As an executive with an important role in your company, it’s your responsibility to lead your team appropriately and achieve the goals that you’ve set. As a leader, you must examine your own thoughts, actions, and motives to determine whether you’re being effective within your business. Assessing yourself as an executive will allow you to identify areas where there’s room for improvement to ultimately help you perform as a high-level executive.
However, it can be challenging to take a step back and gain the perspective you need to become aware of your own leadership habits and patterns, but doing so will pay off in the long run. Learn more about ways you can assess your own leadership skills to improve as an executive.
Ask for feedback and accept it gratefully. Perhaps the most obvious way to improve as an executive is asking your coworkers and peers for feedback. Ask others about your leadership skills. You may be hesitant to do so, but realizing how others perceive you is imperative. Often, executives get caught up in themselves and can’t reflect on their own behaviors, so having someone else give them feedback about how they’re acting as a leader can make all the difference.
In most cases, your coworkers or employees will be more than willing to help you improve your skills and give you constructive criticism. If you ask someone and they don’t provide you with any feedback, chances are they just don’t want to offend you. Take this as a sign that you should seek an executive coach.
Ask for a performance review. When you’re on an executive level in your company, it’s uncommon for your annual performance review to be swept under the rug. However, you need this feedback from the people who you’re working under. They’re aware of all of your skills and it’s likely that they’ll be able help you. Ask about the areas where you can improve and if they have any suggestions for you to do so.
Revisit your goals. Look at how would like your team to be producing. You’re responsible for that team’s performance. Figure out if your team is meeting its goals, and if not, you know that you need to do something differently. Understand that you’re responsible for your whole team and their results. If there are issues, it’s up to you to work them out.
Observe how your team interacts. Whenever a department is gossiping or arguing, the task at hand is not being accomplished. Make sure your team members are accountable for their actions and take responsibility. Poor communication in any form could stem from poor leaderships. For example, your employees may not understand a specific project they were assigned to complete.
Arden Coaching begins most training programs with a 360-degree assessment specifically designed to reflect your own behavior back to you. If you believe you could benefit from this program, click here to set up a consultation with Arden Coaching.
