Ever explain something to your team but have it be interpreted totally differently from what you had intended? In the following post, we’ll look to applying this concept to your personal leadership. A lot of us might feel as though we’re doing our best, but without keeping our strengths and weaknesses in check, it’s tough to know how our skills and guidance really measure up.
Find out if your leadership is really as strong as it lets on by going through the following exercises and recommendations from the Arden team that will help you better identify your personal strengths and weaknesses.
Ask for and Encourage Feedback
As much as we try to claim otherwise, none of usreally knows about our own strengths and weaknesses as much as others do. If you’re not asking the people that you’re directing and have to influence whether you’re doing a good job and what you can improve on, you’re pretty much in the dark on your performance.
The dangers of this? Say you make a decision because you feel it aligns with the vision and mission of the company, but others think you made the decision for your own benefit. Without receiving feedback about how they feel and what they think, your team may start to question your leadership.
Now let’s consider that you actively seek feedback. You’d be more likely to reveal the misunderstanding and knowing the team’s reaction might signal that you need to work on your communication skills or better develop the group dynamic.
Identify Issues in Your Department
What would you say are the main issues in your business or department? Take a moment or two to think up or jot down your answer.
Got a solid list going? Now consider the strengths and weaknesses that are apparent from what you came up with.
Next, consider those strengths and weaknesses as your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re situated at the top of the pyramid, the whole company reflects your style. Taking a seemingly outward look at your department can actually reveal a lot about yourself as a leader.
Take a 360 Leadership Assessment
Leadership assessments come in a wide variety of formats and applications. At Arden Coaching, we prefer to use 360 leadership evaluations to help our clients get a complete view of their current leadership tendencies.
The Leadership Circle™ Profile is one 360 tool that we use for many of our clients at the onset of their executive coaching engagement. This assessment provides invaluable information on the assessment taker’s strengths and weaknesses in leadership while also pointing to the beliefs that likely stand behind the answers they gave.
Check out our post on how to find the right 360 leadership assessment for your needs for more guidance.
There’s No Time Like the Present
Make sure that you have a strong foundation set up for receiving upward feedback from those you lead, treat the issues within your department and company as an inward lens, and use a 360 leadership tool to gain more insight into your personal strengths and weaknesses. You can start working on the three exercises we gave you right now!
Seeking long-term help for your personal leadership? Download our free eBook How Does an Executive Coaching Engagement Work? to find out how partnering with an experienced coach could help you develop your leadership and legacy today.