Leadership Potential Survey Did Not

¶ … leadership potential survey did not surprise me with its results. I have always felt that I had strong leadership potential, for a number of reasons. I believe that I have a desire to be a leader, and that is part of leadership potential. Leadership needs to be a calling. What this survey showed me is that my beliefs about my own leadership potential are true. I have a natural tendency to take control of a group situation and I want to see things running smoothly.

I am goal-oriented as well, and believe that I have a relatively clear path set out for myself. The survey views these characteristics as being something inherent in natural leaders, so I simply confirmed these beliefs about myself. So when I see that I scored 31 out of 35, I felt that this really told me what I already knew. I tend to think like a leader and view myself as a leader, even today. I believe that my leadership potential will only increase in the future.

I feel that the leadership potential survey is only the first level of leadership success. In order to even be given the opportunity to lead, one must have the basic personality profile of a leader. What this survey does not indicate, however, is the degree to which somebody will actually succeed as a leader. However, having the personality of a leader and viewing the world and my group activities as a leader would is the first step, and it is important to know what a leader does.

If one does not realize what a leader does or how a leader thinks, then one could be deluded about leadership potential. For me, I have felt for years now that I am a natural born leader, so it was nice to see this first leadership potential survey confirm that. It is hoped that the other surveys will provide more insight into the nature of leadership, giving me guidance with respect to what I can do to help capitalize on my high level of leadership potential. 2.

On surgency, I scored a 22. This was the result of significantly mixed results, scoring ranging from one to seven. This shows that my leadership personality is situational. I am comfortable taking on a leadership role sometimes, but other times I am largely unwilling to do so. On agreeableness, I scored a 12. This shows an introspective personality, which I do not inherently view as a defect in terms of leadership personality.

I basically discount this as a means of testing leadership personality because it shows a bias on the part of the survey designers towards extroverts, one that has not been founded. In terms of adjustment, I scored a 22. As with surgency, this category of personality shows a very mixed set of results, some very high and others being low. Again, this illustrates that my leadership temperament is perhaps more situational than it ought to be. I scored a 29 on conscientiousness.

In general, I am very organized and effective, meeting deadlines and never letting people down. The one point on which I scored lower than the others was with respect to following the rules of an organization. Scoring low on this is good for one's leadership potential -- followers follow; leaders make the rules, and change the ones that do not make sense. On Openness to Experience, I scored a 21. I generally score high on openness to new experience in personal life issues, but less so in work.

This shows that I may be open when there is no professional risk, but when there is professional risk, I can be more conservative. This particular revelation is valuable because it might help me to bring more of my non-work personality with respect to openness to my work, and that might bring better results. My strongest dimension therefore is with respect to conscientiousness, owing to my dogmatic nature with respect to work.

I take work seriously, something reflected in my Openness to Experience score, and it shows in my ability to deliver results. I scored lowest in "Agreeableness" which is a poorly chosen word when the survey writer clearly means "Extroversion," that facet of personality having little to do with leadership personality. 3. I scored an 83 on the ethical perspective. To me, this is a fair score as it generally indicates that I am ethical. I have in my wayward youth pushed some minor ethical boundaries, but those days are behind me.

In particular, the more serious of the ethical breaches in the questionnaire I scored a 4 on. To me, this is definitely the most important thing, that the serious ethical issues I have a perfect record on and will continue to do so. Ethical behavior is critical to leadership, because not only can ethical breaches at the leadership level severely impact on the company, but they also trickle down throughout the organization.

I can see that if in the past I have committed minor ethical breaches, it was largely because the climate of the organization permitted such breaches. Managers were demonstrating questionable ethics and that encouraged the rest of us to do so as well. So with respect to leadership ethics, it is entirely critical that leaders set a tone for the organization.

Leaders must demonstrate the highest ethical standards in the organization, not only because of their role as agents of the shareholders, but also because the rest of the organization will follow the leadership cues. Thus, I believe that if I am to truly grow into a leadership role, I should be in a position where I would score even higher on the ethical scale, closer to 100. Such a standard is not too difficult to demand of myself as I mature into a leadership role.

Improving ethics is largely something that can be accomplished by identifying habits that need to be corrected and behaviors that need to be eliminated. What the self-assessment does is provide some guidance as to what those might be. In addition, it also provides an opportunity to examine what the consensus view of high ethical standards is -- knowing this sets an objective for myself to achieve. 4. With respect to my leadership style, I scored 9 out of 10 on the task scale, indicating a high task orientation.

I did not feel that it was necessary to tell my employees what to do on company time, since I am paying for tasks to be completed, not time to be killed. If the employees have too much free time, it is my job to remedy that, not theirs. With respect to the other questions, however, I would do those things because I believe that managers should manage. I definitely view managing as part of the leadership role, although it is only one part.

Managing (tasks) is essential to ensuring that the different tasks needed for the organization to excel are completed. With respect to my leadership style, I scored 8 out of 10, indicating a high people orientation. Many of the questions on which I answered "would do" are actually not questions in which I would have answered this normally, given my personality. However, I have learned from some of the leaders under whom I have worked that the personal side of leadership is absolutely critical to leadership success.

It is those leaders whose ability to deal with interpersonal issues that I emulate when considering such situations as this. I believe that learning is essential to strong leadership, and so I hope that I can learn from all good leaders.