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Leadership Building and Career Planning in the Age of Social Media
Leadership Building and Career Planning in the Age of Social Media
What is the assessment that I found most useful?
The Strengths Finder test is the assessment that contributed the most to my personal leadership development and to my leadership development planning process. The Strengths Finder test identified my top five strengths and provides me with a detailed description on how my strengths can contribute to my personal leadership development. My top five strengths are: futuristic, thinker, learner, intellection and positivity. Four out of my five strengths fall into the strategic thinking realm and the last one (positivity) falls into the relationship-building realm. I will use the knowledge provided by the Strengths Finder assessment to understand what I can rely on to accomplish my goals. For example, I have a goal to become an authentic and impactful leader. Becoming an authentic and impactful leader is not an easy task and it will take me a long time to accomplish. I know that the best way for my to become an authentic and impactful leader is to rely on my strengths and thus by focusing on the results of my strengths finder assessment I know what I can use to become an authentic and impactful leader.
After completing the strengths finder assessment, I focus on using my strengths everyday to solve problems that I face. I focus on using my ability to learn and think and come up with possible solutions to problems. I analyze the impact that the solutions will have in the future and use my positivity to get others on board with my ideas. The Strengths Finder assessment was particularly useful to understand what I can focus on using to accomplish my goals. I will always remember my top five strengths, and continue to use them in the future for my personal leadership development.
What assessment will I complete in the future?
I was unable to complete the PERMA assessment and I plan on completing it in the future. The PERMA assessment will provide insight into my authentic happiness. I hope to learn what makes me truly happy, and how I can work towards that. I know what I am not a person that only values trivial objects such as money or jewelry. I know what I am a hard worker, and that I will be rewarded for it but I want to be rewarded with things that truly make me happy. Otherwise, I feel that all of my hard work will be wasted. The PERMA assessment will show me what makes me the happiest, and I will work towards that. It will contribute to my authentic and impactful leadership because if I am truly happy I will be more encouraged to continue to work towards becoming an authentic and impactful leader. It is important for me to be happy because if I am unhappy, I may give up on my quest to become an authentic and impactful leader. The PERMA test will show me how I can be properly rewarded for my work; encouraging me to never give up.
How does my ePortfolio contribute to my leadership development?
Building my wordpress.com ePortfolio contributed to my leadership development because it gave me the chance to think deeply about the type of leader I want to become and develop strategies to becoming that person. I have learned a lot of new things about myself through building my ePortfolio. I have learned about my strengths, values, and personality type and even developed a personal leadership plan. I have been able to think critically about my personal leadership development and now have a clear vision as to what kind of leader I want to become. My ePortfolio was extremely useful to my personal leadership development, and I highly recommend you try building one too so you can experience how it will contribute to your personal leadership development
What ePortfolio tools did I find most useful?
The ePortfolio tools that I found most useful are: the ability to tag posts, the ability to title posts, add picture to posts, at a title to my ePortfolio and add a slogan for my ePortfolio. The tagging ability is useful because I can use it to categorize what a specific post is about. It provides a sort of summary of the topic of my post and readers can use tags to decide whether or not they want to read my post. Title a post has a similar effect, but it provides a deeper summary of the topic of my post. I used titles to set the tone of the post and captivate readers instantly. Adding pictures to my post is useful to include things like pictures or graphs. Visualizations offer more diversity as to how to present information. Simply writing all of the information I want to share in my post can bore readers. Adding pictures is useful to change up the flow of my post and excite readers. Adding a title for my ePortfolio is useful to attract readers to my ePortfolio as a whole. Developing a creative title will show readers that I have put a lot of thought into my ePortfolio as a whole and encourage them to read my entire ePortfolio. Using a slogan for my ePortfolio has a similar effect. It is an opportunity to provide a deeper summary of what my ePortfolio is all about. It can captivate readers and increase the chance that they will read over my entire ePortfolio and be able to contribute to my leadership development by commenting on my posts.
What ePortfolio tools would I like to see in the future?
Additional ePortfolio tools that would useful in planning my personal leadership development include pooling ePortfolios together so people can easily access my portfolio. Grouping ePortfolios together based on their topics, tags or qualities of the writer (such as industry, education, interests) would create a database that is accessible by individuals that have similar ePortfolios. Individuals will be more encouraged to read other ePortfolios that are grouped with their own. Grouping ePortfolios together will likely result in more comments and opinion sharing on ePortfolios, which can contribute to leadership development.
How will I use my ePortfolio in future semesters?
I will use the ePortfolio to support my leadership development in future semesters by adding to it based on my experiences. I will continue to blog on my ePortfolio in order to continuously develop my personal leadership development. My ePortfolio has lead me on a path to personal leadership development, and I will continue to journey on that path my staying active on my ePortfolio. My future posts will relate to what I have learned, with regards to the building my ePortfolio and to my future actions. I will relate my future experiences to what I have learned in the past in order to find out ways I can improve my personal leadership development plan. I will also encourage my classmates to stay active on their ePortfolios. I want to comment on their future posts and learn from what they experience on their journey towards personal leadership development. I also want them to comment on my posts so I can learn and what they think of my personal leadership development plans and initiatives. I will use their comments to what improvements to my plans. Staying active on my ePortfolio is imperative to my personal leadership development.
