Self-monitoring scale and personal need for structure assessment

Self-Assessments

Title of the Assessment: Self-Monitoring Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: The purpose of the self-monitoring scale is to determine how sensitive the subject is to the expressive behavior of others, and the subject's ability to modify self-presentation.

Actual Score: Total: 45 Others: 22 Self

Interpretation of Score: The sensitivity to others, ability to modify self-presentation, and self-monitoring total are all in the medium ranges, indicating that I have an average ability to understand others expressive behavior and an average ability to modify my behavior to match the situation.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: While my score range on the self-monitoring scale indicates that I fall within the average range of self-monitoring, self-monitoring behavior skills seem that they would be crucial to success in business. I think that I really need to work on improving my sensitivity to the expressive behavior of others. Perhaps I can specifically engage in a study of non-verbal communication such as body language, to enhance my ability to understand people's expressive behavior. I also need to make a more conscientious effort to tune into the subtext of what people are saying. While I generally understand the overt messages that people are communicating, I do find myself having a difficult time reading between the lines in verbal conversations. If I can improve my ability to understand the connotation of certain statements and not just the denotation, I think I will be able to improve my ability to understand others. Currently, I am in the mid-range of being able to modify my self-presentation, but, at least to me, that result seems largely dependent upon my sensitivity to others' behavior. I think that an increased sensitivity to others will naturally result in an increase in my ability to modify my self-presentation.

Title of the Assessment: Personal Need for Structure

Purpose of the Assessment: The personal need for structure assessment measures the subject's need to make sense of their surrounding environment.

Actual Score: 52

Interpretation of Score: Above-average need for personal structure

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: People with a high need for personal structure are motivated to structure their world in a simple and unambiguous way. Because I have an above-average need for personal structure, I have an above-average need to structure my world in such a manner. A high-need for structure can provide benefits in certain scenarios, such as helping keep me organized and on-task. However, that need for structure can actually interfere with effectiveness and efficiency, because I do not always have control over whether or not an environment will be structured. When I am confronted with an unstructured environment, I find that it interferes with my ability to work in an effective and efficient manner. Therefore, what I need to do to improve my effectiveness and efficiency in a work environment is combine my desire for structure with a realistic approach to working in a team environment. I have to acknowledge the fact that I can only control the level of structure in my personal environment, such as my desk or cubicle or my task listing, and that I may have to deal with a certain lack of structure in other areas. While I do not think that I can change my essential nature and actually lessen my desire for structure, I think that I can do certain things to enhance my perception that of structure in unstructured environments. For example, I can push team members to help clearly outline their expectations for individual team members, so that I can structure my tasks. I can also make sure that I am sufficiently organized to facilitate greater organization in the group structure.

Title of the Assessment: Equity Preference Questionnaire

Purpose of the Assessment: This assessment tool measures an individual's need for fairness, compared to the desire to be self-sacrificing or the drive to be selfish.

Actual Score: 64

Interpretation of Score: The questionnaire indicates that I am benevolent, which means that I am tolerant of situations where I am underrewarded.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: Benevolents are tolerant of being underrewarded, which may seem very compatible with both high effectiveness and high efficiency. If a worker is focused on performing the job and is not concerned about individual benefits or comparing how he is treated with how other workers are treated, that would tend to suggest that the worker is going to put more energy into their work. However, thinking carefully about the issue, I feel that I will need to push for more recognition in the workplace. It seems like a risk factor for benevolents would be that they do not achieve the type of upward mobility in the workplace that they might deserve, because they are not concerned about pursuing equal treatment. This may mean that even if a benevolent is the most qualified person for a promotion, they might lose that position due to office politics or other issues that have nothing to do with job performance, and are actually very inequitable. By not pushing for the recognition that I deserve, I may be performing a lower role in the work environment than the one I should be performing, which does not contribute to the efficiency of the workplace. Moreover, since benevolent are likely to wield less power than they should, they are not as effective as similarly-skilled equity sensitives or entitleds, who will generally push for workplace recognition, thereby attaining positions of power. Therefore, in order to improve my efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace, I will try to be more cognizant of how my treatment by my employer compares to how it treats others.

Title of the Assessment: Money Attitude Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: To determine the subject's attitude towards money on three dimensions, including money as a source of power and prestige, the subject's financial planning abilities, and whether the person views money as a source of anxiety.

