Understanding My Personality: Identifying Strengths And Weaknesses For Future Leadership Essay.

The critical analysis requires you to:
• Present a brief review of your personal self-assessment findings.
• Present a detailed critical analysis of the findings. A detailed critical analysis includes the use of 3rd party evidence and references to explain and support the meaning of your findings.
• Reflect on your critical analysis, discuss what this means for you as a future leader or manager.
• Outline an action plan based on these findings to develop your leadership skills for the future.

What is Personality?

Personality refers to the set of emotional qualities as well as the manner in which an individual behaves, thus making a person different from the others. I have had my personality since birth and it defines the way I am and the way other people view me. A person can be outgoing while others enjoy remaining in seclusion. Using Myers Briggs Profile, Costa & McCrae Big % Personality Traits, McClelland Needs Analysis, and the Thomas-Kilmann Model Instrument, I have identified my strengths and the weaknesses that will be helpful on my future leadership skills. I have also developed an action plan using the SMART processes based on my perceived weaknesses.

According to the tests, I found out that I have a slight preference for introversion over extroversion at 22%. Being an introvert, I am usually very quiet and reserved and it takes me longer to fully open up to others when I first meet them. I find it refreshing to work alone or in small groups and this makes me very independent (Altmäe, Türk and Toomet, 2013, pp.48). Also, the test results revealed that I prefer sensing over intuition (12%). Since I fall under the S category, usually, I begin with the basic factors before forming the bigger picture. The results indicated that my strongest preference is being a strong feeler at 38%. Falling under the F category, I always consider other people before I make my decisions.

Nonetheless, I found out that I am agreeable and thus I would do what it would take me to please others so that they may proceed with their tasks. I consider this to be among my strengths because I am capable of surrendering my own will for the primary purpose of achieving an objective. The test also confirmed that I am less conscientious (Boyce, Wood, and Powdthavee, 2013, pp.291). This means that I am hardworking, organized, and dependable. I have noticed that my greatest weakness is that I am emotionally unstable, thus making it difficult for me to control my emotions. Emotions such as fear, worry, and hastiness influence me to make poor decisions which later affect my performance. However, I am open to experience and this helps me to seek new innovative ways and new outlets for doing things. This kind of personality has been helpful to me since it has facilitated me learn more and looked for other ways through which I can better achieve my goals (Curtis, Windsor and Soubelet, 2015, pp.51). Among the motivational factors that I have identified include the need for achievement. This makes me to be goal-oriented, taking risks, engaging in behaviours that are competitive, seeking challenges, and taking personal responsibility is solving problems. In regards to resolving conflicts, I use the collaborative style whereby I find a creative solution that satisfies all the parties concerned. In this case, I do not give up on my self-interest but rather, I dig deeper into the issues to identify all the underlying concerns, test my assumptions, as well as understand others views.

This test measures personality based on eight traits that consist of introversion v. extroversion, judging v. perceiving, sensing v. intuition, and feeling v. thinking. After taking the test, the results I obtained were no surprise. I am ISFJ person according to the test. My strongest personality among them all was that I am a good feeler, and this would be helpful in my future leadership skills (Gerber, et al., 2013, pp.701). This is because when making decisions, I take into consideration others opinions and how my decisions would affect other people. Additionally, I fall under the J category, whereby I like being orderly and planning the way I conduct my business. This kind of personality will be helpful in my leadership skills in the future. Being organized will ensure that goals and objectives are achieved within the stipulated deadlines by working ahead of the deadlines.

In psychology, these Big Five Personality Traits are a person’s broad dimensions of personality. They consist of conscientiousness, agreeableness, openness, neuroticism, and extraversion. Among the personality traits that I discovered as my strengths include: the personality of conscientiousness (Gore, and Widiger, 2013, pp.816). This will be very essential for my future leadership skills because it would be helpful in the workplace by allowing other people to have better opportunities within the organization by encouraging reliability and punctuality. As a result, this would help me to influence development within the structural capabilities of an organization. Also, I am open to experience and this will be helpful in my future leadership skills as I would always look for new means of meeting organizational goals, resulting in the success of the company (Harms and Spain, 2015, pp.19). However, I experience emotional instability and this would affect negatively on my future skills as a leader. The inability to control my emotions would most likely translate into making poor decisions.

