Self-Awareness And Importance Of Personality Assessments In Leadership

Findings of Self-Assessment Activities: Brief Review

Self-awareness is very crucial in order to become a capable leader and manager. Awareness of self enables individual’s to gain a deeper insight on individual’s personality traits, strengths and weaknesses. It is important that people are aware of their shortcomings as well as strengths (Caldwell & Hayes, 2016). It helps people in overcoming their weaknesses, garnering new experiences and highlighting their strengths to accomplish goals. This report throws light on the analysis of four different personality tests that I took in order to understand my personality, leadership traits and skills in a more profound manner. These four personality tests are world renowned and often used in organizations to evaluate, judge and understand their employees.

The Myers Briggs personality test is to identify our personality type from the predetermined 16 personalities. These 16 personality types have been concluded by a permutation and combination of 4 personality dichotomies that range from person to person (Noecker, Ryan & Juola, 2013). While conducting this self-assessment test I concluded that my personality type is ESFJ (Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling and Judging). The attributes that reflect my personality include that I am an actively social person who is warm, caring and enthusiastic. I am empathetic towards others and establish positive relationships with people. I am highly appreciative about the little things in life. I tend to be orderly and cooperative. As my basic nature, I am loyal in my friendships, family, peers and other relationships.

The big five personality test is developed for people to see a connection between their personalities and their behavior (Cobb-Clark & Schurer, 2012). This theory has identified the five important factors of an individual’s personality. In order to be aware about one’s own personality, it is important to analyze ourselves on these 5 personality traits. There are no right or wrong rankings, just different personality types will showcase a different ranking. My rankings in this test have been highest in extraversion, followed by openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. This reflects that I am a very social person who enjoys the company of other people.

McClelland’s need analysis determines the three factors that act as a source of motivation for people. An absence of which can create demotivation in the individual (McClelland, 2013). He stated that individuals are motivated when their three critical needs are fulfilled. Different needs play a different role in different personality types. It is important to understand what motivates us so that we can work towards fulfilling that need. When I analyzed the need theory in my own personality, I came to realize that I tend to get motivated by achievement and affiliation. The sense of achievement after completing a task is a big motivation for me to start and complete the next task. Secondly, the need for affiliation also plays an important role in my life as I tend to enjoy and appreciate being a part of a social group. My need for power is relatively less.

Critical Analysis

Thomas-Kilmann’s conflict mode instrument determines how we tend to resolve conflicts and which state of mind do we present in the course of a conflict (Johnson, Thompson & Anderson). When I took the activity, I was able to analyze that my attitude to resolving conflicts is different in different situations. In either case, I hold a largely competing attitude towards resolving conflicts and tend to be highly assertive. Very often it is difficult for me to comprehend the view point of another person as I am very focused on my opinion. This leads to conflicts and I need to therefore, put more efforts in being more collaborating.

This test judges an individual on four attributes of their personality (Furnham, 2017). The first aspect determines whether the person is either an extrovert or an introvert. I am an extrovert. I find it easy to communicate with new people. I have many friends and acquaintances in my personal life. I find myself very confident while talking to anyone. The second aspect determines whether a person focuses on basic information or puts efforts in interpreting and adding meaning. I do the former. I have realized that I rarely have intuitions and I trust the reality before me rather than intuitiveness behind anything. The third aspect decides whether a person takes logic and consistency into account while making decisions, or reaches conclusions basing decisions upon other people’s feelings. I usually consider other people’s feelings in this matter. I do not believe that ends justify any means. Hurting others for my personal benefit is something I would never do. The last aspect determined by the test is whether an individual is open to new things or closed for the same (Furnham & Crump, 2015). I have realized that I am a judging individual rather than a perceiving one.

The big five personality traits activity judges people on 5 major attributes (Judge & Zapata, 2015). These attributes are then ranked to analyze which factor is more predominant in a particular personality type. My results for the same are as below.

Personality/ trait dimension	Score	Rank (1-5)
Openness to experience/ intellect	95	2
Conscientiousness	75	4
Extraversion	99	1
Agreeableness	85	3
Neuroticism	41	5

Extraversion has proven to be a highly influencing attribute of my personality. Extraversion in an individual is characterized by the breadth of various activities that an individual wishes to participate in. I possess a high group visibility and it is easier for me to be the center of attention at parties. This is important to me because in any organization where I work, I will be required to interact with a lot of people and this attribute will help me establish positive relationships with them. When I lead the team I would try my best to make my team mates feel comfortable around me.  