How will I use my ePortfolio for career development and job search?
In terms of career development and job search in the future, I can share my ePortfolio with various people I meet in order to show them what kind of leader I strive to become. They will be able to understand my character and what matters most to me as a person. I will use it as proof that I care about my personal leadership development and that I am constantly trying to improve upon my authentic and impactful leadership. I hope to be able to use my ePortfolio to meet new people as well who value that same sorts of things that I do in terms of what it means to be an authentic and impactful leader. I want to be able to learn from people who value the same things that I do because I think it will help me with my career development. Also meeting new people is very useful in terms of job search. I want to work with people who are like-minded to me, and I think that continuing to build upon my ePortfolio will help me find these people and provide an opportunity to work with them.
Building my ePortfolio has been a fun way to development a personal leadership development plan. Before construcing my ePortfolio I never really broke down my personal leadership development before. I have gained new insights into what kind of person I am now, and what kind of leader I want to be in the future. And by completing and analyzing assessment such as the Strengths Finder and Competing Values Framework, I know how I will get there.
Thank you so much for reading my ePortfolio and contributing to my personal leadership development, your dedication is truly appreciated.
Feel encouraged to comment below, or on any of my posts.
Cordially,
Alexander Jovaisas
Community Champion’s Written Profile
Community Champion: Chris Ryan
Owner, Operations Manager at the Walkerville Brewery
“Leadership is about relationships, consistency & following through with what you say you will do” -Chris Ryan
Prepared by: Alex Jovaisas, Horis Mansuri,Andre Miglietta, Gina Read, Stephanie Shaw
A community champion is an individual who takes extraordinary interest in the adoption, implementation and success of initiatives, organizations and programs in their community. Chris Ryan, the owner and operations manager of the Walkerville Brewery illustrates this interest to the sincerest degree. He demonstrates a strong history and commitment to the Windsor-Essex County community in a multitude of ways.
Mr. Ryan has been with the Walkerville Brewery since its reopening over 14 months ago. However, his success and status as a Community Champion goes well beyond the achievements he has experienced with the Walkerville Brewery. Subsequent to his education at the University of Windsor, he opened many successful businesses in the area such as Jose’s Noodle Factory and Patrick O’Ryans. Throughout these endeavours, he has demonstrated genuine community spirit which continues today.
Strength-Based Leadership Analysis
While it is clear that Mr. Ryan demonstrates the characteristics of a community champion, there are three main strengths which truly capture his leadership. The strengths he exudes are: Includer, Futuristic and Developer.
Includer
The most important aspect of being a leader to Mr. Ryan involves creating an atmosphere of inclusion. When it comes to his business practices, Mr. Ryan believes involving the community is a hallmark of success. He also places great value in the reciprocity clause, seeing the substantial benefit that comes from mutual support. He is a strong advocate for the premise that interests should be aligned to create win-win situations for everyone.
When it comes to the Walkerville Brewery, Mr. Ryan has tried to involve the community since first opening the doors. He has always had the goal of being a “community brewery.” He does this through utilizing as many community organizations as possible. For example, the Brewery uses a variety of Windsor-based distributors and vendors. He also aims to assist local community organizations. He uses the Walkerville Brewery facilities to host many community fundraising events. Mr. Ryan orients his life around the philosophy that “success comes from working together – not individually. If you are good to everyone around you, it will come back.”
Futuristic
Mr. Ryan is the type of person who loves to peer over the horizon. His vision keeps pulling him forward, into tomorrow. When he set the goal of revitalizing the Walkerville Brewery, he knew there would be challenges but did not let them taint his vision. His vision energizes him. He saw sincere potential for the future of the brewing industry in Walkerville which guided his business practices. Mr. Ryan was determined to turn his vision into a reality.
Mr. Ryan focused on identifying and building a sustainable competitive advantage for the Walkerville Brewery which would put them in a good place for the future. He identified and developed Walkerville Brewery’s strengths: branding, packaging and liquids. Mr. Ryan leveraged his business knowledge, experience, creativity and innovation to turn his vision into reality. He aims at learning and growing with the community and believes the future is full of endless possibilities.
Developer
Mr. Ryan places great importance on fully developing each endeavour he pursues. He believes “there are endless opportunities in starting your own business.” He is always on the lookout for signs of growth. When it comes to the growth of the Walkerville Brewery, he carefully developed a unique “progressive” route. He wants to expand slowly and fully capture Windsor’s potential before growing outwards. Since taking on the Brewery, he also developed the organization from a brewery to a community hotspot and party space.
Mr. Ryan aims at developing both himself and those around him. When he interacts with others, his goal is to help them develop and experience success with him. He does this through empowering his employees, encouraging them to take initiative and nurturing a positive organizational culture. Mr. Ryan knows that developing consistent expectations and policies is vital to the team’s success. Additionally, his personal reputation development has come a long way over the years. As a result, the Brewery`s buyers are keen not only to buy the product, but to buy into Mr. Ryan as well.
Competing Values Assessment Analysis
The Competing Values Assessment’s primary purpose is to provide an accurate measure of the values and beliefs that drive you when making leadership decisions. Mr. Ryan’s values are primarily found in the green “create” quadrant. Specifically, he focuses on innovation and growth.
