Leadership Self-Assessment Questionnaire
This tool will provide you with an opportunity for assessing and reflecting your capabilities and desire for developing leadership skills.
For each of the 16 questions listed below, rate yourself on the scale shown below, with 5 beingAlmost Always Trueand 1 beingAlmost Never Trueby circling the number that you feel most closely represents your feelings about the task.
Almost Always True — 5
Frequently True — 4
Occasionally True — 3
Seldom True — 2
Almost Never True — 1
Be honest about your answers as this survey is only for you own self-assessment.
Keep these points in mind when answering the assessment questions
· What’s your first inclination when you get a new project?
· What’s your tendency when you’re under pressure?
· What feedback have you been given about yourself?
· What seems most comfortable?
Leadership Self-Assessment Questionnaire
1. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I enjoy working on teams.2. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am able to speak and communicate clearly to others.
3. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I enjoy relating to others on an interpersonal basis.
4. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am good at planning.
5. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I can interpret rules and regulations.
6. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I feel comfortable asking others for advice.
7. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am good at solving problems.
8. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I can delegate work to others.
9. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am effective at handling complaints.
10. / 1 2 3 4 5 / Giving directions is comfortable for me.
11. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I know how to develop goals and carry them out.
12. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am comfortable at implementing new techniques.
13. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am comfortable giving feedback.
14. / 1 2 3 4 5 / If I made a mistake, I would admit it and correct it.
15. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am able to resolve conflict.
16. / 1 2 3 4 5 / I am comfortable with change.
Scoring
Score the survey by adding the numbers that you circled: ______
A score of forty or higher indicates a desire to become a leader and a perceived ability to perform the tasks required of a leader.
A score of forty or less indicates a general dislike of wanting to take on a position of leadership or a perceived inability to perform the tasks required of a leader.
However, no matter what your score is, your commitment, desire, and determination are the biggest indicators of your ability to become a leader!
You can use this assessment to help you to determine what skills and abilities you can continue to improve (strengths) and what skills and abilities you need to develop (opportunities for growth).
What are your strengths?
What are your opportunities for growth?
Principles of Thinking like a Leader
This guide uses these principles of thinking like a leader as a foundation for building leadership skills.
1. Keep a focus on the mission and higher intent
Never lose sight of the mission, purpose, and results you need to achieve. Due to the complexity of their duties, leaders are often drawn toward unusual and critical events that force them in different directions. While these difficulties often need to be attended to, don't lose sight of the higher intent of the organization.
2. Set Big Audacious Goals (BAGs)
Almost anyone can achieve easy goals, but do you really believe that is what your competitors are aiming for? It's tempting to simplify your competition by treating them as rigid or simply reactive. Good leaders use their visioning skills to set BAGs with a thorough understanding of how to reach them... not with reckless abandon.
3. Coach your followers
There are a few things that you need to keep a pulse on because they can have real damaging effects on your organization, but the vast majority of objectives and details can be handled by your followers. Yes, they will make mistakes. It’s ok, good leaders know that mistakes provide one of the most valued learning opportunities there is.
4. Combat complexity and change with learning
Not only must you coach your followers, you must also change the culture to a mindset of alearning organization. You cannot be the only coach — the entire organization needs to know the skills, have the technologies, and be in climates that allow people to help develop others through both formal and informal experiences.
5. Set the example: Be, Know, Do
You are a role model of the organization who sets the standard by being a person of good character, knowing your job, and doing all that matters.
6. Flatten the organization by replacing hierarchies with networks
While it might be comforting to think that information should flow smoothly up to you, and in return, you reply with commands, the world is simply too complex and moving too fast.
Vertical leadership are organizations where leaders are in a formal positions of power at the top of the hierarchy and whose commands typically run down the hierarchy, while information flows up it. In simple environments, this can work quite well.
However, if we view leadership as being a total system, rather than lying in individual power, then we have horizontal or flat leadership that are networks of people where information and commands flow in all directions so that change and complexity are rapidly mastered.
7. Create and sustain diversity and inclusion
Having biases against people who are different greatly hinders your ability to gain new insights. Diversity is about empowering people. It makes an organization effective by capitalizing on all of the strengths of each employee. Diversity is understanding, valuing, and using the differences in every person. Mastering diversity leads to inclusion where all people feel they are highly valued for their uniqueness. In turn, the organization benefits from the synergistic effects of a cohesive team who bring an array of experiences to the table.
Next Steps
Leading
As we know, bossing people around is not effective; leading people by setting goals, inspiring, supervising, coaching, training, and using power smartly and with empathy is what leaders do.
