Lead Yourself Forward

What's next on your career path? Are you dissatisfied with your work but are unclear on how to move on? You're not alone. There's no doubt that COVID-19 has changed many things about living and working. According to Bankrate's August 2021 Job Seeker Survey, over 55% of what economists describe as the immediate workforce plan to re-evaluate their current work and find a better fit over 12 months. But, even if you plan to stay put, how are you reaching out to your direct reports or mentees to give them the support they need in their decision. When considering your next steps, it is sometimes helpful to consider using assessments to grow personal leadership skills and skills for potential leaders, either in your workplace or as a mentor.

The truth is that we can all continue to improve and develop. The better our leaders become, the better their team, which significantly impacts the overall business. When we partner with clients, leaders often say, "I've worked on so much over the years, I'm not sure what to work on now." Our response is always simple– "You need to take an assessment." It's more challenging to decide the next steps of your development without data to drive it. An assessment will give you that data for drafting a plan. 

Leaders have often taken assessments over the years and are apprehensive about returning to that route. They feel they've already gained all the information they can from that process, but assessments remain a valuable tool. Assessments give us information about a person at a particular time. Yes, you may have taken an assessment as part of employee development protocol several years ago– but you've likely changed a lot since then. You've most likely developed your skills, and perhaps you're not even in the same position, or you have a completely different work environment. There is value in going back to complete an assessment for all these reasons.

There are many different assessments on the market that you can consider for informing your developmental path. Each serves different purposes, and some are better than others when considering specific needs. We recommend three assessments to our clients beginning this process: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0, and the Global Leadership Assessment 360. These assessments provide an array of information, as outlined here:

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is perhaps the world's most well-known personality assessment. The participant completes the tool online or in person, placing you into one of 16 different personality types. The evaluation results provide:

•          Insights into how you interact with others

•          Increased self-awareness of each personality type's strengths and challenges

•          Ideas for adapting your behavior in response to other personalities in the room

Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) is the world's leading assessment tool for evaluating emotional and social intelligence. The assessment contains 133 items that converge to provide insight into 15 competencies and five composite areas. In addition, the EQ-i 2.0 provides you with a picture of how you operate emotionally– something that research now demonstrates is a more significant predictor of success than traditional intelligence. The client and their manager, peers, and customers complete the assessment. The assessment result provides clients with holistic insight into their emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a set of emotional and social skills that influence how we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information effectively and meaningfully.

Global Leadership Assessment 360 is a leadership assessment rooted in groundbreaking research conducted by Marshall Goldsmith (#1 Leadership Thinker and Executive Coach.) The study involved CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, global thought leaders, and international business executives of organizations on six continents. The GLA360 articulates and measures the top 15 most pressing competencies for today's global leader. In addition, it shows leaders the areas they need to develop to succeed in a competitive business environment. 

Don't stop at just completing the assessments. Once you have this data, it's time to put the information to work for you. You can incorporate these findings in a detailed personal or professional development plan. Partnering with a coach through this process can prove helpful. A coach can assist you with interpreting your assessment results, locating areas of opportunity, and guiding goal setting related to your development. Coaches also act as accountability partners and personal cheerleaders for clarifying your purpose and problem-solving in a confidential environment. Working with a coach, especially during a challenging time, can be the catalyst for change that you may need for lasting positive results.

Please find more information about Bauman Consulting Group and the coaching services and assessment tools we provide on our website, www.baumanconsultinggroup.com/coaching. In addition, all readers are eligible for a free 45-minute consultation.

Start Your Year Off Right - Knowing Yourself (Part 3)

Whether your personal strategic plan is focused on helping you grow personally, professionally, or both, it's important to take a good look at yourself before proceeding further. Taking some time to be introspective can help you to determine the what, why, and how of the changes you want to make. 

For instance, one woman I know felt like she was always struggling to balance work and home. Work seemed to always dominate her life. She was convinced there was nothing she could do about this situation. She just had to work and meet her deadlines. When she took some time to examine herself she realized that her assumptions weren't true. Rather, she found that she was driven by accomplishment and recognition. At work, it was easy for her to feel successful. She could complete projects, sign contracts, and acquire new clients. She received bonuses, promotions, and praise frequently. At home, these sort of accolades were harder to come by, and she found that this part of her personality was being swept aside. She rarely felt as if she accomplished anything at home and often didn't feel appreciated or valued. It's no wonder she found herself "stuck" at the office so often. If she wasn't working so hard at the office, no one would appreciate her!

Imagine if we'd just tried to work on strategies to help her balance work and home without that critical insight. Knowing this information gave us the much needed information to develop meaningful strategies that would really work for her. Balancing her time wasn't really the problem at all. Learning how to recreate her home environment made all the difference. We focused not on ways to spend more time at home, but on how to gain a sense of accomplishment and reward in her home life.

But how do you gain that insight? There are many ways to take a look at the inner workings of yourself, but my favorite method is through the use of assessments. There are two that I rely on the most that translate powerfully into personal strategic plans: the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0). 

The MBTI is a personality inventory based upon the work of Carl Jung. The tool examines the ways that you utilize perception and judgement to assign you to one of 16 personality types. It's important to know that no type is better than the other - they are all equal. Knowing your personality type helps bring to light your innate preferences and allows you to learn about yourself. Once you understand yourself through this lens, you can grow and develop in ways that help you accomplish your larger goals. 

The second tool, the EQ-i 2.0, measures your emotional intelligence. Essentially, emotional intelligence is a person's ability to recognize and manage her own emotions and the emotions of others through successful interactions. In other words, how well do you understand, empathize, and connect with the people around you? The EQ-i 2.0 evaluates your abilities on five composite scales and fifteen subscales to give you an in-depth look at yourself across a variety of situations. While you may have little control over your level of traditional intelligence, you can work to develop your emotional intelligence. And research has demonstrated that emotional intelligence is a better indicator of success in the workplace than traditional intelligence. All the more reason to work on it!

So which test should you take? It depends. With clients who haven't done a lot of introspection, I like to begin with the MBTI. With the MBTI results the client can focus on how to stretch and balance their personality. EQ is a bit more complex, so I use that with clients who have already spent a good deal of time working on self improvement. For the clients that really want to make growth and change in their lives, I use both. While that may seem like a lot to some individuals, I like as much information to go on as possible. You may try the MBTI now, and the EQ-i 2.0 a little later in the coaching process. Clients rarely find that they didn't gain anything from the assessment process. 

You can take these assessments online, but working with a coach to interpret and apply these results gives you a whole other level of value from those tools. A coach can help you to apply this information to your personal strategic plan to help you live your life with purpose. With introspective work, it's helpful to have someone "outside" to process the results with.

BCG offers these assessments in the context of coaching or just for your own informational purposes. Visit our marketplace to set up your personal assessment today: http://baumanconsultinggroup.com/marketplace.

This post is the third in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.