One of the most critical areas of development for any leader is learning how they are perceived by others – how they show up.
As Daniel Goleman emphasized in his writings, “self-awareness is the first component of emotional intelligence.”
Without emotional intelligence a leader can be completely blind to the damaged relationships and outcomes they are creating. This in turn can undermine the engagement and performance of their employees and ultimately the culture of their organization.
Why Executive Assessments Accelerate Leadership Development
By contrast, with the help of executive assessments leaders can truly learn how others view them, and can adapt their behaviors to refine their leadership and enhance their business impact.
Assessments, like mirrors, can reflect the good, the bad, and the ugly; they can provide insights around strengths, weaknesses, and areas for development.
There are an immense variety of assessments from which to select. Broadly, there are two categories: multi-rater assessments or 360⁰ feedback assessments and personality assessments. Both can provide invaluable insights, but they are different.
Personality Assessments for Leaders
Personality assessments which encompass tools like the Meyer Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC, Strengths-Finder, Insights, Hogan Personality Assessment, etc. are based upon a leader’s self-assessment of their preferences, behaviors, and skills, but do not capture how those show up for observers. They do not account for how a leader may “flex” or “adapt” their behaviors to enhance their capabilities.
For example, someone who evaluates themselves as having a strong introverted preference on the MBTI, may show up as an extrovert at meetings, conferences, and presentations because they have trained themselves how to compensate for their preference. They have practiced “writing with their opposite hand” so that they can meet and exceed the expectations of others.
They may not get energy from building networks, meeting new colleagues, or presenting to large groups, but they will conscientiously do so if it means succeeding in their role and establishing a strong leadership brand.
Even though personality assessments do not depict how a leader’s traits may be seen by others, they do provide critical indicators that will likely show up. They will reveal how they may prefer strategic thinking over attention to detail; they will reveal how they may prefer logic over empathy in making decisions; they will reveal if they may prefer structured approaches to work over those which are more spontaneous and impromptu.
What Personality Assessments Reveal
From this array of insights, leaders can learn how they are likely to show up in the workplace. They can determine if their preferences are aligned with their team and environment and if there are any they want to adapt.
For example, an introverted leader may dedicate their development plan to building a cross-company network and investing in building relationships. Based upon how they derive energy, this would not be natural, but with dedicated and disciplined practice it could become a more established and integrated part of their leadership competencies and style.
How Leaders Can Adapt Their Style
Another invaluable use of personality assessments is to leverage them to enhance team awareness and development.
For example, by having a whole team complete a MBTI and share their results, they can learn about each other and how to refine their interactions with each other.
If a team discovers that one of their peers has a strong preference for details, facts, and data, they can show up at meetings and focus on those areas and “surprise and delight” them.
If a team discovers that one of their peers has a strong preference for precise planning and timelines, they can adapt their meetings with them to accentuate those desired outcomes.
Personality assessments ultimately enable leaders to improve their influence, their relationships, and their business outcomes because they provide insight around what areas of focus will maximize their interactions with others. It will provide them with the opportunities of where they can “flex” their preferences to align with the preferences of others.
Using Personality Assessments for Team Development
Another contribution of personality assessments to team development is to create a team profile and explore where the team may have overplayed preferences or under represented preferences.
For example, there may be a team profile that indicates that an executive leadership team is extremely preferential to a directive style of management. Instead of being facilitative and inclusive in their decision making, they tend to autocratically “decide and announce” the vast majority of their strategies.
This can have a notable and negative impact upon employee engagement, retention, and professional growth. With the awareness of this potential risk, the team can conscientiously practice a different style of management.
A second example might be a team that prefers to focus predominantly on the “big picture” and long-term strategies. If this preference is overplayed, then the team may create significant confusion for their employees. Goals, instead of being SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound) will be too abstract, “blue sky,” and unclear.
This in turn will limit the strategic alignment and the execution capabilities of the team. Again, with awareness of this potential risk, a team can compensate by deliberately practicing a more detailed approach to setting direction for their employees.