Innovation
When it comes to innovation, Mr. Ryan aims at creating unique products and services. He does this through creative problem solving and attention to detail. For example, he has completely rebranded the Walkerville Brewery in the short time he has been involved. Mr. Ryan claims, “We thought it was important that the Brewery was not just seen as the same old facilities.” Mr. Ryan has used both his experience and knowledge of the industry to provide innovative solutions and attract success. He relies heavily on Guerilla marketing to control costs and has found unique ways to bring people in through events and the bar.
Growth
Mr. Ryan aims at identifying new opportunities to become involved in. In order to facilitate growth on a personal level, Mr. Ryan carefully selects only projects he is truly passionate about. Since his first job with the Molson Brewery, he has always had an interest in the beverage industry which has escalated over time. Mr. Ryan also sees the importance of growth through career progression. He understands the valuable lessons moving up in an organization can teach. Mr. Ryan explains “time and experience have taught me many lessons about the industry which have proven to be invaluable.”
Leadership
When it comes to leadership, Mr. Ryan is a strong believer that you cannot just talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. This is the mantra of a true community champion. He does what he needs to do to attract success. He also believes recognition is vital as he says “leadership is about separating strengths from weaknesses. A leader must balance acknowledging strengths and coaching weaknesses all while wearing 1000 different hats.”
In addition, Mr. Ryan is an advocate for the fact that success cannot be attributed to luck. Hard work and great leadership allow you to succeed. Leadership is also about motivating your team. As Mr. Ryan says, “leadership is about getting others to think not only about the task at hand, but about 2 tasks down the road.” He believes setting fair and consistent policies and expectations are vital tasks of a great leader.
Paying It Forward
Chris Ryan pays his success forward in a variety of ways. First, he tries to mentor and encourage young leaders. He feels very passionately that “we need to nurture solid people to follow in our footsteps.” Additionally, Mr. Ryan contributes to others in the community in a variety of ways. He sits on two boards: Jack Miners and St. Clair College. He is also very involved in facilitating the success of charity organizations in the community through providing the Brewery to host events.
Mr. Ryan consistently shares and encourages positive views of the city of Windsor. He is first to exclaim that we live in a great city. He states that the area is beautiful and we have a very strong history. Mr. Ryan lives for strengthening our community which he has true faith in. Each endeavour he pursues has the goal of improving the community in some way.
A True Community Champion
A community champion shows the community who the real heroes are. They create an example for the rest of the community to follow. Mr. Ryan has strived to be a leader that others can look up to, a humble business person. He shows strength with dedication, passion, persistence and teamwork. These are characteristics of a true community champion.
A community champion also demonstrates that one person can be an effective agent for change. Mr. Ryan has done just that when it comes to resurrecting one of Windsor’s premiere breweries. Like a true community champion, he works for the betterment of society at large. Mr. Ryan is like a seasonal beer. He is adaptable and reflective of the environment. He is a community champion in every sense of the term.
Personal Leadership Development Plan
My Personal Leadership Development Plan
The purpose of this post is to share with you my personal leadership development plan (LDP). My goal is to use my LDP to further develop my leadership capacity and competencies. Overall I want to become a passionate, engaged, energetic and authentic leader, and my LDP will is the tool that I will use to make that happen. By leveraging my strengths, values and personality, I will get from good to great and achieve the fundamental state of leadership (FSL).
The Transition
I will achieve the FSL by undertaking and committing to deep change. The incurred deep change will move me from the normal state of functioning (NSF) to the FSL. The process of moving from my NSF to the FSL is described in the table below:
Moving from Normal to a Fundamental State of Leadership
Source: FAST © FORWARD: M-LITE Edition
As you can see there are four stages that are involved in the transition from NSF to FSL, and each stage relates to one of the four quadrants in the Competing Values Framework (CVF). Starting from the left, I have described each stage. In the yellow or “collaborate” quadrant is the transition from being a self-focused individual to an others-focused individual. During this transition, I will transcend from my ego and put the common good and welfare of others first. The second quadrant is the green or “create” quadrant, it involves moving from an internally closed person to being externally open. In this particular process I will move outside of my comfort zone and fearlessly experiment, discover and reach exponentially high levels awareness, competence and vision. The third quadrant is the blue or “compete” quadrant and the transformation involved here is a change from being comfort-centred to being purpose centred. I look forward to this transformation because I will always clarify the results that I want to create. What I have to do to get the results will not matter to me; it is only what the results are that matters. The fourth quadrant is the red or “control” quadrant, and at this stage I will move away from being externally directed and embrace a transition to becoming internally directed. Through this transition, I will close the gaps between my values and my behaviours. I will rely on my inner beliefs to guide my actions, instead of focusing on how I think others perceive me, or how well I can attract external resources.
The Plan
I am committed to transitioning from my NSF to the NSL and I have developed a plan to help me do this. My plan is comprised of six components: vision, goals, plan, execution, measurement and adjustment.
Vision
Through deep thought and analysis of what comprises a strong vision, I have came up with the following statement:
“I will lead based on what I believe is socially responsible. I will always be open to innovation and change. Through challenging myself, and the others around me, I will drive all of us to success. My drive will never die because my authentic and impactful leadership comes from within.”
