We ended the last blog by saying – truly effective leaders must have a strong sense of self-awareness so they can understand the impact of their actions and behavior on their teams. There are several ways that leaders can begin to better understand themselves and become more effective.
There are essentially two ways you can develop and strengthen your self-awareness. One way is to start to observe and study yourself and how you make decisions or react in certain situations. Another way to do this is to seek input from others who are willing to be honest about providing you feedback. Obviously both ways can work. In this blog, we will focus on the former, getting to know yourself better through your own eyes.
No matter how insightful or objective we think we can be in honestly appraising ourselves there will always be an inherent bias that may skew our perception. It might be a good place to start by reflecting on how you would describe yourself but that would just be a start on the long journey of self-discovery.
There are many excellent personality tests available. These are sometimes called psychometric tests. In an article on MindTools.com (9/8/16) http://Mindtools.comentitled Coaching to Develop Self-Awareness, the authors said these tests “are useful for giving people an objective view of how they behave and how they compare in outlook with others.”
There is probably no one test that can fully capture all the nuances and complexity of your individual personality but by categorizing you based on your responses they can make it easier to begin this process of better understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
Some of the more popular psychometric tests include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Big Five (often called OCEAN model), DISC, and Ennegram but there are many others available. Many of these and similar type assessments are available online at no cost.
While this is a good basis to begin it is often helpful to work with coaches who have expertise with these tests. They can provide greater insight in their interpretation as well as guidance going forward. Organizations such as the Catholic Leadership Institute http://Catholicleaders.org, Amazing Parish, Leadership Roundtable or Evangelium Consulting http://evangeliumconsulting.comspecialize in working with ordained leaders. In some cases, they have developed their own testing vehicle which may be more customized to your specific needs.
Once you’ve taken these tests either on your own or preferably with a coach, you can consider what you’ve learned about yourself as well as how you interact with others. Both are important aspects of your personality and your leadership ability.
In the article previously cited by MindTools, they said, “With a good understanding of how we relate to others, we can adjust our behavior so that we deal with them positively. By understanding our weaknesses we can learn how to manage them and reach our goals despite them.
In our next post we’ll start to look at these tools in a bit more depth.