Harmonizer: low Initiator: low Summarizer: low

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: These five attributes describe the five team roles that occur in group settings. To improve effectiveness and efficiency, it makes sense that I would try to choose the role that was the most natural to me. However, examining the five different roles, it does not seem that I am innately suited to any of them. I am medium as an encourager, but low on every other scale. I do not think that I can expect to find success in business if I do not increase my scores in at least one of those areas. Therefore, in order to maximize my effectiveness and efficiency, I would focus on improving my capabilities as an encourager. Encouragers are those people who can praise and support the idea of other team members. I do find that I play a cheerleader role more naturally than any other role, and that I could up my efforts at making other team members feel as if they are contributing to the project. Moreover, I feel that my natural tendency to be an encourager actually lends itself to me being a strong harmonizer, because I am good at praising and supporting other team members, but low at being a gatekeeper. Because I do not generally try to exert control over a group situation, I think that I could learn to be a better harmonizer. Therefore, I will work on my mediation skills, so that I can help negotiate any conflicts that could arise in a group setting. I think this will be possible, because my natural tendency to provide encouragement to others generally makes me seem less judgmental and less threatening, which I think are important characteristics in a mediator.

Title of the Assessment: The Team Player Inventory

Purpose of the Assessment: The Team Player Inventory measures the extent to which the subject is positively predisposed to working in a team.

Actual Score: 36

Interpretation of Score: I am generally ambivalent about working in teams.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: While I am in the mid-range category and am considered ambivalent about working in teams, I am actually at the upper-end of that range. I think that this is because I actually think that I do my best work as a member of a good team, but I have had some very negative experiences working in bad teams before. Clearly, being ambivalent about being placed in the type of work environment where I feel I do my best work is not conducive to me being more effective or efficient at work. Therefore, I need to motivate myself to get excited about working in a team environment. I feel like this class, which is helping me learn my personal strengths and weaknesses, will help me become a better team member. While my personal contributions do not determine the whole tone of the team, they certainly do influence whether or not the team is a good one. Furthermore, I may have been contributing to negative team environments in the past, by self-selecting to play roles in teams that have gone against my natural inclinations and emphasized my personal weaknesses rather than strengths. As a result, I will change my behavior in group situations by choosing the type of behavior for which I am most suited, rather than choosing those jobs that seem the easiest or most interesting. Furthermore, if I make those changes and continue to find myself in groups where the dynamics are working against me becoming more efficient or more effective, then I will use my ambivalence in another way and seek out opportunities where I am not required to work in a group, but am allowed to work as an individual.

Title of the Assessment: Active Listening Skills Inventory

Purpose of the Assessment: To assess five different dimensions of active listening.

Actual Score: Avoiding interruption: 8

Maintaining interest: 3

Postponing evaluation: 4 Organizing information: 5 Showing interest: 5

Interpretation of Score: A high on the avoiding interruption dimension means that I have a strong tendency to let speakers finish their statements before responding. A medium on the maintaining interest scale means that I have a medium tendency to remain focused and concentrated on what a speaker is saying. A medium on the postponing evaluation scale means that I have a normal tendency to avoid evaluating a speaker while he is talking. A medium on the showing interest dimension means that I have a normal tendency to use nonverbal gestures or verbal acknowledgements to show that I am paying attention to the speaker. A medium on the organizing information scale means that I have a normal tendency to actively organize a speaker's ideas into meaningful categories.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: Although I was a medium or higher on almost every dimension I was actually in the low range of the mediums, which made me result in a low total. What that indicates to me is that I need to really work on each dimension in the active listening skills. I am already exercise good skills by avoiding interrupting speakers. However, I actually think that my failure to interrupt may be partially due to the fact that I am frequently not really tuning in to what a speaker is saying. When someone is boring me, I have the tendency to drift off, and this failing to maintain interest leads me to lower scores in the organizing information and showing interest categories. What I need to do is really concentrate on maintaining focus on what a speaker is saying. I think that with a higher degree of focus, I will be able to organize the speaker's faults, and that I will be paying sufficient attention to show the appropriate cues showing interest. I think that maintaining interest may actually initially depress my scores on the postponing evaluation dimension, but that I can work on keeping an open mind. There are two other aspects of active listening, providing feedback and empathizing, which I think that I also need to improve. I think that I will do better at providing feedback if I am paying greater attention to what the speaker is saying, because I will be tuned in to the speaker's actual message. Furthermore, I feel that I will do a better job empathizing if I work hard to postpone making evaluations of the speaker's statements, and instead just listen to what they have to say. If I make these changes, I think will become a more effective and efficient employee.

