Professional Development Archives - Page 11 of 20

Four Leadership Assessment Tools

There are a number of leadership assessment tools that can help you decide if you have what it takes to be a leader, or to spot your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. In this way you can make the most of your opportunities and really start to shine. You can find many of these types of tools however the four that follow are certainly worth taking a look at:

1. Myers Briggs Tests

More and more human resources departments require candidates to take the Myers Briggs personality test in an attempt to determine what kind of worker they will be. There are 16 different personality types, with the classifications based on four main factors:

1 – Are you outwardly or inwardly focused?
* Extrovert (E)
* Introvert (I)

2 – How do you take in information
* Sensing (S)
* Intuition (N)

3 – How do you make decisions
* Thinking (T)
* Feeling (F)

4 – How do you live your outer life?
* Judging (J)
* Perceiving (P)

These four factors can be combined into 16 personality types, such as:
ENTJ, the commander
ESTJ, the executive
ESTP, the entrepreneur
INFP, the mediator

Take the free test at MBTI and read your results. Determine how accurate the report is. You may gain some insight into your leadership style and learn more about your strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

2. Kellogg School of Management Tools

The Kellogg School of Management, part of Northwestern University, has a very useful page of tools: the Leadership Assessment Tool Inventory, which offers a range of exercises you can take to learn more about your leadership style. Modules include:

* Gaining Power and Influence
* Using Influence Strategies
* Effective Empowerment and Delegation
* How Creative Are You?

Take all the exercises at Kellogg and use what you learn to improve your leadership skills.

3. The Mind Tools Website

This interesting site offers a range of free tools to test your business and career-related skills. The free test at https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_50.htm will give you a score and detailed feedback on what you should do to improve your leadership skills, plus suggestions for further reading and self-help activities.

They also offer a leadership motivation tool on Mind Tools that can help you determine how motivated you are to be a leader, both in terms of wanting the responsibility and helping others.

4. Benchmarks Assessments

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) offers a range of what they term benchmark assessments to help determine how effective a leader a person is on CCL

The four modules available are:
* Executives
* Managers
* Learning agility
* Design

You can take the tests yourself. You can also be certified as a test administrator so you could give the test to others interested in improving their skills, such as if you were working as a leadership coach or consultant. Pricing is based on the size of a group, so you and any colleagues who might aspire to leadership might all wish to take it.

There are many leadership assessment tools that can help you work towards a leadership position, or improve your skills to become a better leader. Take the time and effort to invest in yourself to become a better leader, and see what a difference it can make to your life and the lives of everyone you are leading.

Identifying Your Current Leadership Skills and Experience

One of the most important aspects of being a good leader is being able to assess your strengths and weaknesses honestly and do what you can to play to them on the one hand, and minimize them on the other.

The first thing to consider in relation to your current leadership skills and experience is whether you are in any sort of leadership role at the moment. You might not think you’re a leader because you don’t have a fancy title, but you would be surprised at how influential you might actually be in your company without even realizing it – or getting the credit for it.

For example, if you’re the person everyone comes to when they have a problem, you’ve clearly got leadership potential. If your boss or manager is always asking you to head up projects and initiatives, then you’re obviously functioning as a leader.

If you often help other staff through teaching them what you know, then you are also ready for a leadership role. It is just a case of having your role recognized and hopefully getting a title and salary increase to go with it.

If you’ve already served as a leader in the past, or are doing so now, how did it go? Did you have any issues with your own performance? Were there issues with the team? Or were there problems with both?

Being honest about what might have gone wrong and what could have been done better could make all the difference in your level of success if you get another chance to become a leader.

Or maybe you discovered that being a leader wasn’t all you had hoped it was going to be? In this case, assessing what went wrong and your own skills and abilities can help you decide whether you really want to climb the corporate ladder, or stay where you are. There’s nothing wrong with that if you do.

Remember, being a leader isn’t just about getting the best things in the company, but also the responsibility and accountability that goes with the role. The responsibilities could involve significant sacrifices in terms of time, effort, and your personal life. Therefore, it’s important to take a 360-degree look at the impact of a promotion on your family and friends if you were to adopt a leadership role.

