The Leadership Self-assessment – An Overview
Most people who have achieved success, from the business sector to the sports field, have one thing in common: the constantly evaluate their actions and then implement their new-found knowledge in order to improve. They will often employ a (business or sport) coach to help them evaluate and make the necessary adjustments, before they go and try again and then they will measure their actions again… That is how people become experts in any field: they measure, improve and eventually succeed.
This is what set those who become great in any field, apart from the rest: they never sit back and think they’ve made it. They always strive to get better at what they do. The same is true of great leaders: they constantly strive to get better at leading others.
The question is, though, how do you know what you’re not so good at? If you want to become better at anything, you first need to evaluate where you currently are and then make a plan how to address that; and this is the aim of The Leadership Self-assessment; to help you constantly evaluate and improve your own level of leadership.
Measuring yourself
As this is a Self-assessment, the purpose of this system, is not to compare your scores with anyone else, but rather determine what you need to work on to improve your own level of leadership. As a result, this system could be used by both seasoned leaders or those who only started out recently. The more specific you can be about what exactly you need to improve, the more appropriate and effective the goals will be that you set for yourself.
The way this system allows you to measure yourself, is by using scaling questions (i.e. on a scale of 0 to 10, if 0 is not satisfied at all and 10 is very satisfied with this aspect of your leadership, how satisfied are you currently with it?) Again, it doesn’t matter whether you are a “glass-half-full” or “glass-half-empty” person, because you’re not comparing scores with anyone else. Your aim is to determine what you need to focus on to become a better leader.
The four elements of leadership
Although this system will work best if you use it in conjunction with the book, “Raise Your Leadership Score”, as this will explain area in greater detail, this Self-assessment will help you to determine where you need to start to improve your leadership.
According to Dr Jaco Beukes, there are four essential elements that are part of the make-up of any leader:
1. Leaders must be of strong character. They need to live with integrity and others must be able to trust them. The central leadership question of this area, is: who are you?
2. Leaders must have a strong sense of commitment. They need to remain true to their vision and inspire others to follow this vision as well. The central leadership question of this area, is: where are you going?
3. Leaders must be able to connect with other people. They need to be good communicators who can build good relationships with others. The central leadership question of this area, is: who are going with you?
4. Leaders must be competent in their leadership abilities and what they are aiming to accomplish. They need to know what they are doing. The central leadership question of this area, is: what do you do?
These four elements are at the core of leadership and if you leave one out, your leadership will not survive, let alone thrive.
Each of these four core elements has three key categories attached to them, which are vital characteristics for any leader to incorporate into their lives. To help you determine with great accuracy what you need to improve to become a better leader, there are sub-questions attached to each of these categories.
By completing the Leadership Self-assessment, you will be able to accelerate your growth as a leader, by becoming intentional about those areas you need to address.
Take the assessments:
Area 1: Character Measuring whether you are a person whom others would follow willingly Abraham…
Area 2: Commitment Measuring whether you are committed to what you believe Leading implies that…
Area 3: Connection Measuring whether you are really connecting with other people Great leaders connect…
Area 4: Competence Measuring whether you are satisfied with your own level of competence in…