Alexander Jovaisas
My vision is imaginable, desirable, feasible, focused, flexible, and it is easy to community. I integrated my values, according to my competing values framework into it. I constructed it based on my strengths in that my vision can be achieved by relying on my strengths. And also, I articulated it based on my personality in that my vision relates to my passions and to what makes me happy.
Goals
In order to identify the next logical step in my LDP, I first assessed my current leadership state in order to see where I am. According to my strengths finder results, my five top strengths fall within only two domains/themes. I have made a chart below to help you understand my strengths:
|
Executing |
Influencing |
Relationship Building |
Strategic thinking |
|
Positivity |
Intellection |
||
|
Learner |
|||
|
Futuristic |
|||
|
Thinker |
Four out of my five strengths fall into the strategic thinking domain, and the last one falls into relationship building. I can use my strengths to enrich interpersonal relationships by relying on my strategic thinking to learn and be legitimately interested in the people I meet. And I can use my relationship building strength to spread my optimism to others. My positivity is contagious; I have heard this from my family, friends and colleagues countless times. I believe that the best way to use my strengths is to carefully plan out what I will accomplish next to building enriched relationships and then rely on my positivity to ensure that I actually cross the barriers that lie between developing an interpersonal relationship or just being another guy. I will use my strengths to develop interpersonal relationships because it will make me the most effective team member I can be. Also, my strategic thinking abilities allow me to take in copious amounts of information that I internalize and reflect upon. This will allow me to understand my mistakes, and admit them. Once I have admitted by strengths, I will be accountable to improve upon them. I will always have a burning desire to initiate self-improvement because of my ability to stay positive, and love learning. Though mistakes are often frowned upon, I embrace them because it is a great opportunity to learn about what I can do next time to not make that mistake; learning from my mistakes will only make me stronger.
My CVF reveals that I value control and compete the most. I will leverage my CVF in order to achieve the FSL by controlling my actions and competing with myself. I will ensure that my every one of my actions will be inline with my vision, and will always work towards self-improvement. I will compete with myself by setting SMART goals. They will be specific, measureable, attainable, results-oriented and time-bound. Also I can make my goals even SMARTER by regularly evaluating them and reassessing them, in order to track my progress and determine whether I need to change my goals to ensure that they are aligned with my vision.
My personality, as according to the Myers-Briggs test, identifies me as ENTP. For a detailed discussion of how I will leverage my personality for authentic and impactful leadership, I will refer you to my pervious post. For now I will simply state that my personality falls in line with my strengths and values. The key characteristics of my personality that I will rely on to achieve FSL are my tendency to enjoying debating, learning, and looking to the future. Also I believe that my extroverted nature is critically important because it represents my love for humanity. I get my energy from being around people; I thrive off learning about their perspectives. I think this is important because it relates my vision in that I clearly that I will work toward social responsibility. I want everyone to be happy and healthy so that I can pick their brains and learn more from them. I have completed a chart that shows where I place my current state of leadership, with regards to the eight practices required to achieve FSL, as well as the actions that I will undertake to enhance each particular element of FSL:
My Current Level of FSL Practice
| Fundamental State of Leadership Practice | On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 signifies that “I never practice this aspect of FSL behaviour” and 10 signifies “I always practice this FSL behaviour”, rate your current level of use of each of the FSL practices | The behaviour/attitude that I will exhibit to enhance this element of FSL is: |
| Responsible freedom – free-flowing, spontaneous and expressive not undisciplined or irresponsible or unexpressive or guarded | 8 | Be less undisciplined and irresponsible by thinking about what I do before I do it. Always relate to my vision in that my actions will encompass the benefit of all of us. |
| Reflective Action – mindful and reflective but not to the extreme of stagnation or to being mindless and unreflective | 8 | Make sure that my reflections are as efficient as possible. Quickly identify the key components of my past experiences that will help me achieve FSL, and then do it without hesitating. |
| Grounded Vision– creates a compelling vision of the future but is not ungrounded and deluded | 9 | I really like my vision, but I will always look for ways I can reflect and further relate it to my inner beliefs |
| Adaptive Confidence – adaptive and flexible – capable of learning – not weak or without the strength to move forward | 8 | Always focus on my strengths and understand that there is nothing I cannot achieve as long as I work as hard as I can and look to others for guidance and feedback. |
| Tough Love – show compassion – practice tough love – not over-indulgent or so challenging as to be oppressive | 8 | I am very tough on myself, perhaps sometimes a little to tough. I have to remember to achieve FSL by taking one step at a time. I will focus on one thing, accomplish it, and then move on to the next one. |
| Authentic Engagement – principled and ethical but so principles as to be uncommitted or unengaged or so committed as to be unethical or unprincipled | 7 | I will reflect on how my principles determine my actions. I will make sure that I am committed to them, but they do make me close-minded or unethical. |
| Appreciative Inquiry – optimistic and constructive but not unrealistic and naive | 7 | I will have to learn who and what to trust. I act based on what I learn about how and why others have failed while trying to accomplish that same things that I do. |
| Detached Interdependence – humble and open to influence – not arrogant and isolate or weak and dependent | 7 | I will rely on my strategic thinking to always keep me learning and reflecting on what I learn. I will always be open to new ideas, but I have to make sure that I critically analyze their potential before taking them into practice. |
After assessing the current state of my leadership, I have come up with the following three SMART goals:
- Everyone around me feels that I put the needs and wants of others ahead of my own, and they feel that I am only happy if everyone is happy.
