Reflected best self exercise: comparing self-perception with colleague feedback

Vienna Convention

Reflected Best Self

Knowing oneself is one of the most important leadership aspects. The key to success in any chosen career is having an accurate perception of ourselves. Self-awareness means recognizing our strengths and our limitations (Rath and Conchie, 2009). This exercise asked the researcher to compare their own self-perception to the perceptions of others. The ability to take and apply positive feedback is paramount to developing an accurate sense of self. Understanding one's strengths and weaknesses is the key to being the best that one can be in life. The following will assess the Reflected Best Self exercise that was conducted as a part of my desire to make changes that would allow me to be my best self professionally and personally.

Feedback Analysis

Prior to this assessment, I saw myself as outgoing and friendly. This coincided with the assessment made by others. I was seen as a strong leader, yet confident enough to ask for help when it is needed. I was seen as genuine in my interactions and highly professional. I was found to add value to society through these interactions. The results of this analysis are derived from 14 out of 20 reports that were received from colleagues and business associates. This sample population reflects my best self from a professional standpoint. It is not known if this also reflects my best self in other situations. However, it will help to maximize my best self in my future career setting.

The responses of my colleagues matched my perceptions of myself for the most part. These included strong leadership, confident enough to reach out and ask for help/counsel/guidance, genuine in my interactions, graceful, always displaying a high level of professionalism, natural ability to read people, high level of skill of influence, positive attitude, flexible, ability to 'connect' people, enthusiastic about my professional role and my personal life, inspiring, skilled at public speaking, ability to achieve consensus and buy-in, able to convey a sense of confidence even when not feeling that way, displaying a can-do attitude all the time, motivating, ability to make all feel important and even being a role model for some of the young professionals in our community. These qualities display leadership beyond the office setting. These insights were surprising, not from the standpoint that I did not expect them at all, but from the magnitude of the responses and the impact that I apparently made on my colleagues and associates. These results emphasize that I have a set of soft skills that far exceeds the hard skills reflected on my resume. Soft skills have quickly become the focus of employers, particularly in managerial candidates (Challenger, 2007). It is often difficult to put soft skills into real terms, but the results from this exercise indicate that my soft skills are much more prevalent than hard skills at this point in my career.

One of the traits that I felt did not come across in the analysis is that I consider myself to be a bit direct at times. One of my key difficulties that I felt I needed to overcome was that I can come across as being a bit bold and rude. I did not necessarily see this as a strength, but this was not expressed in the feedback that all, unless it was loosely hinted at without being of said directly to me. It is possible that I still have this negative trait, but that people did not want to tell me this directly. I was also afraid that I might come across as phony because I am so happy all the time. My ability to be happy a majority of the time comes from my positive attitude and the ability to see the good in everything. I count my blessings rather than my negative events in life. It appears that my happiness comes across as genuine, which is a strength on my part.

Applications of Results

I am at my best self when interacting with people. It is the focus of my job and my personal life. I concentrate on building relationships between people, even when I am not conscious that I am doing so. I spend many volunteer hours outside of the organization spreading goodwill in the community on behalf of the president of our organization. This places me in an area where I can use my strengths and my best self to generate goodwill for our organization.

Currently, I spend much of my time making business school a priority. It is apparent that I have talents outside of preparing financial statements and other activities involved in business school. My talents lie in cultivating social bonds and developing personal relationships with people. It seems that my pursuits in business school are not focusing on my strengths, but I am spending many hours focusing on my weaknesses instead. I felt that we should focus on strengthening our weaknesses as a priority, but at this point, I have spent so much time strengthening weaknesses that I have ignored my true calling in life.

I need to spend more time seeking out opportunities to interact with people, not seeking activities that are monotonous to me. Being an accountant is not for me and in the future, I will seek out opportunities that make use of my volunteerism and opportunities that are more involved on an interpersonal level. My ability to bring people together indicates that I would be better as the chair of a committee, rather than just serving on the committee. I need to spend more time out of my office where I can do what I do best, which is to communicate the UCF-Message to others.

Organizations value a leader who is a good communicator and who demonstrates a visionary approach (Kaifi, 2010). The results of the best self exercise indicate that I would be better suited for a position in public relations. However, I need to be in a position where I am on the front lines working with individuals to build personal relationships. I need to focus more on developing opportunities for building relationships among people. I need to discontinue focusing on a job that would involve the nuts and bolts of the business, such as accounting and financial management. It is apparent from the responses that my time and energy are best spent focusing on other skills and talents. However, the knowledge gained in these classes will not go to waste, as I will have an understanding of financial and accounting matters. Brim (2007) cautions that using a strengths-based approach does not mean that one can simply ignore their weaknesses.

Perhaps the most important lesson that I learned from this exercise is that rather than strengthening weaknesses and trying to make them a priority, it is better to focus on one's strengths and to build upon them. I am excellent at gaining approval from people for projects and resolving interpersonal conflicts among others. I am good at interacting with people and choosing a communication style that does not demean or belittle subordinates. I have excellent organizational skills and need to focus on management rather than serving in behind the scene roles at events.

Finding our motivators is the key to a healthy, happy, and successful lifestyle (Hartley, 2010). The ability to get people to work together to achieve a bigger goal is a key asset that is being under utilized in my current of life pursuits. When I have a cause to work for, I put everything into it and have the ability to inspire others to do the same. In my present position, I am unable to utilize these abilities and only have the opportunity to do so on rare occasions. In the future, I will spend more time of the working in areas where I can lead people and inspire them to accomplish larger goals. I will spend less time performing menial tasks that can the better be handled by someone who is better at them than myself. To spend my time doing tasks for which someone else would be better suited and ignoring my own strengths is not allowing me to live my life according to my best self-portrait.