In the case of a team with an under represented preference, they can also learn how to over compensate and ensure that they limit negative impact on their organization.
For example, a team may not have anyone on their team who naturally focuses on how employees are “feeling” about the organization and reacting to decisions. The team is consumed with decision making that is logical, fact based, and principled.
If the team is leading a disruptive change, it may underestimate how employees will react and discover too late that multiple segments of their population are rejecting the change.
If, however, the team understands its own tendencies, it can overcompensate by purposely addressing potential blind spots, and assigning a team member to champion the underrepresented preference and challenge the team around its assumptions, planning, and execution.
Given the immense breadth of benefits of personality assessments for individuals and teams, it becomes a strategic necessity to leverage them within an organization.
They can unquestionably accelerate the awareness of leaders and their capability to successfully adapt to their environment. They can shine a light on preferences that may be overplayed or underplayed and provide clear development strategies to make a meaningful and lasting difference for their success in the organization.
Multi-Rater and 360° Feedback Assessments
Multi-rater assessments or 360⁰ feedback tools can be even more impactful for leaders in accelerating their development.
Why?
These types of assessments actually capture the reality of how a leader is experienced and perceived by their colleagues. They provide detailed feedback from managers, colleagues, and direct reports around a set of core leadership competencies.
Typically, they offer quantitative data and anecdotal data. With this more reality-based mirror or snap shot of skills, knowledge, and behaviors, leaders can learn extensively about their strengths, their weaknesses, and their areas for development.
Among the most effective 360⁰ feedback tools are those offered by Korn Ferry, Center for Creative Leadership, and Kaiser Leadership. There are also 360⁰ feedback tools that companies have created for their own organizations; typically, these focus on customized leadership competencies that the company has identified as critical attributes to enable a leader to be successful.
No matter the type of 360⁰ tool, they all encompass collecting feedback from managers, peers, direct reports, and other colleagues; they also ask the leader to assess themselves.
When a report is generated, a leader can see how each stakeholder or set of stakeholders perceive their leadership.
Why Partnering with an Executive Coach Matters
To ensure the impact of a 360, it makes a significant difference to partner with an experienced executive coach who can help the leader through the entire process from selecting raters to interpreting the feedback to determine the 1-2 areas that they might want to develop.
These areas may include a strength that they want to accelerate or a weakness that may consist of an overused or underused competency.
Another key to success is to establish that the 360 is confidential and for development only. Similarly, conversations with the executive coach should be confidential.
These guiding principles enable raters to share honest feedback without worrying about it being used for promotions, compensation, or succession planning. It also enables leaders to focus purely on the learning process and not worry about judgments or repercussions from senior management.
Following Up After a 360 Assessment
To enhance their learning, it’s recommended that leaders follow up with raters and …
- Thank them for their feedback
- Request clarification on their feedback
- Inquire what they could do differently or better as a leader
Building an Individual Development Plan (IDP)
With these additional insights a leader should then reconnect with their executive coach and create a comprehensive individual development plan (IDP) that makes a strategic difference in their performance as a leader and in their career development.
Ideally, the leader will stay connected with their coach for a period of 6-8 months and leverage their experience to ensure the successful implementation of their plan. Typically, a meeting cadence of every two weeks enables a dedicated and disciplined process of continuous development.
Every meeting provides an opportunity to reflect upon what’s working and not working in their development and to enhance their IDP with new activities and stretch assignments.
Summary
Whether a leader chooses a personality assessment or a 360⁰ assessment, there’s no question that they will have the opportunity to learn in a very meaningful way about their leadership.
With new insights and awareness, they can explore new skills and behaviors that will shape how they are perceived, and more importantly how they can more successfully operate as leader in the organization.
As Aristotle once framed, “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” Building upon that philosophy, it’s essential that self-reflection and self-awareness become the foundation of leadership development. They are the building blocks upon which leaders can learn, evolve, and succeed.
