This paper highlights the results from management assessment indicating personal strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style. The personal evaluation was meant to provide a personalized self-awareness pertinent to the management of business operations and different teams as a leader at the workplace. The purpose of the process was to enhance self-improvement as a manager in the areas of weaknesses.
The Business Environment
The environment presented in the case study is fast-paced and it requires personnel with strong personalities to lead their teams through the various challenges and opportunities. The environment described is a business scenario of a large organization with many activities. It is a situation that entails the setting of ambitious but measurable business targets that challenge the employees to perform in their respective roles. The ideal employees should be able to set their goals and be guided by them. It, therefore, requires the relevant personnel to organize themselves and be ready to deliver high quality services for the organization.
The company requires employees to think critically and find ways to overcome difficult situations at work. In such an environment, leaders should expect to deal with challenging business problems. It is characterized by the basic requirement of creativity to solve the problems as they occur. It necessitates personnel who can prioritize their work, are flexible and adequately aggressive, with a great desire for problem resolution.
The ideal employees in this sector can make independent decisions but they are also open to other ideas from colleagues. For a leader to thrive in this environment, they must be confident in what they do, they should understand the work and assume all the relevant responsibilities. The capability to seek opinions from other colleagues is desirable in this company since it indicates the ability of an employee to successfully work with colleagues.
A leader in this business is required to have a solid understanding of the various financial metrics that can be used to measure a company’s performance. These measures include profitability, financial ratios, and cost control. An employee in this environment, therefore, needs to be aware of these measures since they indicate how a business is performing. Any deviation from the expectations should be investigated and actions are taken as required by the role.
The appropriate leader or employee in the described role is a person who can assess the viability of opportunities considering the risks involved. The perfect personality in this role is characterized by a desire to identify new business opportunities and gauge their feasibility. That person should understand the risk and return trade-off and should be decisive when it comes to business investments. Moreover, they should not be risk-averse; conversely, they should show some passion to risk as long as there is a greater chance of success in an idea.
Leadership in the designated environment requires a person who can accommodate others, be patient with them, and deliver goals together as a team. The role needs a leader with a strong personality that others can look up to. However, the leader should have a stronger intrinsic motivation compared to the desire for external recognition by juniors or seniors. The ideal leader, therefore, finds strength from within themselves and is willing to look beyond themselves. Such leaders prefer teamwork and success to personal recognition because their power is tied to goals achievement.
Multi-tasking is a highly required capability in a company environment, such as the one defined in the case. The ideal leader should be well organized and be able to think productively even when they have multiple projects going on at the same time. It is a dynamic situation that requires the mindset of entrepreneurship to continuously solve multiple problems with almost equal importance to the company.
Personal Attributes, Strengths, and Weaknesses
The results from the management self-assessment revealed that I am highly independent but I can also ask for guidance when the situation requires me to. As a leader, I am at a stage whereby I need to stay longer in a company to solve critical problems. I am highly self-assertive and cannot be swayed into decisions that are sub-optimal for the company. I need to hold onto these principles to steer my career forward and make myself a better leader.
In terms of achievement, the results indicated that I am aggressive and that I can use available resources to achieve company goals. I desire greater challenges and consider them as opportunities to learn more about the business. I am highly motivated to achieve business goals and less interested in using company resources to get more power. These strengths can only challenge me to be more goal-oriented and focused to achieve them.
I have a strong history and experience with taking business risks, and this gives me a chance to explore viable opportunities. My desire for risk is not overrated but is reasonable since I take into consideration the possible returns for every risk. I shall capitalize on risk and returns analysis to make informed decisions that will benefit the company financially. I am highly innovative with a strong desire to solve problems in the business environment. I am encouraged when my creative ideas get recognized, and this challenges me to always reason beyond the average leader to find innovative ways of doing things. My innovation is highly pronounced in services rather than in products. I will always challenge myself to be more creative to come up with new ideas that can benefit the business.
Personal Weaknesses and how I can Minimize them
The results from the personal assessment indicated that there were some critical weaknesses that I needed to check to improve my leadership ability. For instance, I am less innovative when it comes to products compared to services. I need to train myself to be creative regardless of the business sector that a company operates in. I realized that I am eager to receive positive compliments from other people rather than having a strong sense of internal motivation. Sometimes, I also prefer to work alone and not in a team, and I am weak in multi-tasking.
The ability to deliver in a role that requires running multiple activities at the same time can be learned and developed (Schuch et al., 2019). I look forward to training my mind to be more organized and also to be more sensitive about timing to ensure that I can manage several parallel projects.
Leadership Style
The management assessment mapped my leadership style as one that is strategic and motivated by the achievement of set targets. Strategic leadership entails the application of innovation to problem resolution and targets working with teams to deliver solutions (Cortes & Herrmann, 2020). A strategic leader can monitor trends and use them as the basis for projecting or anticipating future events (Jabbar & Hussein, 2017). A strategic leader can have a positive impact on the performance of employees working under their control due to the aspect of being a role model (Zia-ud-Din et al., 2017).
I believe that if I work on the weaknesses highlighted in the results, I can become a great leader who can motivate employees to be more productive at work. As a strategic leader, I can use historic financial metrics to plan for the future and make the business more profitable. I can offer great value to the business to ensure that the company is highly competitive in the market by comparing risks and returns of new projects to find their viability.
Attributes I was not Aware of
The management assessment report has revealed critical information on my personality that I was not aware of. I have discovered personal weaknesses, such as the reluctance to take personal risks that I would not have known otherwise. I could not understand that I am more motivated by external recognition than the desire to have a strong self-drive. I have always considered myself innovative but I did not know that when it comes to physical products, I am not as creative as I could be in the line of service provision. I have realized that I have some suitable strengths relevant to a fast-moving environment.
I now understand that I am goal-oriented and innovative and can make important decisions to solve business problems. However, I need to improve on two main areas of focus: intrinsic motivation and the ability to multi-task. In conclusion, the assessment has enabled me to be more self-aware in terms of my strengths, weaknesses, and leadership style. I intend to use the information I have gathered though this test to improve my leadership ability.
References
Cortes, A. F., & Herrmann, P. (2020). Strategic leadership of innovation: A framework for future research. International Journal of Management Reviews. Web.
Jabbar, A. A., & Hussein, A. M. (2017). The role of leadership in strategic management. International Journal of Research-Granthaalayah, 5(5), 99-106. Web.
Schuch, S., Dignath, D., Steinhauser, M., & Janczyk, M. (2019). Monitoring and control in multitasking. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(1), 222-240. Web.
Zia-ud-Din, M., Shabbir, M. A., Asif, S. B., Bilal, M., & Raza, M. (2017). Impact of strategic leadership on employee performance. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(6), 8-22. Web.