The Importance of Emotional Intelligence

As I have observed in my recent posts the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) has become a hot topic of psychological research in recent years, as a way of explaining why some people seem to manage their relationships at home and in the workplace better than others. Instead of Intelligence Quotient (IQ), researchers began to study Emotional Quotient (EQ) – the ability to manage your own emotions and “read” those of others accurately. So why is emotional intelligence so important?

Importance at Home

The advantages of understanding the emotions of others in relation to your home life are obvious. Good EI skills mean better communication, and better communication will usually lead to greater harmony and intimacy in terms of romance. In relation to parents, it will lead to more successful establishment of your independence and overall personality. You won’t need to live according to the labels you’ve been given, such as “mother’s little helper” or “the man of the house.”

Once you become a parent, you will be able to avoid the pitfalls of labeling your children, and allow them to develop and grow according to their talents and interests, not yours. Most parents would love it if their children grew up to be doctors, for example, due to that profession’s perceived status and money-earning potential. However, if you child is not the least bit interested in science and shows no compassion for others, trying to steer their career in that direction would be a disaster for the parties concerned.

Knowing yourself is the best first step to knowing others, so if you’ve been struggling at home, it might be time to assess your EI.

Importance in the Workplace

EI has become of great interest in relation to the workplace. Businesses are made up of people, and the most successful business people have been shown to have high EI – not just intelligence in relation to their career or industry.

As with personal relationships, EI in professional relationships starts with self-awareness. Once we understand our emotions, we can control them and express them in a skillful, not harmful way. We can also understand the thoughts, feelings and points of view of others, and be able to respond to their issues appropriately.

Importance in General

EI is important for a number of reasons:

Mental health and wellbeing – Mastering EI puts us in control of our mind and emotions. It resolves issues from the past and gives us confidence to move toward a better future.
Physical health – Being in control of your emotions puts you in control of your life, cutting down on stress and conflict. This means less wear and tear on your body and better health.
Better communication – If you say what you mean, mean what you say, and become a better communicator who is able to pick up up verbal and non-verbal cues, you will be able to make more connections and reduce conflict.
Better conflict resolution – Even if conflicts do arise despite your increased EI, chances are that they will be easier to resolve because you will be better able to come up with a range of ways to end the issue before it gets out of hand.
More success – Getting along better with others means a smoother path to greater success.
Better negotiating skills – Better EI will improve your negotiating skills, so you will be able to come up with “win-win” deals everyone will be happy with.
Better leadership skills – A leader who is calm, cool, collected, and good at working with others is one other people will be willing to follow. Improve your EI and see what a difference it can make to your life.

Are Some People More Emotionally Intelligent Than Others?

The concept of IQ (Intelligence Quotient) has been around for decades. However, the idea of EQ (Emotional Quotient) or EI (Emotional Intelligence) became popular in the 1990s as a way of assessing why some people were more successful in the workplace than others. Knowledge from books is important, of course, but researchers noticed that the top performers in their careers all had certain characteristic in common.

They were:

Self-aware
Self-controlled
Able to act appropriate to the emotion being felt
Relating to others effectively, such as showing sympathy and empathy
Relating to others in a range of social situations, such as one-on-one, meetings, team projects, negotiations
A “people person” rather than an ideas person

Research showed that some people had more EI than others. Those who were lacking in EI tended to be in the lowest percentile in terms of work performance, and researchers posited that the personal relationships of underachievers were as difficult as their professional ones.

Learning EI

The good news is that EI can be developed with some focus and discipline. Each of the components above can be learned and improved upon. Working on becoming your best self is always a good idea for the sake of your own personal fulfillment. Working on EI can have the added benefits of improving your career and going from low man on the ladder to the top rung.

How is this possible, you may ask? It’s because in the process of improving your EI, you will become the kind of person who can “win friends and influence people.” People do business with people they like. Becoming more self-aware and self-controlled can serve as the gateway to getting along with others better, and being perceived as someone to be admired and even guided by.

