This survey shows me that as a leader, I have a lot of work to do on my negotiating skills. Some of the questions reflected directly on issues where I hope to perform better in future than I do today, but it is my performance today that is reflected in my score. For example, I do not do as good a job at setting objectives as I would like to. Other areas, however, are ones that I may not have given as much consideration to in the past. I do not have a lot of experience in negotiating for significant things, so there are definitely some facets to negotiating that I am either unaware of or uncomfortable with. For me to score higher in a self-assessment of my negotiating skills would have been dishonest. I see that negotiating is one of those areas of leadership where I will...

These self-assessments provide an opportunity for budding leaders to accurately gauge strengths and weaknesses, which ultimately is valuable for a leader to improve. It is the openness by which one can recognize one's faults and take steps to address those issues that makes leaders stronger. In this situation, I take to heart my assessment of negotiating skills. I am not surprised by the results and take it as a sign that I do need to improve in this area.
Indeed, the self-assessment gives me a chance to identify the key specific areas where I need to improve. I scored high on some of the questions, but did not score well on other questions. As a result, I believe that I have identified key areas of negotiating on which to focus, which provides me…