Leadership: Self Reflection and Analysis Essay Example

formation of teams and overall job performance. Those discussions occurred from a rational place with behaviors discussed that tied directly to observed outcomes. Recently I have become more aware of my tendency to put an emotional slant on those conversations that is not necessary given the discussion at hand.

Continuing with the analysis, I noted that my second worst score was in category 3, Life Balance. Here I scored myself as a 13. When I first took this assessment, this section of my profile was one of my highest scores. As I have grown as a person and moved to different organizations, I have also become passionate about many outside ventures. These ventures have changed how I do work and how much I work. Beyond my day job, I am now also a director of a nonprofit foundation. The foundation I work for is my passion, but concerning work-life balance, I find I now can lose focus on the other things important to me including family, friends, and exercise. I recently worked past the point of burnout on an executive offsite. While this behavior is no longer the norm for me, I do my best to keep it in check.

My area with the lowest score is Category 4 or beginning with the end in mind where I scored a 12. Category 4 is the only profile section that was also in my bottom three the first time I took the assessment. I have learned over the past decade that planning and details are not something I enjoy and therefore I tend to avoid doing them. Conceptually I understand the extreme importance of a well thought out

plan and the value it brings to building motivation and a shared vision to your team. Though I try to establish the habit of a more formal weekly planning system, it has to this point been hit or miss. The other area of Category 4 that is an opportunity for me is beginning with the end in mind. I am a conceptual thinker, and I always see ideas and links between systems; however, I can get analysis paralysis and lose focus on exactly which course of action I want which can confuse for my team.

My third highest category of the Seven Habits Profile was number 6, or think win-win. In this section of the assessment, I scored myself a 16. I have spent the last decade working on the win-win area, and it felt good to see the results reflected in the assessment. All of the items in this category improved and I can see the direct benefits of this in the improved relationships I now enjoy. One of the most notable changes is item 18. I no longer see conflict as conflict. I see an exchange of data and a puzzle that forms. When we solve the puzzle, everyone can have all their needs met, without any compromise. I used to see these puzzles as conflict, but they are just people attempting to get their needs met. With this shift in perception, my ability to cooperate with others went through the roof. My change in these areas is evidenced by a thriving internal coaching practice at my organization as well as frequently being called upon to mediate and facilitate executive groups who are not

making progress.

I scored myself the second highest in category 7, seeking first to understand, where I gave myself a 17. I have developed in all three of the items in this section not only through deliberate practice but also by way of becoming a Professional Coach. I could not have passed my oral boards, written tests, or received my international accreditation without demonstrating a high level of proficiency in these areas. Beyond my coaching practice, an example of how I use these items as a leader occurred recently in my team. I had two employees who were having performance issues and being verbally abusive to each other. Through the use of appreciative and diagnostic inquiry, I was able to pinpoint the source of the conflict between them and understand the situation that was causing the performance issues for both. The clarity allowed me to make a plan to help both employees have a good work environment and meet performance targets.

I scored the highest in category 3, being proactive, where I gave myself an 18. Category 3 is also one of the areas I have worked on for over the past ten years. I in no way see myself as a victim to anything, and I understand the power I have in each moment to create my life and provide influence. I know at my core that I am in charge of myself and I own my emotions and actions as indicated in item 9 of this section. I have demonstrated this ability most recently while leading up with my new boss. He had little experience and was micromanaging the Division on every task. My initial

emotional response was irritation, and I began to write him off and accept my new situation mentally. After a week with him, I realized the influence I could make and offered my executive coaching services. He gratefully accepted my offer and through several self-assessment experiences has already grown in how he responds to the stressful environment. Had I played the victim or written him off, that growth may not have happened.

Breaking down the Seven Habits Profile into its discreet sections is useful for gaining a working understanding of how I show up as a leader. Looking at my past results and how I acted at work, I would have classified myself as a Charismatic leader. Shamir, House, and Arthur (1993) found that transformational and charismatic leaders shift and elevate their followers' moral compass, create strong invested relationships with them, and motivate those followers to tap into their discretionary effort for the sake of the mission. I have seen this occur in my groups and have been given many jobs specifically for my abilities in this area. However, I have recognized the downsides to this style of leadership for myself and have worked to develop more as a Situational Leader. I believe I now exhibit more of the characteristics of a situational leader. According to Northouse (2016), a Situational leader uses her discernment and awareness about the employee’s willingness to complete a task as well as how prepared that employee is to accomplish that project, to determine how she will respond in a given situation. My work as a coach and my personal belief system mesh well with this theory as I believe our success as

a leader is directly related to our ability to adapt to a given situation. With this in mind, I will be using the Situational Leadership theory as the lens to analyze my leadership performance further.