- Everyone who works with me feels that they can always rely on me to inspire them conquer their challenges.
- Everyone around me agrees that the work and effort we put into life is beneficial to humanity.
Plan
My plan for achieve FSL is as follows:
Day 1: Make my visions and goals clear to everyone around me. Then ask for feedback on my vision and goals.
Day 7: Sit down with colleagues (5 minutes) get feedback about vision and goals. I will then re-vamp my vision and goals with regards to feedback, work towards new vision/goals.
Day 30: Ask for the opinion on how my actions relate to my visions and goals.
Day 60 – TBD: Monthly check-ins with people around me for 1-2 years. The check-ins will obtain feedback that can help to dictate my future actions and tweak my vision/goals.
Day TDB – After 1-2 of monthly check-ins, my LDP will become very professional. I will ask my colleagues to fill out detailed performance evaluations, and even ask my family and friends to write down some things they think I can do that will help me achieve FSL. Keeping open lines of communication with everyone around me is a critical part of my plan to achieve FSL.
Execution
I have described my execution strategy for each of my three goals below:
Goal #1 Actively make people know that I prioritize their needs before mine. So always asking them, what can I do to help, what do you need, what can we do to make things better for you, what can I do to make you happy? I will show people that I am only satisfied when they are satisfied, and happy when they are happy.
Goal #2 Right off the bat I will to establish myself as the rock of inspiration amongst everyone around me. I will always give them my best advice, and never get “too busy” or not want to help them. I will always be encouraging; I think this will come naturally through my positivity. I am already always willing to offer my motivation and encouragement for people to conquer their challenges. I will become known as the one person that always tells you exactly what you need to hear to get you through the tough times, and to conquer your hardest challenges.
Goal #3 I will focus on vision, which is centered on benefiting humanity. I will make it clear to everyone around me that acting socially responsible is what I do and furthermore it is what you will do too. I will also take new perspectives into consideration. They will come from both within and outside of the organization. I will host in-house workshops to brainstorm about my team’s vision, mission and objectives. By taking our perspectives to conferences abroad, I will be able to bring in new ideas to our team.
Measurement
Measurement is based on feedback from other people. I will actively try to get opinions on how my leadership style relates to my vision/goals. I will also ask for opinions on specific things such as how much you feel that you can rely on me for inspiration? Also comparing my actions and beliefs to what experts in the leadership development field think is a method of measurement in my LDP. If my feedback shows that I am closely related to what experts believe is best, than I will know that I am doing a good job. Otherwise I will see that I need to improve/change and look for expertise to guide me.
Adjustment
Adjustments will be based on the feedback I get. If I hear that people around me agree that my leadership style is very closely related to my goals, then I will ask them what I can do better. If they think that my leadership style is not in synergy with my goals than I will ask them to identify the specific ways and also how I can fix them. I will also track the current trends and major discoveries that are made in the field of leadership, and adjust my LDP accordingly.
Conclusion
This is my leadership development plan that will take me from good to great and guide me to achieve the fundamental state of leadership. I want you to comment on my LDP and suggest ways I can improve it. Please commit 5-10 minutes of your time to comment below.
Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed.
Cordially,
Alexander Jovaisas
References
FAST© FORWARD: M-LITE Edition. Workshop 5 Fast Skills for Personal Leadership Development: Self-Awareness and The personal Leadership Development Process.
Reflections on my Personality and How I Can Leverage it for Authentic and Impactful Leadership
Dear Reader,
I have undertaken a number of personality tests in order to establish a method for leveraging my personality for authentic and impactful leadership. The personality tests I have undertaken are the: Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Big Five Personality Test, an EQ test and the GRIT test.
I want to start off my saying that the results of each personality test are shockingly similar to my subjective perception of my personality. As a result I am entirely captivated by the feedback provided by each test. I have thoroughly analyzed the results of each test and my reflections have illuminated a way for me to leverage my personality for authentic and impactful leadership.
Analyzing the results of the MBTI has made me recognize certain aspects of my personality that I did not recognize before. I realize that the personality traits described in the MBTI have been true to me for my whole life, but by explicitly and objectively analyzing my personality I have gained new insights into who I am and how I can use my personality to enhance my authentic and impactful leadership. After taking this test I have recognized that I am an ENTP, that is an extravert, an intuitive, a thinker and a perceiver. I have recognized my extraverted nature through a revelation in how I gather energy. I get my energy through interacting with other people, and I now recognize that I go to great lengths in order to surround myself with the people that energize me the most. I also now see that my intuitive nature is extremely strong. I like to make decisions based on a hunch, which I develop through making associations between the current situation I am in and something I have done or heard about in the past. The association may be perceived as completely unrelated to other, but my intuition tells me that I am right, and that I have to make my decision based on that hunch because I am dying to find out what happens next. My thinking is natural, I have always been a thinker and this is nothing new to me. I love to think about the decisions I make and reflect on everything I do, this has always been, and forever will be who I am. And then, in the MBTI test, comes perceiving versus judgment. According to the MBTI am a perceiver, however I do not entirely agree with this. I agree that at my current stage in life (an ambitious 22 year old MBA student) I choose to perceive situations rather than made judgments and methodically come to a decision, but I think that later on in my life I will change to a judger. I value logic for making choices, but at the same time, because I am so young I like to just go with what I feel is best at the time. I think that it is smarter to judge a situation and make a logical choice but I believe that making decision based on what I perceive will result in me learning more about the choices that I make. I think that later on in life I will become more a judger but only after I have learned as much as I desire through perceiving what I feel is best. This is my reflection on my MBTI results, next comes my reflections on my other personality tests as well as an explanation of how I plan to leverage my personality for authentic and impactful leadership.
