastava, 2015). Other types of assessments, such as the more simple leadership assessment we explored, simply measure leadership qualities, such as emotional intelligence and confidence. In exploring a couple of such resources in more depth, such as the leadership assessment provided by the University of Kent’s Career Enhancement Center, as well as the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, it is clear that understanding more about oneself can lead to enhanced career choices.

Furthermore, the trait leadership approach serves as a benchmark for which individuals tend to measure their own leadership qualities, and also for the organisations to identifying suitable and competent leaders (Northouse, 2013). This approach makes trait assessments valuable for assessing a potential leader's strengths and weaknesses, and trait measures are a good way to understand the behaviour of leaders; how they fit into the organisational hierarchy and a possible future course of action.

Physical ability tests will commonly use various tasks or exercises requiring physical ability in order to test performance (Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology [SIOP], 2016). An assessment of physical ability may be necessary for some jobs, and the relation between physical ability and job performance is of particular interest. For example, a police officer or firefighter that has limited mobility may find it difficult to perform basic tasks required of the job. Firefighters have to carry heavy equipment, and sometimes people, in situations that can be quite hazardous, such as a burning building. Police often are required to actively pursue, defend, and/or apprehend fleeing suspects (Cohen, Swerdlik, & Sturman, 2013).