This paper examines the critical role of self-assessments and self-evaluations in contemporary leadership practice. It argues that regular self-evaluations provide an objective foundation for understanding a leader's strengths, weaknesses, and assets, enabling more effective decision-making in diverse organizational environments. The paper discusses how leaders can use assessment results to identify areas for improvement, track progress over time, and ultimately enhance organizational performance. It concludes that self-assessments serve as essential tools for determining appropriate leadership styles, from transactional to transformational approaches, depending on individual attributes and organizational resources.
There are numerous benefits associated with self-evaluations and self-assessments as they relate to leaders today. In fact, one can argue that such assessments help to provide the very foundation of leadership. It is critical for a leader in today's organizations, which have an increasing amount of diversity to contend with (and which is considered "good for business") (Galer, 2014), to determine a leadership style to lead most effectively. Doing so requires understanding the strengths and assets of one's organization, as well as the strengths, assets, and weaknesses of oneself. The primary way that self-assessments can help today's leaders is by providing an objective means of measuring personal leadership capabilities and limitations.
It is essential for a leader to conduct self-assessments fairly regularly because several mutable factors pertaining to leadership and individual traits (Reilly, 2013) are likely to change over time. Many of these are simply the resources that a leader has to utilize for achieving organizational, professional, and personal objectives. For instance, technology is liable to change over finite, relatively short durations of time. Similarly, human resources personnel are not static and change periodically. All of these factors not only influence an organization's tactics and strategies for achieving objectives but also determine the most prudent form of leadership required to accomplish them.
Leaders who regularly conduct self-assessments are able to discern what sorts of strengths and weaknesses they have to lead most effectively. One of the reasons it is best to conduct these evaluations regularly is to see how and in what way a leader has improved. For instance, when a leader initially views the results from an assessment, he or she can identify certain areas requiring improvement. During the interval between assessments, the prudent leader is responsible not only for using identified strengths to augment identified weaknesses but also for making deliberate improvements in those areas.
Such improvement can come from simple repetition when working with people in those specific areas, taking classes, attending seminars, or enrolling in professional organizations and networking. The point is to gauge how far a leader has progressed in remedying those weaknesses and how much further he or she must go in correcting them. One of the best means of ascertaining this information is to take self-assessments at regular intervals, allowing for measurable comparison and progress tracking.
Another chief benefit associated with leaders engaging in self-evaluations is that they can become more efficacious at their jobs and help their organizations achieve their goals. Improving the organization and making it more efficient is ultimately the ultimate indicator of good leadership. Those organizations that are routinely the most successful, profitable, and long-standing have traditionally been led by strong leaders. Any improvement that a leader makes based on self-evaluation should be reflected in the organization's ability to meet its needs and accomplish its mission, as defined by its mission statement. Thus, the enterprise is the primary beneficiary of leaders who are able to enhance their talents and abilities through self-evaluations.
In summary, self-assessments can help leaders become more effective and assist their organizations in achieving their goals. The results of these evaluations are influential for determining what type of leadership style a leader employs. Depending on one's attributes and organizational resources, one may need to vary from a transactional to a transformational style of leadership (Rowold, 2014). The results of self-evaluations can help leaders determine which of these methodologies can best serve their organizations and stakeholders.
References
Galer, S. (2014). New study redefines workplace diversity. Forbes. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2014/01/24/new-study-redefines-workplace-diversity-it-no-longer-means-what-you-think/
Reilly, E. T. (2013). Leadership self-assessment. Talent Development. Retrieved from
Rowold, J. (2014). Instrumental leadership: Extending the transformational-transactional paradigm. Zeitschrift für Personalforschung, 28(3), 367–390.
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