I applied the four leadership styles frequently used to explain the revised Situational Leadership model as a framework for analyzing my performance. Blanchard, Zigarmi P, and Zigarmi D (1985) defined the four styles as “S1 – Directing, S2 – Coaching, S3 – Supporting, and S4 – Delegating,” ( p74). These styles provided me a simple means to break out the groupings of behaviors and leadership practices for comparison to my strengths and weaknesses. Each style corresponds to a level of willingness of the follower to complete the task and the level of competence the follower has with that task (Blanchard et al., 1985). When working with the model, the interplay between those attributes in a follower leads to an understanding that different situations require different styles. For this reason, Situational Leadership theory was described as natural and according to Vidal, Campdesuner, Rodriguez, and Martinez (2017) “ intuitive” ( p 2).

My strengths relative to this model spread across S2, S3, and S4 styles. As mentioned above, I find the concept of adapting to meet the situation you are faced with intuitive, thus having my strengths spread across three of the styles was no surprise. The first strength I have is in coaching others. I have a great deal of empathy and emotional intelligence, so I am usually able to sense when someone needs motivation or support. My training in professional coaching allows me to use the different types of inquiry to offer

encouragement that builds up the employee to increase confidence and feelings of support. Coaching skills are aligned with the S2 style because as Northouse (2016) discussed, a leader closely interacts with her subordinates to provide encouragement, give direction, ask for feedback, and ensure their needs are met. I have used these types of skills daily in my current team as we transition to becoming internal Organization Development consultants. Several of my employees were hired for their passion for this work but still need development to perform some of the interventions required by the organization. In these cases coaching their belief and being more directive with how the task gets done has been successful and is in line with the S2 style of leadership.

My second strength is in the practice and behavior of delegating tasks to my employees, which falls in the S4 delegating style of leadership practices. I am fortunate that I do not struggle with defining the goal and then giving that job, with the appropriate amount of authority and thus accountability, to my employee. Further, Buckingham and Coffman (1999) found that the practice of clearly stipulating the desired goal is a great way to create self-efficacy and awareness in followers. I have demonstrated this most recently with the creation of marketing material for our Organizational Development products. When I provided my employees with the vision and then let them run, I saw more synergy and spontaneous meetings that resulted in not only the product I was looking for but shared understanding and improved relationships as well.

My third strength is my self-awareness. I have spent the last seven years working on this aspect personally

and professionally as a certified executive coach. I am almost always aware of my mental and emotional state and understand how a situation or one of my beliefs may be influencing my perception. Daft (??) said when a leader has this thorough understanding of their internal world they remain centered and consistent no matter what the situation. From a contingency style of leadership, this ability to stay centered and grounded enabled me to assess the situation accurately and chose the most beneficial leadership practice for that situation.

My first weakness when applying this theory to my leadership style falls in S1, or my ability to be directive. Blanchard ( et al., 1985) explains when an employee is willing but lacks the skill to perform a job, that they need more direction, supervision, structure and control mechanisms. I have never enjoyed being directed to do work or micromanaged. As a result, I tend to avoid being directive. I find I am not noticing soon enough when someone may lack the skill to do a job I have given them and thus may need more direct supervision. My lack of awareness resulted in my having to step late into a project when I realized my employee was over their head. Despite regular meetings and discussion, my bias against being too directive prevented me from seeing the signs that my employee was hiding their struggle.

My second weakness also falls in the S1 directive style. I do not always communicate clearly nor give specific enough information about how to do a task when operating in a directive manner. Defining a goal is one thing, giving someone the how-to steps is

another. Northouse (2016) discussed that employees who are motivated to do the task but may not know the steps to complete the task require clear, specific direction. I failed to articulate clearly that direction in the past, even when I knew the person needed more help. I have observed when things get tense, and deadlines are short that I can start jumping to the conclusion that everyone is on the same page as myself. I assume they understood how to do the project, or use their silence as a signal that they know. In these cases, I did not seek input to validate that assumption, which according to Blanchard et al. (1985) is also a practice in the S2 style. This weakness has caused me to misperceive the level of actual support for an idea in the room as well as cause rework when my employee comes back and admit they didn’t understand.

