While I do not personally agree with many aspects of the Psychodynamic Approach, there are many parts that I consider useful, such as self-assessment and its effect on leader-follower relationships. “Psychological, social and emotional processes between leaders and followers have a great influence and need to be taken into consideration (Northouse 2016).
Understanding oneself helps us recognize when we are reacting to a situation in a negative or ineffective way. Through self-assessment, a leader can be cognizant of their shortcomings and try to better themselves through reflection and training.
There are many tools available for free or for a small fee, that allow you to understand your traits, your style, your values, your strengths, etc. Using these tools, a leader can start to understand what drives them to react to situations in different ways.
Values in Action by the VIA Institute on Character offer a free survey that helps define your character strengths. This knowledge can then be applied in a positive way towards your leadership style. Knowing these strengths can help you overcome obstacles and improve your interactions. For example, my VIA strengths are:
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Hope
- Humor
- Judgement
The VIA category that best represents my greatest character strengths is Wisdom and Knowledge. As I am fascinated by learning, I have a wide variety of skills. Having a dynamic skillset and knowing how to apply that makes me invaluable to my company because they could use me where they needed support most. It also helps me with my work relationships. My higher ups know they can count on me to pick up new tasks quickly and it helps me with subordinates because they can come to me with a question and I can usually help them answer it.
In addition to learning things like your strengths, values and characteristics, some assessments help you understand your weaknesses or learned behaviors. Unlike the Psychodynamic Approach, these assessments believe that you can change you negative personality characteristics and help you do so in a positive manner. For example, the Center for Positive Psychology Realise2 Model will show you your weakness, unrealized strengths, realized strengths and learned behaviors. Again, just like with the VIA survey, this assessment will help you overcome obstacles and improve your relationships. For example, my assessment explained:
- Weakness: Impatience, waiting for other to complete their thoughts
- Unrealized strength: Perspective, providing wise counsel to others
- Realized strength: Creativity, conceptualizing solutions
- Learned behaviors: Dedication, desire to complete a task at the risk to my physical or mental health
Upon learning about my impatience, I became more aware of this downfall. Once I recognized it, I could train myself to be more patient with others. This had a huge impact in my relationships with others. Coworkers and bosses often conveyed to me that I had matured greatly in the last year and I received better scores on my annual reviews.
There are many more assessments like these that can help guide an individual to be a better leader. Understanding your shortcomings and your strengths is the first step into improving your leadership. Once you recognize them, you can play to your strengths and help overcome your weaknesses.
Works Cited:
Northouse, P. (2015). Introduction to leadership: Concepts and practice (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Inc.
Shawnee Marie Wilson says
Ali,
I read your post and decided to take the VIA survey. The results of my survey were:
1. Creativity
2. Perspective
3. Honesty
4. Judgement
5. Love of Learning
Similar to your results, four of my strengths fall in the Wisdom category – 1, 2, 4, & 5. These four all seem to involve thinking things through, learning new skills, and sharing that knowledge with others (viacharacter.org). I agree with these results. Whenever I am introduced to new things, my brain is instantly trying to find a more efficient way to do it. And when I sort that out, I enjoy sharing it with other people.
I got the same results when I took the Abridged Leadership Archetype Questionnaire on p. 318 of our textbook for my own blog post. My results for that included The Processor, which was described as people that are efficient and conscientious, and The Coach, which was described as people that are great communicators and motivators (Northouse 2016).
References
Character Strengths, Personal Development: VIA Character. (n.d.). Free VIA Survey. Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://www.viacharacter.org/www
Northouse, P. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice, 7th Ed. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. pp 295 – 327.
cpb147 says
Self-awareness is a key component to many leadership diciplines and models. Emotional Intelligence (EQ), Authentic Leadership, Transformational Leadership, and Psychodynamic approach to leadership all have a self-awareness component (Northouse, 2016). It is key to understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses so that the strengths can be utilized to lead and the weaknesses can be strengthened. As you mentioned in your blog, you became aware of your impatience, you worked on strengthening it. There are a number of tools that have been used to take stock of one’s own traits and many are implemented in leadership training programs. The major ones that come to mind are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI Basics, n.d.), DiSC profile test which is available many places online, VIA Character Strengths Survey (VIA Survey, n.d.), and the 360 degree feedback which is available many places online as well.
Research shows that leaders who are self-aware have a higher emotional intelligence and are considered more effective leaders by both their superiors and their followers (Bratton, Dodd, & Brown, 2011). Self-aware leaders are cognizant of how their actions affect others, better planners, and learn from their experiences (Krauss, Hamid, & Arif-Ismail, 2010). I believe learning about one’s self in all aspects, not just leadership traits, is beneficial. When one learns about themselves, they also learn about others, especially those who are like them. This can help them to empathize with those and possibly others.
Personally, I have taken all of the assessments mentioned above and while all of them have been extremely beneficial in my leadership endeavors, it has been the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment that has helped me more than all of them combined with personal relationships as well as increasing my leadership skills. I have been able to understand how different personality types react to different situations. That those who score high on the feeler scale make decisions based on their emotions and those who score high on the opposite end of that scale make decisions bases on logic. Both types of traits are necessary for decision-making depending on the circumstance. Based on my experience, increasing self-awareness is one of my top leadership development functions.
References
Bratton, V. K., Dodd, N. G., & Brown, F. W. (2011). The impact of emotional intelligence on accuracy of self-awareness and leadership performance. Leadership and Organizational Development Journal, 32(2), 127-149.
Krauss, S. E., Hamid, J. A., & Arif-Ismail, I. (2010). Exploring trait and task self-awareness in the context of leadership development among undergraduate students from Malaysia. Sage Publications, 6(1), 3-19. DOI: 10.1177/1742715009354236.
MBTI Basics. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://sites.psu.edu/leadership/2017/01/25/the-importance-of-emotional-intelligence/
VIA Survey. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.viacharacter.org/www/Character-Strengths-Survey