Bryon Gaskin
MBA601
Dr. Hornsby
Fall 2003
Self Analysis
What do you see as your strengths and weaknesses as a leader?
What I see as my strengths as a leader are I try to emphasize to my staff that I am here to work for them. Meaning my role is not managing them but instead to deal with red tape details that occur every day so they don’t have to. Also I really strive to work harder than any member on my team. I also try to convey the fact to that we are a team and that team members help each other out whenever needed, so I often help out and do parts of their jobs. I also make a conscious effort not assign my team something that I can do faster my self than have them do it. For instance; if I need to have a standard pre-defined report ran, instead of calling down to one of my team members to do it and then have them email it to me, I just run it myself because it actually takes less time.
I see my weakness as a leader comes from the fact that I was promoted to manager from a position in which I knew very little about the other arms of my department and even less about the business as a whole. So my weakness as a leader is my lack of the technical knowledge to run the business. However I feel that I have used this to my advantage because for me to be successful, I have to let my ego take a back stage and let my staff work as a self directed team.
What does the term empowerment mean to you?
The word empowerment to means learning to lead oneself. In management terms or leadership terms, empowerment is taking your knowledge, and transferring it to your staff so that they can use that information to direct themselves. For instance a manager should not scrutinize every detail of a teams performance, but instead provide the tools necessary for the team to do their own self assessment and make adjustments to their actions in order come up with the best solutions to various issues that arise. To me empowerment is taking a problem that originates at the top of the ladder and work the solution from the bottom instead of a problem that originates at the tops and push the solution to the bottom.
What is the most important characteristic of a successful leader?
The most important characteristic of a successful leader is the never give up attitude. A person can have the best education, highest IQ, be the most charismatic, but if the person does not have the intestinal fortitude to continue on in the face of adversity, then the other traits do not matter because they will not put them into play. We all know people who are very very talented in one aspect or another of life or who have very special gift and shine when the going is good, but when the going gets tough, they disappear out of the spot light because they don’t have that fire in their belly that makes them want to employ their talents. i