To Grow and Develop, First "Know Thyself"

Developing as a leader requires that you develop and sustain a Learning Mindset, an attitude that predisposes you to be open to new experiences, to believe you can and will learn, and to intentionally grow and develop from your experience. Your attitude about learning, especially learning from experience, dictates whether you approach it favorably disposed to learn, grow, and develop. Leaders who have a Learning Mindset are open to learning, see opportunities to learn in all aspects of their work life, and tend to learn more than those who are closed to learning.

Your mindset determines whether you proactively pursue learning in your day-to-day work life, or focus only on getting the job done. Leaders who consistently and rigorously use specific Learning Practices in their day-to-day work life learn significantly more, faster while achieving better results. These Learning Practices are shown in the model below.

If you adopt and sustain a Learning Mindset, and consistently and rigorously employ certain Learning Practices, you will learn significantly more from experience, faster. As a result you will perform at a higher level and create greater value for your company and yourself.

This article focuses on the fourth Learning Practice in our model – Understand Your Strengths and Development Needs – and introduces some practical ideas on how to use this practice to gain more learning, growth, and development from your on-the-job experience.

"Know Thyself"

Our research into how global leaders develop led us to discover some interesting things, and one of the most interesting is something that you may think is fairly obvious: development involves self-awareness and an accurate understanding of the things you do well, and the things you don’t do as well. The reason we think it is so interesting is that this is actually not as easy as it seems. We have blind spots, essentially meaning we don't know what we don't know. We agree with Benjamin Franklin's wisdom from the 1750 Poor Richard's Almanac when it comes to self-knowledge:

"There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self."

We can’t rely on our own perceptions of our capabilities, for a whole host of reasons. Self-assessment is flawed, we exaggerate our strengths and downplay or don't see our weaknesses for what they are, and we often try to present ourselves in the best possible light to make a good impression on others. It is extremely hard to know yourself! So, if we’re untrustworthy when it comes to self-knowledge, this very important foundation to our growth and development, what’s to be done?

The solution to this dilemma lies in opening up to information from outside ourselves to increase our understanding and deepen our insight into "what makes us tick." The five main actions we can take to achieve this are noted below, and each one is then discussed in a bit more detail. If our guidance has the feel of a “how to” or a development guide, that is intentional: we want to be as practical as possible, to enable you to take action quickly.

To understand your strengths and development needs:

1. Take stock of your personality characteristics, and how they influence your performance and behavior at work
2. Assess yourself against the leadership competencies in the competency model of your organization
3. Assess your leadership competencies using a commercially available assessment instrument (if an organization-specific instrument is not available)
4. Ask others to help you by sharing their perspective on your strengths and areas for further development
5. Identify your top strengths and top areas for further development

1 - Take Stock of Your Personality Characteristics, and How They Influence Your Performance and Behavior At Work:

Personality drives a lot of what we bring to the table at work. It can work for us or against us, but certainly will color and shape our interactions and relationships with others. Since we are not very good at self-knowledge, the selective use of assessment tools can assist in the process. Assessment approaches such as personality inventories, competency self-assessments and 360-degree assessments, as well as person-to-person feedback are all very valuable sources of information. Self-assessments have the disadvantage of bringing only your perspective to the table, but the best self-assessments have sophisticated designs built in to ensure your results are trustworthy. Here is what we recommend:

Complete a Personality Inventory – These assessments can increase your self-awareness of your personality traits, characteristics, and behavior patterns that influence your performance and behavior at work.

• Work with a coach to gain access to an inventory or assessment tool, and to interpret the results. Some of the most frequently used tools, and our preferred assessments, include:
• Hogan Assessments – Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), Hogan Development Survey (HDS), Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI)
• FIRO (Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation) assessments – FIRO-B and FIRO Business

Take some time to understand the results of the inventory and the implications for you as a leader. Reflect on what the results reveal, and consider what they tell you about your strengths and areas for development. You may want to share the results with someone who knows you well and ask for their perspective. After you have distilled the results down to a few nuggets of insight that you believe are important, decide how you want to use these insights to enhance your development as a leader.

2 - Assess Yourself Against the Leadership Competencies in the Competency Model of Your Organization:

Many organizations have defined what they expect of leaders by developing a leadership competency model. If your organization has a model like this:

• Complete a 360-degree leadership competency assessment, based on the leadership model of your organization. If a 360 assessment is not available, but a self-assessment is, go for the self-assessment.
• Work with your organization to organize and administer the assessment process, and take some time to understand the results of the assessment and the implications for you as a leader. Reflect on the results, identify your strengths and areas of development, and decide how you want to use these insights to enhance your development as a leader.