In the same way that some people seem to be born leaders while others study leadership and take action to gain leadership positions, you can learn more about your own emotions in order to maximize your strengths and minimize your weaknesses.
Understanding what makes others tick, being a good listener and problem solver, a team player and a someone in control and not freaking out no matter what happens, are all signs not just of a reliable colleague, but a leader as well – a person others look to for guidance if and when things start to go wrong.

Studying your own emotions can help you learn how to manage them. Note the word “manage,” not “suppress.” No one is expecting you to be a block of wood, but in the workplace, those who can manage their emotions and not fly off the handle (for example) will stand out compared to those who are not able to rein themselves in.

Observing body language in yourself, and facial expression if you look in the mirror, will all give you guidance on the kind of image you are conveying to others. Are you coming off as warm and friendly, or cold, aloof, and arrogant? Are you really just shy? If you feel you are shy, what is making you hold back from others?

Reading the body language and facial expressions of colleagues, bosses, important business contacts, and so on, can help you get through even tricky situations and negotiations because you will be more alert, aware and tuned in to others. Most people don’t like used car salesmen because they’re so pushy. They only care about the sale, not the purchaser. Conveying care and other higher motivations such as improving their lives will create a win-win situation for everyone.

If you’re feeling stuck in your relationships, spend more time on your EI and see what a difference it can make in your life.

Practical Emotional Intelligence Examples

Emotional intelligence, or EI, involves understanding your emotions and the emotions of the people around you. Emotional awareness can help in many different situations at home, at school, and at work.

EI occurs on a number of levels. It involves the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions, and to be able to read the emotions of others in order to deal with them in an appropriate manner.

Our emotions are important in relationships, of course, but having empathy and understanding for others greases the wheels of communication and closeness. An emotionally intelligent person is easier to deal with than one lacking in EI for a number of reasons. Those with high EI are good at:

Managing difficult situations
Expressing themselves clearly and honestly
Controlling their emotions
Gaining respect from others, who admire their cool head and control
Influencing other people, such as in a leadership position because they lead by example
Working well as a team
Listening
Supporting

There are a number of example that demonstrate a person with high EI in action. By assessing yourself and looking at effective examples, you can boost your own EI and enjoy better success in your professional and personal relationships.

1. Anger Management

Anger management is a key skill that will help all your relationships. Note the word management, not suppression. Feeling angry is only natural. It’s how you express, or choose not to express, your anger that is crucial.

Examples of EI so anger does not run away with you include:

Counting to ten.
Telling the person you need some time to think and you will speak to them later.
Focusing on long, deep breathing so your breath doesn’t come in gasps and you can stay relaxed.
Using meditation to calm yourself.
Using visualization. Think of your favorite calming view.
Seeing the situation from the other person’s viewpoint.
Focusing on solving the problem in a practical way, rather than letting emotions get the better of you.

2. Understanding Body Language

Sometimes what is not said is as important as what is spoken. Body language can speak volumes, whether you realize it or not. Standing with your arms folded or with your body turned to the side is very off-putting to people and distances you from them. If you see someone standing like that when you are speaking to them, then they are not engaging with you on a deeper level.

By reading their body language and facial expressions, you can start to understand what others are really thinking and feeling, which can help with better communication and deal making.

A few things to watch out for include:

Hands on hips, fists clenched, red face = anger
Relaxed eye contact, smiling, sitting in a comfortable way = happy
Pacing, nail biting, tapping = anxiety
Eyes, face and posture all drooping = sadness

3. Dealing with Difficult People

Sooner or later, you are going to have to deal with difficult people. EI can help you navigate stormy waters successfully. Here are a few strategies for success you can try.

Know your communication style – is it relaxed and informal or uptight and formal?
Know their communication style and adapt yours to theirs.
Don’t jump to conclusions – get all the facts.
Be honest no matter what.
Don’t play the blame game. Pointing fingers is rarely helpful and could cause you to lose face even though you might not be the one who is in the wrong.
Don’t run on empty. Take care of your emotional and physical needs first. Eat right, take bathroom breaks, have a drink of water or beverage, and then tackle the issue.

Use these examples and others of good EI, and see what a difference they can make to all your relationships.