Your thinking skills can be considered directional skills because they set the direction for your organization. They providevision, purpose, and goal definition. These are your eyes and ears to the future, allowing you to recognize the need for change, when to make it, how to implement it, and how to manage it. You find a vision by reaching for any available reason to change, grow, and improve. Just as you perform preventive maintenance on your car, you must perform preventive maintenance on your organization. You don’t always have to believe in the old adage, “If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” Treat every project as a change effort. Treat every job as a new learning experience or a chance to improve the current process and grow.
Goals
Good organizations convey a strong vision of where they will be in the future. As a leader, you have to get your followers to trust you and be sold on your vision. Using the leadership tools described in this guide and being honest and fair in all you do will provide you with the influence you need in order to gain their trust. To sell them on your vision, you need to possess energy and display a positive attitude that is contagious. People want a strong vision of where they are going. They want to be involved! And your followers are the ones who will get you to that goal. You cannot do it alone!
When setting goals, keep these points in mind (SMART goals):
· They should be realistic and attainable.
· They should improve the organization
· As many people as possible should be involved in the goal-setting process (they will feel a sense of ownership that will drive them to achieve it).
· A process should be developed to achieve each goal.
There are four characteristics of goal setting:
1. Goal Difficulty:Increasing your employees' goal difficulty increases their challenges and enhances the amount of effort expended to achieve them. The more difficult goals lead to increased performance if they seem feasible. If they seem too high, employees will give up when they fail to achieve them.
2. Goal Specificity:When given specific goals, employees tend to perform higher. Telling them to do their best or giving no guidance increases ambiguity about what is expected. Employees need a set goal or model in order to display the correct behavior. Knowing the person will guide you in the amount of specificity that is required (this does NOT mean to micro-manage).
3. Feedback:Providing feedback enhances the effects of goal setting. Performance feedback keeps their behavior directed on the right target and encourages them to work smarter to achieve the goal.
4. Participation in Goal Setting: Members who participate in the process, generally set higher goals than if the goals were set for them. It also affects their belief that the goals are obtainable and increases their motivation to achieve them.
The Steps of Goal Setting
Although finding a vision can be quite a creative challenge, the process of getting that vision implemented can be fairly easy if you follow the six steps of:
Vision —> Goals —> Objectives —> Tasks —> Timelines —> Follow-up
Step 1 – Vision
The first step in setting goals and priorities is to personally develop what the organization should look like at some point in the future—this is avision. A “junior” leader, will mainly be concerned with a department, section, or small group of people, while senior leaders set the vision for the entire organization. However, both types of visions need to support each other and the organization's goals.
The vision you want should be a picture of where you want your organization to be at a future date. For example, try to picture what your organization would look like if it was perfect, what the most efficient way to produce your product would look like.
Once you have your vision, it needs to be framed in general, measurable terms and communicated to your team. Your team then develops the ends (objectives), ways (concepts), and means (resources) to achieve the vision.
Step 2 – Goals
The second step involves establishing goals, with the active participation of the team. Goals are also stated in measurable terms, but they are more focused. Establish the framework of your vision.
Step 3 – Objectives
Definable objectives provide a way of measuring the movement towards vision achievement. This is the real strategy of turning visions into reality. It is the crossover mechanism between your forecast of the future and the envisioned, desired future. Objectives are stated in measurable terms such as, “By the end of the next quarter, the ZC Club of ______will have 5 new members” In addition, we will strive for retention of all existing members by the entire team.
Step 4 – Tasks
The fourth step is to determine the tasks. Tasks are the means for accomplishing objectives. Tasks are concrete, measurable events that must occur.
Step 5 - Timelines
This step establishes a priority for the tasks. Since time is precious and some tasks must be accomplished before another can begin, establishing priorities helps your team to determine the order in which the tasks must be accomplished and by what date. For example, "The task will be completed by xx/xx/xxxx."
Step 6 - Follow-up
The final step is to follow-up, measure, and check to see if the team is doing what is required. This kind of leader involvement validates that the stated priorities are worthy of action. For the leader it demonstrates her commitment to see the matter through to a successful conclusion. Also, note that validating does not meanmicro-managing. Micro-management places no trust in others, whereas following-up determines if the things that need to get done are in fact getting done.
Modified from: Clark, D.R. (2004).Concepts of leadership.
Retrieved fromhttp://nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html
Clark, D.R. (2012).Design Methodologies: instructional, thinking, agile, system, or x problem?Retrieved fromhttp://nwlink.com/~donclark/design/design_models.html
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