LEADERSHIP ASSESSMENT 1

Leadership Assessment
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Self-Analysis

Emotional Intelligence Self-Assessment

The emotional intelligence self-assessment questionnaire rated me to have an effective function

in 3 out of 4 categories. These were, namely, emotional awareness, emotional management, and

relationship management. I was able to score higher on social emotional awareness where my

emotional level was categorized under enhanced skills.

The test showed that I had a strong ability to manage social emotional levels. This implied that I

was able to work very well with other people. The evidence of the same was also seen during my

internship with a non-banking finance company where my relationship with people and my

superiors helped me in getting my work done faster and in an unhindered manner. I was also

given charge of most responsibilities that required talking to people and making them understand

the needs of the system or the specific direction under which they were being asked to work. I

was working with the quality management team for the company where different aspects of the

companys policies and procedures were being constantly updated to enhance the quality of

operations of the companys activities. This required continuous communication with the

customers the company vendors, the employees and the operational staff. It was utterly essential

to make favorable communication with each party in order to enable a work across the different

teams and get a policy or a procedure implemented within the company system.

My weakness was primarily in case of being able to express my opinions in teams. I was good at

working with individuals but when it came to expressing my motives and opinions in groups, I

feared that I might hurt or face resistance from one segment of the people or another. This was a

major drawback when meetings were being conducted and I could not play a significant role in
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putting across my thoughts. This also acted negatively over my image among the seniors when it

came to group communication skills.

The Big Five Questionnaire

The rank obtained on extroversion was pretty low at 17. This again emphasizes on the fact that

my group skills were weak and I found I difficult to make friends with people whenever I was

put in a group scenario. I find it extremely difficult to put across my opinions whenever put in a

group and that acted quite negatively for me at my workplace. People were aware of my abilities

to talk to people in person and also about, my abilities to get them agree to my ideas and views.

However, whenever I was not speaking in the group, the act was taken to be as an attitude rather

than an emotional problem.

My score on agreeableness was 28, which were moderate, and it showed that I needed to

improve my skills in terms of my abilities to suit others. I preferred work to be done in a manner

it should ideally be done and was not open to different ways of working spoke largely of sluggish

attitude and delays in deliveries. I am a stickler for timely completion of tasks.

My score of conscientiousness was 22 and this stood on the lower side. This expressed that I was

a weak person when it came to following rules. Again, this did not highlight that I could no

complete timelines or delivery schedules. I was weaker towards organization of my tasks. This

implied that my way of working was rather messy because I would want to work at 10 thigs

together.

Finally, my score on openness to experience was high at 32. Here, a high score expressed that I

was generally open to new ideas and welcomed new methods. This was also supportive of the

fact that my lack of organization in tasks usually came in from the working of my mind. I was
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thinking about many different things at a single go and would find it difficult to concentrate on

one single approach for doing things.

Emotional Intelligence

The emotional intelligence assessment on self-awareness, managing emotions, motivating self,

empathy, and social skills helped me towards identification of the different factors that were my

strengths and weaknesses. The results revealed that my awareness about self in terms of personal

behavior and attitudes as other perceive I to be. This was a key strength that helped in towards

identification of my weaknesses. The test also revealed that my weakness was strong in

managing my emotions. I quickly take offence and get angry with the smallest of things. I am not

able to balance my emotions when things do not happen in my accordance and this veils my

ability to see things objectively or understand the perspective of other at that particular time.

However, my social skills reveal that I am a good judge of people and can understand their views

and opinions quite effectively.

My experience at the workplace support the claim put forth by the emotional intelligence

assessment. I am often disturbed when people do not adhere to timelines or do not follow

procedures that are required to be followed. I am a follower of specific patterns of working and

cannot take delays or different ways of working. In the event that something promised is not

delivered as desired, I tend to lose my temper and this affects my relation with others. Others are

easily able to see what I feel. Additionally, I also lack self-motivation skills. Whenever faced

with a difficult situation, I tend to strategize my work approach rather and begin working without

assuring myself that I will be able to complete the task. I believe such motivation is necessary is

important to finish the task successfully rather than simply completing the task in a mechanical

way. Lastly, I have a strong sense of empathy. Despite having strong emotional presence, my
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strength in empathizing with other puts m on their good books and I often end up knowing their

deeper feelings. People often find it easier to express their opinions and views and this helps me

in making friends very easily.

Literature Review

Leadership can be said to be one of the most critical aspects of management and is important for

the sustenance of any organization because leadership attitudes are responsible for the success or

failure of most organizations (Weihrich, Cannice and Koontz, 2008). Leadership provides an

organization with the ability to guide and impact behaviors in such a way that it acts positively in

motivating people and providing them with the desired guidance (Chand and Misra, 2009). As

stated by Robbin (2001), leadership can be explained as the ability of an individual to convince

and activate the work of other people so that they work together as a team under the guidance of

that leader towards the attainment of a common goal. Leaders in the context of organizations

should act in a way to teach the managers how to develop leadership traits at their workplaces

and thereby motivate the employees to increase their productivity and hence profitability of the

concern. There have been numerous theories that have been brought forward for providing an

explanation to the effectiveness of leadership towards development of leadership motivation.

Researchers have long drawn disagreements regarding the definition of leadership where some

want to define it in terms of a personality and physical trait while others want to develop the

definition considering leadership as prescribed set of behavior. Such disagreements stem from

the fact that the leadership activity involves a complex set of interactions between the leader, the

situation at hand and the followers (Latham and Pinder, 2005). Contrarily, other set of

researchers also postulates the idea that leadership is somewhat a temporary role at a position
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that is filled by anyone who takes up the position (Meyer and Allen, 1997). The common threat

to all such definitions revolves around the idea of social influence to leadership thoughts.