In the “Big Five” personality test, I have a high score in two out of the “Big Five” personality traits that account for the variance in my personality. Personalities are complex entities and they are tough to understand. The “Big Five” test has showed me that I am an agreeable person and that I am open to experience. According to the “Big Five” test, these traits drive the synthesis between external personality and my inner beliefs. I have to agree with the results of the “Big Five” test, I believe that through my agreeableness and openness to experience that I am able to leverage my unique personality to helping others accomplish their goals. I value these traits and I know that I will always hold them dear to my heart, and keep them in mind in order to promote openness to change in my career.
The last two personality tests are my EQ score and my GRIT score. My EQ score is 40/50 and my GRIT score is 4/5. I am not too surprised by this, I knew, before taking these tests, that I am an emotionally stable person; I have very strong values that I seldom stray from. Also my GRIT score provides insight into my willingness to change, but I think more important to me, my ability to commit to long-term goals. I think that anyone who has completed a four-year bachelor’s degree will have a high GRIT score. At least this is what I relate my high GRIT score too. I have no problem with commitment, so long as it is a commitment to change and growth. I know that I am committed to what I believe in, and I think it is reflected in my devotion to my values and morals. I believe that my high EQ score and high GRIT score allow me to stay true to my personality, and I think that I will use my EQ and GRIT to make sure that I do not change my inner personality. I believe that my personality drives me to success, and that is the ultimate goal for me. Now comes my leveraging strategy, you will now learn how I plan to leverage my personality for authentic and impactful leadership.
I have learned a lot about myself through the described personality tests, and I have enjoyed doing them. I value my beliefs and values and I think that my personality naturally drives my commitment to stay true to them. I will use my ENTP nature to ensure my success, and focus on the specific skill sets that an ENTP typically has. I know that an ENTP loves to debate, joust with words, make associations between anything no matter how disparate those things may be. An ENTP sounds like a leader to me in the sense that an ENTP is never scared to speak their mind and present new ideas to solving new or old problems. The most famous ENTPs include: Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln. ENTPs are radical in nature and are natural inventors. I think that this co-insides with the characteristics of the famous ENTPs and I strive to become one of them through my adventurous nature. I will harness my ENTP personality to ensure that I never stray away from my goals; I am committed to an endless pursuit of invention and change and I will not let anyone stop me from doing so. That being said, there is likely a long and bumpy road ahead of me and I think that some of the challenges I will face will seem to my impossible to conquer at first. This is where I am going to rely on my strong EQ and GRIT to get me through the toughest of challenges I face. Even then I may not be able to conquer my challenges on my own, I will need to seek the advice and education of others to help me along the way. This is where I am going to rely on my “Big Five” results, I will use my agreeableness and openness to experience to expand my knowledge and be able to innovate my decision making process in order to develop new strategies to conquer my challenges.
I think that this exercise was extremely useful, I understand myself a lot more that I did before and I now know how I can leverage my personality for authentic and impactful leadership. The only thing that does not change is change itself, and I believe that through this exercise I have come to realize how I can leverage my personality to always be ready to adapt to change while staying true to myself. By doing so I will be able to enhance to authentic and impactful leadership of others around me, and consequently, my own authentic and impactful leadership as well.
Thank you for reading my post, please comment and let me know how I can improve my leveraging strategy to enhance my authentic and impactful leadership.
Yours Truly,
Alexander Jovaisas
My Leadership Strengths and Values
Hi There!
My name is Alexander Jovaisas, and this is a post on how I will use my strengths and values to enhance my personal leadership development.
Introduction
Upon beginning to write this post, I realized that I needed to find figure the way I want to develop as a leader. So I asked myself three questions:
- How am I going to personally develop as a leader?
- What is the best way to personally develop as a leader?
- What is my plan for personal leadership development?
To answer these questions, I realized that I had to do a lot of research in the areas of leadership development. Through my research I have identified some of the most important factors that pertain to leadership development, and I have figured out a way to combine them to devise a strategy and a plan as to how I will improve. This post covers what I have done to develop my plans as well as where my plan will take me into the future, with regards to personal leadership development.
The main thing I hope to achieve through this post is to help the reader understand that the best way to develop as a leader is to understand the personal leadership development plans of your peers, and to work with them to become a better leader. I will do this my first explaining how strengths are a critical part of leadership development. I have listed my top five strengths, as per The Gallup Organization’s StrengthsFinder, and I have theorized how I believe those strengths are best applied in an organizational management setting. I then discuss how using my strengths will help me develop as a leader as how much I will rely on my strengths to guide me on my quest for personal leadership development. I have also dissected my competing values framework in order to identify the qualities of my strongest values, figure out what matters to me as a leader as well as what my preferred leadership style is. After I you have read about my strengths and values, you will see how I have combined the two together to devise three major conclusions about how I plan to use my strengths and values to enhance my personal leadership development. And finally I have further elaborated on what exactly I want you to take away from reading this post.