3 - Assess Your Leadership Competencies Using a Commercially Available Assessment Instrument:

Many organizations have not defined what they expect of leaders in a leadership competency model. If your organization doesn’t have a leadership competency model or assessments built on such a model, you can use instruments based on other valid and reliable leadership competency models.

• Leadership Competency Assessments - There are so many commercially available 360-degree leadership assessment instruments that it would be difficult to provide a comprehensive list here. In our experience, The Center for Creative Leadership (ccl.org) offers some of the most valid, reliable, and trusted assessments in the world. CCL pioneered the use of assessment and feedback in leadership development decades ago. Their assessment tools include Benchmarks® for Executives™ and Benchmarks® for Managers™. For further information about these instruments, contact Steve Terrell at steve@aspireconsulting.net.
• Global Leadership Competency Assessments – The competency requirements are significantly different for leaders who are already in global and cross-cultural roles, who are preparing to take on a global/cross-cultural role, and those who desire to move into a global/cross-cultural leadership role. We recommend that you complete a global leadership competency assessment, either 360-degree or self-assessment.
• We recommend use of The Global Competencies Inventory (GCI). The GCI measures 16 leadership competencies in three different groupings, in areas critical to interacting and working effectively with people from different cultures. It is available as a self-assessment and a 360-degree instrument. (http://www.kozaigroup.com/global-competencies-inventory-gci/). For further information about this instrument, contact Steve Terrell at steve@aspireconsulting.net.
• Learning Agility - Explore your ability to learn from experience, by completing an assessment of Learning Agility. This important capability has been described as “knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do,” and it is seen as an important predictor of high potential.
• Two reliable and helpful assessment tools for Learning Agility are described below. For further information about these instruments, contact Steve Terrell at steve@aspireconsulting.net.
• viaEDGE™ - The publisher of viaEDGE™, KornFerry, defines learning agility as “the ability and willingness to learn from experience and apply that learning to perform successfully in new situations.” viaEDGE™ is a self-assessment instrument that provides scores on five dimensions: Mental Agility, People Agility, Change Agility, Results Agility, and Self Awareness.
• Benchmarks® for Learning Agility™ is published by the Center for Creative Leadership. This instrument focuses on CCL’s research that shows that in order to be successful, “individuals must be willing to learn from new experiences and have the ability to apply what they learn to workplace challenges.” Benchmarks for Learning Agility is a 360-degree assessment that provides feedback on two areas of behaviors: the skills most often found in successful leaders, and the learning behaviors needed to acquire those skills.

4 - Ask Others to Help You By Sharing Their Perspective on Your Strengths and Areas For Further Development:

Nothing is quite as powerful as authentically asking for help from others. By becoming vulnerable and asking others to share their perspective on your strengths and areas for further development, you open yourself up to learning, build trust with others, and gain new insight into how others perceive you as a leader. For guidance on how to ask for and use feedback, read my article titled “Seek and Use Feedback” here: http://www.aspireconsulting.net/learning-practices.

5 - Identify Your Top Strengths and Top Areas For Further Development:

When you have obtained sufficient feedback from the assessments you have completed and from colleagues through a one-to-one feedback dialogue, you should then look for the trends and connections to identify your top strengths and top areas for further development. A very simple, but powerful, way to crystallize your capabilities is to create a “T-Chart” as described below, based on your own perceptions combined with the assessment results and feedback from colleagues.

1. Create a “T-Chart” – on a blank piece of paper, draw a “T” covering the entire page (see a sample T-Chart template below).
2. Label the column on the left “Towering Strengths” and the column on the right “Critical Development Areas.”
3. List under “Towering Strengths” the 3-5 capabilities or competencies that have been primarily responsible for your success to date.
4. List under “Critical Development Areas” the 3-5 development areas that have tended to hold you back or have hindered your ability to be as successful as you would like to be.

When you have completed your chart, discuss it with your direct manager or a trusted colleague to solicit their perspective, and identify one area (Development Need/Opportunity) that you believe – if you learned and developed significantly in this area – would result in you performing at a higher level and creating greater value for yourself and your company as a result.

For a more detailed version of this article, please go to http://www.aspireconsulting.net/learning-practices and click on the link for Learning Practice #4 – Understand Your Strengths & Areas for Development.