Myers Briggs Personality Test

The second more important factor is openness to experience. I am usually full of new ideas and find it easier to understand new things. I have a great imagination and I don’t have a fear of trying out new things. This will help me in my professional career as I will be open to switching roles to a new department and enhance my learning through this process (Leutner & Ahmetoglu, 2014).

According to McClelland’s need analysis, I tend to get motivated by a sense of achievement as well as affiliation. Every time I complete a task, I feel a sense of achievement. I like the feeling of being affiliated in a group of people. This need for achievement consistently motivates me to work harder and achieve more goals.

While conducting the Thomas-Kilmann’s conflict mode of instrument, I have realized that I am rather competing while resolving conflicts. This instrument helps people understand how they resolve conflicts and is hence an important instrument in analyzing employee performance as well (Monrouxe & Rees, 2017). It is very difficult for me to accept that I am wrong. This simply implies that I am rarely cooperative and highly assertive with my opinions. This attribute will make it difficult for me to learn new things from people. Such an attitude to conflicts will hamper my relationships with people in my personal as well as professional life. Therefore, I must work upon being more cooperative and compromising.

By conducting these activities I have come to understand various aspects about my leadership skills. I have gained a deeper insight about my strengths and shortcomings that I will be facing in a future leadership role. As a future leader, it will be easy for me to lead a team of new members (Thomas & Cherenson, 2015). My ability to make people feel comfortable will help me attract people in my team and get them to adhere to me. At the same time, my need for achievement will enable me to accomplish organizational goals and set an example for my team members. According to the results of the big five personality traits test, I will be able to lead a team better since I am open for new ideas.

I need to improve upon my ability as a future leader to resolve conflicts in an efficient manner. I must not remain as competing as I am now. As such an attitude will lead to increased conflicts and may even spoil my relationships with people in my personal and professional life. Hence I will work upon being more collaborating and cooperative.

The Big Five Personality Test (Appendices 1)

As an organization’s leader I also need to become more practical. While taking the Myers Briggs test, I came to realize that between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’, I tend to make decisions by keeping ‘feelings’ in mind rather than practical thoughts. This is important while taking critical decisions in any business in order to ensure productivity and effectiveness of the firm.

In order to accomplish the above mentioned goals, I have realized that I need to overcome certain weaknesses. I have been able to shortlist three of my personal and professional shortcomings after personal analysis as well as detailed feedback from others.  The three weaknesses are as below:

1. Conflict solving skills: As depicted after the Thomas-Kilmann’s conflict instrument, I resort to the competing style of resolving arguments. I have noticed this in my personal life as well. However, I wish to change this and become more collaborating. This can otherwise adversely impact my professional as well as personal relationships. Conflict solving is an important part of every business (Wallensteen, 2015). Therefore, for a successful professional career ahead, I need to work upon my conflict resolution ability. The positive part is that I am very assertive in my opinion but for personal growth and development, it is essential that I remain open to and respect other people’s opinions as well. I have decided to follow to work upon this by first ensuring that the conflicts in my personal life are effectively resolved. I need to make a conscious effort to make sure that I am not as competing during conflicts and work towards resolving all the conflicts of my life in a positive manner.
2. Practicality in decision making: As a future leader of a business, it is important that I work towards being more practical in my decision making. This will help me in making productive decisions which will lead to the fulfilment of organizational goals. Many times, while working in any company, it becomes difficult to cater to the needs of everyone involved. It is important to understand formal rationality and substantial rationality. However, it may be difficult to always be substantially rational, it is advised to be formally rational (Grünig & Kühn, 2017).Hence, under those circumstances, it is important to take the most practical decision which will contribute to the success of the business.
3. Enhance personal space: I have always been a social person. But what I have realized is that, I must be able to be comfortable with my own self and alone. Being around people leaves me little personal space. Over a period of time, I have started neglecting my space and focused on my social gatherings. However, spending time with oneself is also very important and helps in contemplating various decisions and opinions. It is the time that must be spent upon reflecting over the day’s activities and future goals. This would help me analyze my areas of improvement as well as I will be able to plan my future better.