Strengths and Leadership
The following is a quote taken straight from the Strengths Based Leadership book and it pertains to some of the most prevalent qualities of an effective leader.
“The most effective leaders are always investing in their strengths” (Rath & Conchie. (2008). Strengths Based Leadership: Great Leaders, Teams, and Why People Follow. New York, NY: Gallup, Inc.
This quote told me that focusing on one’s own strengths is a fundamental part of leadership development. It opened my eyes up to the fact that I have to constantly use my strengths every chance I get, in order to get more practice with them, and ultimately become a more effective leader because of it.
My Strengths
Now because strengths are such an important part of becoming a better leader, I have used The Gallup Organization’s StrenghtsFinder to identify my top five strengths and I will tell you a little about them.
1.Futuristic – I am inspired by the future and what it could be.
I am the kind of person who loves to peer over the horizon; the future fascinates me. I see in detail what the future might hold, but the exact content of the picture depends on my other strengths. You can always catch me saying “Wouldn’t it be great if…”
2.Input – I have a craving to know more.
I am inquisitive, I collect things and I archive all kinds of information. Although collect very different things, I collect them because they interest me, and mine is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. I feel the need to retain and hold on to as much as I can because even though I do not know when or why it may be useful, one day it still may become valuable.
3.Learner – I have a great desire to learn and continuously improve.
Learning, rather than outcome excites me. Learning is fun for me, am I am energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. This enables me to thrive in designations where I am expected to learn a great deal in a short period of time, and then move of to the next project.
4.Intellection – I like being mentally active.
I like to think. I like exercising my “muscles” in my brain, and stretching them in multiple directions. From all of the information I obtain as well as of the learning I experience, I pose questions to myself and try to answer them on my own. I am an incredibly deep thinker and I greatly enjoy intellectual conversations.
5.Positivity – I have enthusiasm that is contagious.
I am generous with praise, quick to smile and always on the lookout for the bright side of a situation. People want to be around me as my positivity lightens their spirit. I can always get someone excited about what I, he or she, or we are going to do next.
From just looking at these five strengths, it seems that I am someone who is very excited about obtaining all the information that I can. I enjoy thinking about it for a long period of time so I can deeply analyze every detail of what I have experienced. And then I become very enthusiastic about what I learnt from it and use it to plan for the future.
How I will apply my strengths
After thinking about how my strengths define me as a person, I wonder; “how I can best apply my strengths?” I looked at the themes to which my strengths relate to, and it turns out that four out of my five top strengths fall under the category of strategic thinking, and one falls into relationship building.
- Relationship Building – providing the “social glue.”
- Strategic Thinking – keeps the team focused on what “could be.”
Looking at this breakdown it seems the reason I gather so much information and knowledge is so I can develop a high-level strategy to plan for the future. Then I will use my positivity and enthusiasm to excite others so they will follow my ideas.
Three Myths of Strengths and Weaknesses
At this point I know how to apply my strengths, but I still do not know how much I should be relying on them to help me grow as a leader. I’ve looked at three realities of strengths and weaknesses to guide how much I should use them:
1.Myth: As you grow, you change
Reality: You become more and more of what you really are. Channel what you are. You can grow through your strengths.
2.Myth: You need to work on your weaknesses
Reality: In your strengths, you can experience giant leaps of learning. You grow the most in your areas of strength.
3.Myth: Put aside your strengths for the team
Reality: Figure out your strengths – bring your best – then you’ll win.
It turns out that my strengths will not change. In fact, I should not only rely on them to help me grow, I will actually grow through them. My weaknesses are not even important; I am going to experience giant learning leaps in using my strengths so I am going to focus on them. And finally in order to contribute the best I can to a team, I will bring my best strengths. That is how important my strengths are to becoming a better leader.
Competing Values Framework
Although my strengths are a very important part of personally developing as a leader, I do not believe that is enough; there is more information to obtain. By dissecting my value system I have found out what matters to me as a leader, and what my preferred leadership style is. This is my competing values framework:
As you can see, I value control and competition that most. Now simply saying that control and competition are what matter to me as a leader and therefore my leadership style should be controlling and competitive is not enough. I have broken down each quadrant into its key success factors.
Control and Compete
Key Success Factors for My Most Prevalent Values
| Key Success Factor/Value |
Control |
Compete |
| Leadership/Managerial Role | Monitor/Coordinator | Director/Producer |
|
Key to Effectiveness |
Practicality focus/stability | Task Focus/Energy |
|
Effective Leader Behaviours |
Factual, realistic, strong, confident | Assertive, responsible, active, involved |
|
Extreme and Ineffective Behaviours |
Pessimistic, destructive, closed, inflexible | Unresponsive, overbearing, mindless, unreflective |
I can see that a “control” based person has a leadership role related to being reasonable and efficient. Effective behaviors will tend to be focused on figuring out what exactly I am supposed to do, and then finding the best to do it. Ineffective behaviors are evident if I start giving up and stop adapting to change.
