Personal Leadership
Personal Leadership Profile
Few skills are more important to self-improvement than being able to take a step back and honestly evaluate you. Self-reflection allows you to expose problems early, before they become too painful to ignore. Unfortunately, honest self-evaluation is one of the hardest skills to master. People tend to be self-serving in their thoughts. For most people, self-reflection involves looking into a mirror, with all the information warped and distorted until it barely resembles reality. True self-evaluation is challenging, and requires you to be open to “see” your strengths and weaknesses, and to develop a plan of action to develop those areas that are lacking. Preparedness for the hard truth is required. The truth is something not everyone is prepared to accept. However, without acceptance, personal growth cannot occur.
Eight weeks ago, I began a journey of self-evaluation and reflection that would shock the hell out of me. I would come to learn that the view I hold of myself as a leader and business professional, is entirely different from the view others have of me. I would also learn that many of the leadership skills I thought I had mastered, I had not even begun to learn.
Leadership effectiveness is the ultimate goal of any leader; unfortunately, the facts reveal that as a leader, I was less than effective. Owning a propensity to avoid risk, control issues, task vs. relationship focused, and the tendency to play office politics have allowed a less than productive leadership style to prevail.
As I looked at my own reflection of leadership and the many skills I needed to develop, I decided to start with the first three I felt to be most important to my becoming an effective leader; conflict management, feedback, and valuing others.
Conflict is inevitable. Management spends up to a third of their time at work managing, handling, and dealing with conflict. Workers waste just as much time as managers on
Few skills are more important to self-improvement than being able to take a step back and honestly evaluate you. Self-reflection allows you to expose problems early, before they become too painful to ignore. Unfortunately, honest self-evaluation is one of the hardest skills to master. People tend to be self-serving in their thoughts. For most people, self-reflection involves looking into a mirror, with all the information warped and distorted until it barely resembles reality. True self-evaluation is challenging, and requires you to be open to “see” your strengths and weaknesses, and to develop a plan of action to develop those areas that are lacking. Preparedness for the hard truth is required. The truth is something not everyone is prepared to accept. However, without acceptance, personal growth cannot occur.
Eight weeks ago, I began a journey of self-evaluation and reflection that would shock the hell out of me. I would come to learn that the view I hold of myself as a leader and business professional, is entirely different from the view others have of me. I would also learn that many of the leadership skills I thought I had mastered, I had not even begun to learn.
Leadership effectiveness is the ultimate goal of any leader; unfortunately, the facts reveal that as a leader, I was less than effective. Owning a propensity to avoid risk, control issues, task vs. relationship focused, and the tendency to play office politics have allowed a less than productive leadership style to prevail.
As I looked at my own reflection of leadership and the many skills I needed to develop, I decided to start with the first three I felt to be most important to my becoming an effective leader; conflict management, feedback, and valuing others.
Conflict is inevitable. Management spends up to a third of their time at work managing, handling, and dealing with conflict. Workers waste just as much time as managers on
Bibliography: Dubrin, Andrew J. (2007). Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills (Fifth Ed). New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Cornerstones of Success, Regis Learning Solutions (2005). Conflict Management. Retrieved May, 2009, from Group Communications Board Web site: http://130.253.4.143/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=295 Cornerstones of Success, Regis Learning Solutions (2005). Feedback. Retrieved May, 2009, from Group Communications Board Web site: http://130.253.4.143/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=295 Cornerstones of Success, Regis Learning Solutions (2005). Valuing Others. Retrieved May, 2009, from Group Communications Board Web site: http://130.253.4.143/eres/coursepage.aspx?cid=295