McClelland Needs Analysis focuses on the human beings secondary needs that are connected to their nature as social beings. As a result of inconsistent levels of self-confidence among people, McClelland notes that individuals naturally require to be motivated as a primary psychological reinforcement to make them become more active (Judge and Zapata, 2015, pp.1160). I have noticed that the need to achieve somethings acts as my motivating factor. This motivating factor is essential for my future leadership skills because my motivation is not primarily focused on me but instead, it is all about setting needs and interests for several people. Being an idealist would give me the opportunity to give the best shot in all my performance as a leader. McClelland notes that people who are achievement-oriented are the best at making things happen and getting results in an organization.

Action Plan for Overcoming Weaknesses and Developing Leadership Skills

Using the Conflict Handling Styles in a dispute can be considered to be a better way of describing how other people respond. Every person has got their predominant conflict style that they apply in meeting their needs (Kaiser, LeBreton and Hogan, 2015, pp.63). Understanding the McClelland Needs Analysis is important in describing how our personal conflict style affects other people. In my case, I use the collaborative style that helps me to view a conflict a problem that requires to be solved and identifying creative solutions that are capable of satisfying the parties concerned. This style is helpful on my leadership skills in the future because the collaborative style is concerned with understanding others views and not giving up on a personal self-interest (Kim and Han, 2014, pp.9). The style encourages trust, respect, and builds on strong relationships between the leaders and the subordinates. The collaborative style addresses conflicts directly and in a manner that expresses all parties’ willingness to obtain what they desire.

A Personal Development Plan involves identifying a person’s current and the future needs, as well as working out the mechanisms for meeting them (Sartori, Tacconi and Caputo, 2015 pp.39). Producing a development plan against the SMART processes involves improving awareness, knowledge, potential, becoming a self-leader, or even building self-esteem. To improve my weaknesses that were identified in the previous part, I shall adopt the following action plan.

In my analyses, I identified that among my greatest weakness was emotional instability. Being emotionally stable means that I am in a position to handle diversity, withstand difficult situations, and remaining productive. To enhance my emotional stability, I plan to take around 15minutes or an hour whenever experience emotional instability to fully feel my emotions fully (Koorevaar, et al., 2013, pp.181). During this time, I shall not be reacting to any given situation but rather taking deep breathes. Additionally, taking care of myself every day by identifying my stressors can be essential in improving my emotional stability. This entails allocating around 30 minutes every day to carry out regular meditation, get a massage, or even engage in yoga. These things help clear stress thus reducing emotional mess. Nonetheless, my extrovert nature can be considered as part of my weakness. This is because most of the times I am too quiet and shy to interact with other people, and this is not a good personality of a leader (Riasi and Asadzadeh, 2015, pp.613). To enhance my personality from introvert to extrovert, I shall use a time frame of 4 months. First, I shall focus on doing things in public such as carrying out presentations in front of course mates. Within the same period, I shall be reading various books such as The Art of Living Dangerously or The Magic of Thinking Big in order to overcome shyness.

The Importance of Personality for Successful Leadership

Conclusion

Personality is an essential factor that should be taken into consideration by every successful leader. Using the self-assessment library, I have identified some of my strengths that are important for my future leadership skills. Some of the benefits are that I prefer sensing over intuition, I am agreeable, the need for achievement, and I use the collaborative style in solving conflicts. Some of my weaknesses include being emotionally unstable and being an introvert. Based on my perceived weaknesses, I would engage in public activities and reading broadly to identify address my shyness issues.

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