In the context of an organization, leadership can be explained as a process of social influence that

is sought by the leader to seek voluntary participation on the part of the employees or

subordinates working towards the attainment of the organizational goals (Kinicki and Kreitner,

2004).

According to Brown, (2007), the approaches to leadership can be safely categorized into three

different groups namely, traits approach, situational approach and behavioral approach. It has

been well accepted by authors who believe that leaders have patterns of behavior that display

leadership traits.

Trait approach

The belief until the 20th century was that leaders are born and cannot be made or developed. The

traits displayed by the leaders were as an inheritance from birth and these traits made them

successful leaders. The trait approach believes that personal and physical characteristics of

people help in differentiating the leaders from the followers (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009A).

Authors have defined traits to be a distinguishing character of people that is displayed in

personal characteristics (Pinder, 2008). These include behavior, self-confidence, appearance, and

honesty. The trait approach lays focus on individual leaders and tries to determine the personal

traits of these leaders to pick the common traits that a person can develop over a period of time

to become an effective leader while he might not have been born with them (Forstenlechner,

2008). Numerous such traits can contribute towards the development of effective managers and

leadership.
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Leadership effectiveness is not applicable to a specific leadership style. It rather is capable of

catering to varied leadership styles where each style is suited to the situational context (Tuckey,

Brewer and Williamson, 2002). The quality factor is the cornerstone of each leadership approach

and this brings the discussion to the situational approach to leadership (Covey, 2004).

Situational Approach

The situational approach towards leadership is an assessment of the variation in leadership forms

depending on the situation to which it is exposed. This approach states that leaders analyze the

situation prior to making a decision of their course of action. The contingency model postulates

that the situational leadership determines the best leadership style applicable to a particular

situation (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009A). The models under situational leadership state that

leaders can change their working ways and behavioral traits as the situation might demand

(Covey, 2004). Hence, the situational leadership theory speaks of individuals who are capable of

determining the best leadership styles based on the demand of the situation and adaptation of

their behaviors based on personal values.

The benefits of situational leadership approach are that the leader can change, alter, and update

his style of leadership after an assessment of the needs and wants of the followers and a review

of followership behavior. This ensures that the leader gains highest levels of commitment to

work from the correct leadership attitude building and approach.

Behavioural Approach

As per the behavioral approach, any person who adopts the behavior which is appropriate for the

leadership role and can be ;earned more easily that building traits and developing leadership that

is accessible for all. These personal characteristics or traits are then considered weaker when
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compared to the actual behaviors that are exhibited by the leaders (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev,

2009).

According to Robbins, (2001), leadership has been referred to as the ability of an individual to

influence a collection of people and make them work towards the attainment of common

objectives and goals. It is observed that leadership and management are terms that are often

confused or used interchangeably. Most of the researches have argued that while management is

more about dealing with complexity of things to bring about some order and steadiness through

formal procedures and plans, leadership is all about dealing with change. Leaders work towards

the establishment of a vision and direct towards the future of the company by aligning people to

work towards it through constant communication and inspiration methods and also building a

mechanism to overcome the hurdles that come in due course (Forstenlechner, 2008).

Conclusion and Action Plan

With a view to improve upon my emotional intelligence, I aim at developing my group skills by

practicing with smaller group of friends and expressing one idea at a time. I will try to be strong

in my view and do proper preparation on every aspect of the topic in order to be able to answer

each persons queries effectively. In addition, I could work on looking at each aspect of the

project from the point of view of the different groups being affected with the project. In this way,

I could highlight the benefits that would accrue to them if the project was undertaken and thereby

eliminate any resistance that might come across. After all, people get convinced over a subject

only when they can see potential personal benefits in the project.

The Big Five questionnaire helped me to identify that organization of tasks was a major

drawback in my personality that held me back from becoming successful. There was a need to
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improve my concentration in different tasks. For this, I plan o undertake various concentration

building activities like yoga and meditation. With a view to organize myself better, I also propose

that I look into making notes for my timeline achievements. I could also organize my task by

having a very detailed to do list. Such a list would have the smallest of the details with reminders

of the drawbacks of not being able to finish the task successfully mentioned alongside. This

would help me in being aware of the negative consequences in the event that I should fail at

completing the task successfully and hence, would help me in keeping at my toes.

My emotional intelligence assessment helped me in identifying that my ability to empathize with

people often puts me in good books and this is a key strength that helps in getting work done. I

plan to capitalize on this ability, also work on my resistance towards easing timelines and

working in different ways so as to become more accommodative, and thereby become a strong

player in the group.

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Reference

Chand, V. S. & Misra, S., (2009). Teachers as Educational-Social

Entrepreneurs: The Innovation-Social Entrepreneurship Spiral. The Journal of
Entrepreneurship 18 (2), 219-228.
Robbins, S. P., (2001). Organizational Behavior, 9th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Weihrich, H., Cannice, M.V. & Koontz, H. (2008). Management. New Delhi: McGraw Hill.
Latham, G. P., and Pinder, C. (2005). Work Motivation Theory and Research at the Dawn of the
Twenty-first Century. Annual Review of Psychology, 56.
Meyer, J. P., and Allen, N. J. (1997). Commitment in the workplace: Theory, research, and
application. California: Sage.
Kinicki, A. & Kreitner, R. (2004). Organizational Behaviour. New York: McGraw Hill.
Brown, E. (2007). Leadership Styles: Dictatorial, Authoritative, Consultative, Participative.
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Forstenlechner, I. (2008). Workforce Nationalization in the UAE: Image versus Integration.
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Covey, S. R., (2004). The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in
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Tuckey, M., Brewer, N. & Williamson, P. (2002). The Influence of Motives and Goal Orientation
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