Self-Assessment of Leadership, Skills, Style, and Values

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the choices they do. It is also important to realize that, my own thoughts and expectations for myself are usually not the same as my co-workers. Allowing the time to get to know my staff on issues that are not necessarily work related, it also opens the opportunity for better relationships between staff members. Allowing people to have time to be “people” with each other, and not simply co-workers, also give validation to staff, that they are respected as individuals, and not simply “warm bodies to fill the needs”. Showing appreciation, a simple “thank you”, words of encouragement, conveying the compliment to them you have heard from others, gives staff a sense of appreciation and security. This adds to a more positive attitude from the staff, which leads to better work relationships. Consequently, when people work better together, productivity increases. A negative work place is usually filled with gossip, backstabbing and is non-productive in most ways.

My other strength of being successful in career and life is the goal setting. I am highly disciplined personally and professionally. My plans are often well thought out in detail and have superb follow through.

However, ego is often part of my negative characteristics. According to the result of Big Five Personality traits, my lack of agreeableness and tendency to be overly critical can be a problem from a leadership perspective. I need to remind myself to use tools from situational leadership to address my lack of patience. My lack of sympathy, short temperedness and self-control can be viewed as lack of emotional intelligence as well.

III. Values

My own work ethic is that, I do not leave the facility until everything is in place the way I would want to find it the next morning. In actuality, I acquired this trait in my early twenties while working at night shift in the fast food chain restaurant while in college. When I closed at 11:00 pm, I could not leave until every aspect of the restaurant was ready for the morning crew to walk into and start operations. And to this day, this is how I act and believe is the correct and ethical choice. No one wants to come into a mess or have to do other people’s work that should have been done the night before, when a busy day is already ahead of them.

As golden rule stated, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” Every leader and employee should acted honestly, treated others the way that they wanted to be treated.

However, this is not necessarily the case in the real working situation. I have realized that not all of the staff feels this way. They take care of their own issues and then feel that they are finished for the day, even if that means other employees have to stay later.

I’m currently working as a real estate agent. I find myself have been constantly confronted with ethical dilemmas. There are numerous events during a real estate transaction where the lines between right and wrong may get blurred. One of the most common dilemmas in real estate is balancing agent’s fiduciary responsibility to the client with the customer’s right to know. I recognized that my responses mostly have been tempered by the amount of the commission involved, instead of giving primary consideration to the legal and ethical issues. We do whatever it takes to survive in the fiercely competitive market. Am I unethical?

According to Badarracco’s framework, we have to access long term effects or results of our decision when we’re facing right versus right ethical dilemmas. And his sleep-test concept also perfectly determines our abiding value.

If I compromise with my own conscience, I will weaken my conscience. Soon my conscience will fail to guide me and I will never have real wealth based on peace of mind.

The course of business ethics helped me in developing a Personal Code of Ethics and establishing a foundation for my own ethical beliefs and values.

I’ve learned that once I am aware of my deepest values, I can consider the fundamental principles that ground my values. These principles guide my life, give me an identity and self-esteem, and empower me. My personal environment may change daily, but with these principles, I have an unchanging personal constitution that allows me to act in a manner consistent with my values.

IV. CONCLUSION

I often relied on others for feedback on my personal and professional development. In school, there are academic and career advisors and at the work place, the annual performance review by the manager. This is the first time I have completed self- assessment exercises to evaluate myself on leadership and personal effectiveness and I found it to be rewarding and refreshing.

I found that self-assessments can point out potential issues that require attention for evaluation. By gaining a deeper understanding of the matter through research, I came across alternate meanings of my results and reassessed my view to form what I can comfortably say as “a better self-judgement”.

References:

- McQuerrey, L. (2012). The advantages of understanding individual leadership styles. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-understanding-individual-leadership-styles-18461.html

- Brisman, M. (n.d.). Leadership Personality: Do you have the Big Five Traits? Retrieved , from www.workingresources.com/nss-folder/pdffolder/leadershippersonality.pdf

- Leadership and organizational politics. (2011). Retrieved from www.alagse.com/leadership/13.php

- Ratzburg, W. H. (n.d.). Motivating Organizational Members. Retrieved from jam3c.tripod.com/id8.html

- Brown, M. E. (2007, April 23). Misconceptions of Ethical Leadership: How to Avoid -potential Pitfalls. . Organizational Dynamics, 36(2), 140-155. Retrieved from Organizational Dynamics, Volume 36, Issue 2, 2007 Pages 140-155: http://dx.doi.org.dmi

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