I must say that the assessment test was quite an eye-opener. It required a lot of in-depth soul-searching on my part, taking time to really think about the correct responses, and being as honest as possible regarding my perspectives on the whole exercise. According to my own self-analysis, I rank within the top quartile with a score of 458. I was not at all surprised by these results for I feel I have done quite a lot in improving my leadership and management skills. I have read a lot on the topic and have engaged several people I consider to be effective mentors in my own journey of self-improvement. I was, however, quite challenged by some of the questions, especially the ones that involved assessing my inclination towards effective delegation by fostering empowerment. In my view, the issue of empowerment and delegation is the hardest task a manager or leader has to undertake. This is primarily because it is the kind of issue that opens one up to vulnerability in a great way.
I have learnt that I am yet to fully conquer my tendency towards controlling people and events with an inarguably firm grip. This came out quite clearly from the assessment as a critical area of management and leadership. In my own interpretation of the test, empowering others and delegating duties to them is central to effective leadership and management. I have always viewed myself as the kind of person who likes things to be done with the exact precision.
As mentioned above, my weakest area as far as leadership and management are concerned lies with my subtle inability to let go of some responsibility and delegate them to others without any hint of micromanagement. In essence, this tendency can be attributed to a salient sense of insecurity when it comes to fully trusting that other people will do what they should; in reality, sometimes people make mistakes, some of which are quite costly in their ultimate consequences. I have realized that this tendency does not quite inspire the necessary synergy from the rest of the team. My pet peeve has always been imperfection on other people’s part as appertains to the specific tasks to which they may be assigned.
My greatest strength, on the other hand, involves my keen sense of pragmatism and innovativeness when it comes to solving problems. The section on creative problem-solving highlighted my greatest strong points and in fact challenged me to maintain and expand them. For instance, I became quite consciously aware of just how much I lean towards rational and logical approaches to problem-solving. I cherish practical and creative solutions and do indeed value those people who also lean towards the same approach more than the others.
With respect to the associate version of the assessment, there were some unmistakably glaring discrepancies. Foremost, my associates gave me a score of 419 on the test. This means that I stepped outside of the top quartile and fell into the second quartile. In essence, I might have been unaware of some of the more personal attributes that my associates know which incidentally tipped the scores. This means that perhaps I did not offer an accurate representation of why I do things the way I do quite as well as the people who know me in that regard. It may also be that a hint of observational bias might have clouded my judgment and estimation in some of the areas.