My third weakness is not spending enough time nor providing sufficient motivation to my employees who have a high willingness to do the job and are very capable of succeeding. According to Buckingham et al. (1999), great managers understand their job is to motivate their highly capable employees to higher levels of performance. He continues to explain that great managers understand how detrimental it can be to ignore their best. I have in the past left these high performers to their own devices while focusing on those who are struggling, only for the motivation from my top performer’s to wane, driving the situation back into an S3 supporting style of leadership without me knowing it.

After analyzing my leadership against the Situational Leadership Theory,

I have three recommendations to improve my overall ability to lead and manage people. The first is to work with a professional coach. Coaching is effective, and as Frates, Moore, Lopez, and Mchahon (2011) support, the origins of professional coaching lie in data-driven science and theory, within psychological fields, on how to achieve sustainable behavior change. With this in mind, I will be able to explore my beliefs and biases that contribute to my hesitation to promptly use the S1 directive style of leadership and eventually change my behavior and better recognize these situations.

My second recommendation is to improve mine and my teams’ understanding and awareness of other personality and information processing styles. The differences between personalities when it comes to communications are significant. According to Keirsey (1998) “some people are prone to send symbol messages, others to send signal messages--signals pointing to something present to the eye, symbols bringing to mind something absent from view” (p.27). Taking this one step further, if you don’t know which method your employee prefers, you could be sending an unclear signal based on how their brain process information. Not knowing how your employee processes information makes communicating the how-to of tasks, as required in the S1 style, difficult. Armed with increased understanding, I could then enlist the support of my team to provide more immediate feedback when I am not clear.

My last recommendation is straightforward and simple. To ensure that my high performers are engaged and able to stay in the 4th development zone of the Situational Leadership II model, which Northouse (2016) describes as having the ability and the willingness to get the job done with minimal

supervision, I recommend scheduling quick informal check-ins with them expressly for showing appreciation for the great work they continue to do. There is ample data to support the importance of maintaining a good relationship with your people and Buckingham et al. (1999) discuss further that the most significant impact on if an employee stays and her level of performance is the relationship with her boss. The reality, however, is busy schedules can get in the way of doing the right thing for that relationship if I am not intentional.

The first goal I am setting for myself relates to addressing my first two weaknesses. Specifically, I will enter into a coaching relationship with a professional executive coach by the end of April 2019, with the expressed intent of that relationship being to work on my ability to be directive when the situation warrants it as well as my ability to communicate clearly to multiple personality styles. With that specific intent, the goal is relevant because it addresses both of my S1 style weaknesses. This goal is achievable because I have the money, connections, and authority to enter into a contract with a professional coach. The goal is time bounded because I will reach the goal by the end of April of this year, and it is measurable because success can be seen by whether or not I have entered into that relationship by the end of April. One action I must take to achieve this goal is to budget and secure the money for the coaching contract. This process can take a couple of months so I would set the due date for the end of

March 2019. Concurrently with obtaining money is the action to interview multiple coaches and select one with the right fit. This process can also take many weeks, and I would set the due date as mid-March.

My second goal for improving my leadership will address relationships with my top performers. Specifically, I will improve the engagement of my top performers by February of 2020. I will measure engagement by an increase in the number of percent 5’s on the Gallup Q12 as compared to this year's baseline. The percentage of 5's is relevant because the Gallup Q12 is statistically shown to relate to employee engagement and the health of supervisor-employee relationship (Buckingham et al., 1999). This goal is achievable because I have and can afford to offer the survey and have an extensive background with it. The goal is time bounded because I will achieve it by February of 2020. The first action I will take to accomplish this goal is to secure funding and a contract for Gallup to give the survey again. I will give this a due date of the end of March to get through the contracting process. The second action will be to use the results to meet with my team and develop a plan of action for improvement. One item on the plan of action will be to establish at least a weekly check-in in with my high performers to offer them appreciation and support. The due date for this action will be by April 15th, after the survey has finished.

References

1. Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., & Zigarmi, D., (1985). Leadership and the One Minute Manager. New York, NY: William Morrow
   

& Company Inc.