A Technique for Doing a Self Assessment

Welcome: 00:00

Welcome to Leaders Lift - a podcast for aspiring and existing leaders!

I'm your host, Greg Cunningham and I look forward to being a part of your leadership journey.

Thank you for tuning into this Leaders Lift Shorts Episode

Intro

One of the things I have talked about a lot already and will continue to do so is the power of doing self-assessments. No one knows you better than your self. And if you can be open and honest in doing personal assessments, then they can be extremely powerful. This doesn't apply just to professional leadership but can also help with a lot of different situations. Things like why you did or do react a certain way in certain situations, why you are struggling with something, should I take on this new opportunity or not. The list of potential applications is limitless.

Before I dive in, since we are in the middle of episodes on motives (published on 1/23) and more about knowing yourself, upcoming episodes, I thought I would recommend a book on leadership motives. The book is called The Motive by Patrick Lencioni. I'll put a link in the show notes. I like his writing style as he covers key principles in story fashion. This is a good book for either an existing or aspiring leader to read to understand what it's like to be a leader that maybe doesn't have the right motives and then what it could take to get back on track.

Ok, let's get going. I'm going to use one of the questions from the motives episode to walk you through an example of doing an assessment. It should give you an idea of what it takes to go deep on an assessment and what you can get out of it.

Assuming I'm working with someone that is or wants to be a leader (it could be me or another person), let's start with the question what do you love doing?

If I simply answered that I love being a leader, what does that really get me. It doesn't really answer the why question. So the next question would be

Why do you love being a leader?

Now here is where things could start to get interesting. You could hear answers like helping other people succeed or working with a team to accomplish something great. Or you may hear answers like I like being in charge, implementing my ideas. Or you may even hear something like "that's where the money is".

Some of these answers are obviously better than others. I'm not saying any of them are totally wrong but if you listen to my motives episode, you'll know that I believe that you need to put the right priority on each of your motives.

Let's go down another layer. If the answer was I like helping other people succeed. Then my next question would be something like what do you mean by helping others succeed? Answers there could be something like "I love to see those I'm working with get promoted, achieve specific goals or just make progress on an opportunity for improvement".  That’s a pretty admirable reason but I would keep digging.

How do you know when they have succeeded and that you were a part of that success. Answers could include: if they get promoted, that's usually a pretty good indicator but even if we are just in a 1x1 talking about a goal and we can see they progress they have made and it was because of an action plan we developed together, then I know they are on the right path and that our collaboration was a part of that progress.

In this case, I would feel much more comfortable that the reason this person enjoys being the leader is because they want others to succeed. I would also know that this leader is motivated by tangible evidence of success or at least progress.

Using this technique allows you to get down to the root motivations. Why is this important. If I was working with this leader, I would want to make sure that they always had opportunities to help left others and that they could measure how they were making an impact. If they had the skills, they might be good candidates to help out team that is struggling. But they also might struggle with a team that is already firing on all cylinders as they may not have an opportunity to make as big of an impact. They would be more in maintenance mode.

Now, this doesn't just apply to the business world. You can use this kind of a technique to drill down on motivations around a specific behavior in most any situation.

I'm in the process of using this with my son as he is contemplating colleges and potential professions. If I just asked him what he liked about school or why he wanted to go to college, he would say something like nothing, or I don't really. But as we have started drilling down, we have been able to identify the things that will be motivators for him in the next phase of his life and then also those areas that will be potential struggles. Armed with that information, he is in a much better position to make a decision about where he should go next.

So now that you understand how to go deeper, here are a couple of additional questions I mentioned on the motives episode that you could take and try this exercise with.

In the professional world use questions like How do you /I develop my team members? If I could do anything, would I continue to be a leader and why yes or no?

In the non-professional world you could ask questions like what does that behavior of my family member trigger me? Or what are the best ways to help my kids learn/grow/progress in life?

This approach of multi-layered questioning can help with most any of the questions I pointed out in the full motives list and it can help at any stage of your career. But it can also help you get to the root cause of just about anything. And I think if you do this enough, you will start to see themes that emerge that are tied back to core professional or personal motivations.

So that is it for today. Pick a question or two, grab a notebook, digital or otherwise, and drill down on the answers. I think you will find some incredible insights. And stay tuned for

 

Post Roll

If you want to be notified of future episodes, hit the subscribe or follow button. You can also visit our website for more great content and resources to help you on your leadership journey or find us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

If you are looking to support the show, check out the options on our Patreon page. And please share the show out to any in your circle that could benefit from it. Ratings and reviews in your podcast app are also a great way to spread the word.

Thank you again for tuning in. Now go out there and keep lifting.