Leadership Assessment

The Concepts of Leadership article outlined several different leadership models and explained some of the traits of leadership. Of the dozens of traits listed, the five that I feel are the most important are:

1. Be trust worthy – Lamb, McKee (2004) stated that workers that have a high level of “trust and confidence in top leadership” were most likely to be satisfied with their jobs.

2. Be able to communicate a vision – Lamb, McKee (2004) goes on to explain the three important parts of communicating a leaders vision: explain the organization’s high level goals, explain how workers help to achieve those high level goals, and be transparent with how the worker’s organizational group is doing relative to the company as a whole in meeting those goals.

3. Know yourself and seek self-improvement – According to the U.S. Army (1983) a leader must have a clear understanding of their strengths and weaknesses so they can continuously work to strengthen those traits.

4. Take responsibility for your actions – The U.S. Army (1983) also states that leaders need to take responsibility for the mistakes that they will inevitability make; they should never put the blame on someone else. By investigating the situation, they can fix what went wrong and put it behind them.

5. Keep your coworkers informed – It is critical for leaders to maintain an open path of communication with their peers, subordinates, and upper management. Having the ability to communicate with people in different level in the organization is a strong leadership trait.

I was able to relate the questions in the Leader Self-Assessment Activity to recent experiences in and out of the workplace. One question that stands out is “I am good at solving problems?” I gave myself ...

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...t I have identified them as lacking.

As I reflect on the survey experience, I realize that there are some steps that I will need to take to address my opportunities for growth and leverage my strengths. By acknowledging my weaknesses I will be able to address them and purposely spend additional effort working on tasks that encompass these traits. Similarly, acknowledging my strengths will allow me to leverage them to overcome my weaknesses. An example of this would be to prepare myself by planning, which is a strength, for giving an upcoming performance review, which is a weakness.

References

Lamb, L. F., McKee, K. B. (2004). Applied Public Relations: Cases in Stakeholder Management. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Routledge.

U.S. Army. (October 1983). Military Leadership (FM 22-100). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.