Title of the Assessment: Upward Influence Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: The upward influence scale measures a person's preference for using different types of influence on people in power positions.

Actual Score: Assertiveness: 7 Exchange: 8 Coalition Formation: 5 Upward Appeal: 5 Ingratiation: 12 Persuasion: 12

Interpretation of Score: A medium in assertiveness means that I sometimes use legitimate and coercive power to influence others. A medium in exchange means that I sometimes promise benefits or resources in exchange for compliance. A low in coalition formation means that I do not generally band together with people with common interests. A low in upward appeal mans that I do not generally rely on a higher-level person to influence others. A medium in ingratiation means that I sometimes flatter my boss in order to influence him. A medium in persuasion means that I sometimes use logical and emotional appeals to change others' attitudes.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: Overall, I do not frequently use any of the upward influence types to influence people in power positions. I would say that this means that I am not going to be very effective in my working environment unless I can change my behavior. Some of the measures I can change by simply altering my own behavior. However, since I already have a limited power base, I am not sure if some of the types of influence are legitimately available to me. For example, since I have limited power in my business environment, I do not know how I could use legitimate power to really influence others, and I do not have any coercive power to use. Furthermore, because I am in a power-limited situation, I do not really have the authority to promise benefits or resources in exchange for compliance. Furthermore, because I do not consider anyone in a power position to be an ally, I do not think that I can currently use the upward appeal to exert power. What I need to do to increase my effectiveness is work on my persuasion and ingratiation dimensions, that I can hopefully gain more influence with higher-ups in my office environment, which would give me the power to exert other types of authority.

Title of the Assessment: Dutch Test for Conflict Handling

Purpose of the Assessment: Measures five dimensions of conflict handling.

Actual Score: Yielding: 12 Compromising: 16 Forcing: 14 Problem Solving: 15 Avoiding: 16

Interpretation of Score: A medium in yielding means that I sometimes give in unconditionally to the other side. A medium in compromising means that I sometimes look for a position where my losses are offset by gains. A medium in forcing means that I sometimes try to win a conflict at the expense of another. A medium in problem solving means that I sometimes try to find a mutually beneficial solution. A medium in avoiding means that I sometimes try to avoid thinking about the conflict.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: I actually think that my conflict handling skills reflect that I have a wide repertoire for handling conflict situations. Rather than relying on any one type of conflict resolution, I resort to the different ways of handling conflict in a roughly equal manner. This seems important to me, because not every conflict can or should be handled in the same way. One troubling area is that I tend to try to avoid conflict. Until reading the assessment, I did not consider the fact that avoiding conflict is actually doing a disservice to the people I am in disagreement with because it deprives them of a chance to resolve the conflict as well. While it may be appropriate to avoid conflict in certain scenarios, I will make a concerted effort to tackle conflict head-on. Equally important, I would like to resort to problem-solving as my most frequently used means of solving problems. Problem solving is similar to compromise, in that both parties get benefits. However, while compromise means that both parties are going to take some kind of loss in the situation, problem solving invites the parties to sit down and find a solution that does not involve losses, or that at least provides both parties with greater gains than losses.

Title of the Assessment: Leadership Dimensions Instrument

Purpose of the Assessment: To evaluate transactional and transformational leadership skills

Actual Score: Transactional leadership: 26

Transformational leadership: 30

Interpretation of Score: The person that I evaluated is a moderately transactional leader and a moderately transformational leader.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: It would be easy to shift blame or responsibility after seeing results like these, and suggest that my performance at work, which is less than optimal, not because of anything that I am doing or failing to do, but because I am not receiving adequate leadership from my supervisors. However, I must take responsibility for the fact that this analysis only measures my interpretation of that person's actions. I may be skewing my interpretation in order to justify the fact that I have been submitting a sub-par performance at work. It would be interesting for me to see another person's evaluation of this same supervisor to see if my impressions are accurate. If my impressions are accurate, then my supervisor has not distinguished himself as either a highly transformational or highly transactional leader. Instead, his leadership skills are about average, which has left me feeling somewhat uninspired in my workplace. What I need to do is focus on how I can inspire myself. Rather than waiting for my supervisor to hold me accountable for my work performance, I need to concentrate on holding myself accountable. I need to set higher standards for myself, and make sure that I am hitting those standards, even if my supervisor does not do so. More importantly, I need to investigate my company's vision and make sure that I understand it, even if I feel that my supervisor has not done an adequate job of communicating that vision to his team. Part of being effective in the workplace is inspiring oneself towards high achievement, and I have not taken the responsibility for doing that, but have, instead relied upon supervisors to provide inspiration.