As someone who also likes to “compete,” I have to understand that I like to be very active and task focused. My good behaviors are highlighted in my ability to drive myself to be engaged in what it is that I’m doing. On the other hand, I may be so focused on my own work that I become authoritative, and be inconsiderate of anything other than my task at hand.
Values and Leadership
Based on my competing values framework, I think what matters to me most is to be a leader that values working hard, and staying on task while recognizing that I have to be reasonable in order to be as efficient as possible. I want to develop a leadership style that maximizes production and efficiency but also encourages myself, and others to sometimes stop and question what we are doing, and re-think the strategy of our activities in order to find better ways of accomplish our goals.
Strengths, Values and Personal Leadership Development
Here are the conclusions that I have made after assessing my strengths, values and how they relate to my personal leadership development.
1.I plan on thriving on my strengths and counting on them to help me grow.
- I look forward to learning as much as I can while I concentrate on the future.
2.I will harmonize them with my competing values framework.
- I understand that I have to think efficiently in order to produce as much as I can.
3.I will also continuously work towards fusing myself with my preferred leadership style.
- I will always look for opportunities to push others towards maximizing production and efficiency while being reasonable and open to new ideas.
What’s Next?
I want you to understand my strengths, my values and where they will lead me on my quest for personal leadership development. Then I want to understand your strengths, your values and how they will lead you on your quest for personal leadership development. And finally, through this mutual understanding of each other, I want us to find ways we can help each other progress on our quests for personal leadership development.
Thank you so much for reading, if you have any questions please reply to this post.
The Competing Values Framework: How can I use the Competing Values Framework to Strengthen my Authentic Leadership?
Upon commencement of considering how my competing values framework can strengthen my authentic leadership, I started to wonder about what “authentic leadership” really is. I did a Google search to find out more information pertaining to authentic leadership. I found an article on Forbes entitled “What is Authentic Leadership?” and it describes authentic leadership as having four main themes:
- Authentic leaders are self-aware and genuine.
- Authentic leaders are mission driven and focused on results.
- Authentic leaders lead with their heart.
- Authentic leaders focus on the long-term.
(Kruse, 2013)
I wanted sometime to understand what authentic leadership means to me, so I continuously referred back to these themes and thought about it overnight. I then realized that by identifying what parts of authentic leadership I currently demonstrate and feel comfortable with, as well as what parts of authentic leadership I lack confidence in displaying, it will show me how I can use my competing values framework to strengthen my authentic leadership.
Judging by my own self-critique I would say that my authentic leadership is quite strong, but there are definitely areas where I can improve. I am a very self-aware person, I am aware of my strengths, limitations and emotions but I have a tendency to act one way in private and another in public. I have no problem putting the mission and goals of my team, or of an organization ahead of my own personal interests but at the same time I have trouble leading with my heart in that I am hesitant to show my vulnerabilities and really connect with my colleagues in a personal way. And finally I think that I am a person who focuses entirely on the future. I am not worried about short-term gains at all and I always think about how each decision I make will affect the bigger picture (the bigger picture being my long-term career goals).
According to FAST FORWARD: M-LITE Edition – Mastering Leadership, Interpersonal and Team Skills for Effectiveness Version 2, my competing values framework describes “control” as being my primary value. “Compete” follows close behind, then “collaborate” comes third and “create” is my least established value. This goes to show that I value having a facilitating and monitoring role within a team, followed closely by being a director and producer in a team based setting. When I compared my competing values framework to how I think I act in my real-life experiences in teams, I have come to the conclusion that I agree with the competing values framework. I really do enjoy facilitating a team and monitoring different processes within team activities. Facilitating is more interesting to me, seeing this role come up really made me think about what I feel facilitating means to me. When I think of the word facilitating and relate it to teamwork, I think of ensuring that team members get an equal opportunity to share their ideas and opinions. I also think of resolving conflict in a way that results in consensus about what the team’s direction should be and that ensures each team member’s satisfaction with the process as to how the conflict was resolved. I value facilitating so much because I think that a good facilitator can ensure that a team stays focused and continues to work efficiently. I also think that it is my greatest strength, and therefore is the most valuable thing I can bring to the team.
By analyzing my competing values framework and comparing that to my strengths and weaknesses in authentic leadership, I understand that I have to use my controlling and competitive nature to improve upon leading with my heart and showing my real self to my colleagues. I think I can do this by first turning to my competitive nature to produce a plan that will direct my actions towards leading with my heart and showing my real self to my colleagues. After that I can use my controlling values to monitor the progress I have made as well as facilitate any difficulties I have in making these adjustment towards becoming a more authentic leader. My colleagues may experience a culture shock as I try to shift my actions towards leading with my heart and showing my real self to them. This is why facilitating will be very important, I will make it clear to my colleagues that I am trying to become a more authentic leader to avoid any confusion about the purpose of my actions. I will also tell them that I am open to discuss the positives and negatives of my new character. I think that tracking my progression towards becoming a more authentic leader will increase the efficiency of this transformation because I will be able to shift my actions according to the feedback I get from my peers.
The actions associated with my controlling and competitive values are the ones that I have the most practice with. It is those actions that I rely on to become the best person I can be and it is those actions that will strengthen my authentic leadership skills.
Works Cited
Kruse, K. (2013). “What is Authentic Leadership?” Forbes. Retrieved online from: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2013/05/12/what-is-authentic-leadership/
alexjovaisas 