The above are the three important weaknesses that I wish to overcome. As this will have a major role to play in my professional life. I have devised an action plan to eradicate these weaknesses and become a better professional. The action plan for the same is given below:

	Short term
Sustainable	Evaluate my behavior after every conflict. And attend conflict management workshops.
Measurable	Make note of all the conflicts which I faced. Attend 6 workshops.
Time bound	6 workshops in 1 year.
Realistic	One workshop every 2 months is realistic. Apply the learnings of the workshops in real life conflicts.
Attainable	Register for workshops in advance to make sure they are attended. Take feedback after every conflict.

Decision making process:

Step 1: Identify the problem

Step 2: Analyze the problem

Step 3: Develop alternative solutions

Step 4: Select the best solution (Practical, productive and effective).

Step 5: Convert the decision into Action

Step 6: Follow up on the action taken

	Short Term
Sustainable	Consistently make a conscious effort to ensure effective decision making. Take time before making an important decision.
Measurable	Make a note of all the decisions that were taken.
Attainable	Be prepared for taking decisions. Make sure to follow the process mentioned above.
Realistic	Consistently improve upon decisions
Time bound	See the difference between decisions taken in the span of one year

	Short Term
Sustainable	Make sure to spend one hour of the day alone. Avoid using electronic gadgets during that time. Perform a social detoxification exercise.
Measurable	Notice the productivity in that one hour of the day. Make note of the changes instilled in personality due to that one hour.
Attainable	Spending one hour alone daily without electronic equipment might be difficult initially, but can be accomplished.
Realistic	Must be performed ideally in early morning or before going to bed at night so that no important tasks are disturbed.
Time bound	One hour every day.

 

Conclusion

Self-assessment is extremely important for every individual. This helps people become more aware and can identify and work upon their weaknesses as well as make effective use of their strengths (Butler, Kwantes & Boglarsky, 2014). It is highly recommended to continue performing some self-assessment activities every few days or weeks. This helps individuals improve, grow and develop in their personal as well as professional life. During this course I took up four such activities which have largely helped me gain a much deeper insight upon my strengths and weaknesses. I have come to understand and learn the areas that I need to improve upon. This course also helped me analyze my short term and long term goals which I aim to accomplish by overcoming my weaknesses. In order to achieve the same, I have built an action plan which I target to follow in my everyday life. Through this course, I have understood the importance as well as the benefits of self-assessment. Not only does frequent self-assessment helps individual become more competent professionals but also helps in improving their personal relationships.  

References

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Caldwell, C., Caldwell, C., Hayes, L.A. and Hayes, L.A., 2016. Self-efficacy and self-awareness: moral insights to increased leader effectiveness. Journal of Management Development, 35(9), pp.1163-1173.

Cobb-Clark, D.A. and Schurer, S., 2012. The stability of big-five personality traits. Economics Letters, 115(1), pp.11-15.

Furnham, A. and Crump, J., 2015. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Promotion at Work. Psychology, 6(12), p.1510.

Furnham, A., 2017. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). In Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences (pp. 1-4). Springer International Publishing.

Grünig, R. and Kühn, R., 2017. Rational Decision-Making. In Solving Complex Decision Problems (pp. 25-34). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Johnson, C.A., Thompson, R.C. and Anderson, M.G., THOMAS-KILMANN CONFLICT MODE INSTRUMENT.

Judge, T.A. and Zapata, C.P., 2015. The person–situation debate revisited: Effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the Big Five personality traits in predicting job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58(4), pp.1149-1179.

Leutner, F., Ahmetoglu, G., 2014. The relationship between the entrepreneurial personality and the Big Five personality traits. Personality and individual differences, 63, pp.58-63.

McClelland, D.C., 2013. That urge to achieve. Readings and Exercises in Organizational Behavior, p.70.

Monrouxe, L.V. and Rees, C.E., 2017. Professionalism Dilemmas across Professional Cultures. Healthcare Professionalism: Improving Practice through Reflections on Workplace Dilemmas, pp.207-226.

Noecker Jr, J., Ryan, M. and Juola, P., 2013. Psychological profiling through textual analysis. Literary and Linguistic Computing, 28(3), pp.382-387.

Thomas, M. and Cherenson, R., 2015. Importance of self-awareness in development of veterinary leaders. Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 247(10), pp.1093-1094.