Title of the Assessment: Organizational Structure Preference Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: To determine the degree and type of structure that the subject prefers in a workplace

Actual Score: Tall hierarchy: 14 Formalization: 10 Centralization: 8 Total: 32

Interpretation of Score: A high score in the tall hierarchy dimension means that I prefer to work in organizations with several levels of hierarchy and a narrow span of control. A medium score in the formalization dimension means that I somewhat prefer to work in organizations where jobs are clearly defined with limited discretion. A medium in centralization means that I somewhat prefer to work in organizations where decision making occurs among top management. A high overall score means that I prefer to work in mechanistic structures.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: Ever since I was a child, I have been receiving the same message from well-meaning friends, relatives, and educators, which is that I can do anything that I set my mind to doing. While I may be able to do anything that I want to do, the reality is that I should not be doing just anything. On the contrary, people's innate characteristics make them more suited for some roles than they are for other roles. What this test has shown me is that, to improve my effectiveness and efficiency, I may need to focus on a different type of job environment. Some people thrive in environments where all of the workers have roughly the same level of authority and control, and this independence gives them more ownership in the process. However, I am not such a person. I enjoy organizations that have a mechanistic structure, where control is top-down. In order to improve my effectiveness and efficiency in a work environment, I may have to take a bold step and look for a new working environment that is more structured than my current environment, so that my work environment matches my innate preference. I think that matching outside environment to inside comfort level could only increase my workplace ability.

Title of the Assessment: Corporate Culture Preference Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: To determine what type of corporate culture the subject prefers.

Actual Score: Control culture: 0

Performance culture: 3

Relationship culture: 5 Responsive culture: 4

Interpretation of Score: A low in the control culture means that I do not enjoy a corporate culture where the goal is to keep everyone aligned and under control. A medium in performance culture means that I somewhat enjoy a culture that values individuals and strives for optimum performance. A medium in relationship culture means that values open communication and teamwork. A medium in responsive culture means that culture values its ability to keep up with the external environment.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: When viewed by itself, this assessment tool indicates that I do not like high-control corporate environments, and actually prefer environments that emphasize the role of the individual and coworker interplay.

The problem with this assessment is that it directly contradicts the results of some of the other assessments that I have taken. On another assessment, it was determined that I strongly prefer a mechanistic structure with a narrow span of control and a high degree of formalization and centralization. I think that the first step to improving my effectiveness and efficiency is that I have to make a determination involving exactly what type of work environment I actually prefer. Until I know what type of work environment is the most suitable for me, it will be impossible for me to find the appropriate employment. I actually think that these results are inaccurate, because my other assessments so strongly indicate a desire for a more controlled work environment, with less of an emphasis on team structure. As a result, until I determine exactly what type of work environment suits me, I am not sure how to use these test results in order to improve either my effectiveness or my efficiency.

Title of the Assessment: Tolerance of Change Scale

Purpose of the Assessment: To assess how comfortable people are with ambiguity.

Actual Score: 56

Interpretation of Score: I seem to have a low degree of tolerance for change. Instead, I prefer stable work environments.

Improving Effectiveness / Efficiency: Because I prefer a stable work environment, in order to increase my efficiency and effectiveness, I need to make sure that I am working in a stable situation. People with a high tolerance for ambiguity are well suited to the uncertainty, sudden change, and new situations that characterize so many of today's businesses. Furthermore, because of the overall economic uncertainty, all work environments have a pretty high degree of uncertainty at this moment. Furthermore, because of the surrounding economic environment, changing to a more stable work environment could actually be the very thing to put me in a very ambiguous situation. Therefore, I think that I need to take steps to mitigate any discomfort I feel at work. Although my job involves me taking on different types of projects, there are aspects of my job that remain consistent from project to project. Rather than focusing on the differences in the projects, which does tend to get me stressed out and make me worry, I think I need to refocus and remind myself about the constants. Furthermore, while the projects change, the rest of my work environment is relatively stable; the workforce is relatively stable and management is not erratic. By focusing on the outward environment of the workplace and its stability, I can use those parts of me that do find change to be exhilarating to tackle new projects. For example, though I prefer clear instructions and goals, I like to meet new people and find them fascinating. I am also open to the possibility that even experts will occasionally face quandaries in their work environment. Therefore, if I tackle each new project as if it were a new person for me to get to know, I think I can lose the fear associated with change.