Your brand and reputation, how other people see you, as opposed to how you see yourself, is a predictor of your success at work.
This is the premise of the Hogan personality assessments that suggest that people are highly subjective and not always accurate in their self -perceptions and this can derail relationships at work, especially when we are stressed, bored or uncertain. Sometimes we can judge ourselves too harshly or at other times, too kindly, inflating our capabilities compared to others.
Objective feedback on how others see you, through tools such as the Hogan Leadership Assessments, can deepen our understanding of ourselves around strengths, values and derailers. While a 360 assessment can offer feedback on how this is currently playing out at work.
At McCarthy Mentoring, we’ve seen the powerful results of using these types of tools in leadership development programs. The combined value of the data and coaching offers feedback and strategies on how to amplify or shift behaviours to improve performance.
The research and our experience shows that leadership skills can be learnt and the effectiveness of leaders can be significantly improved if you have the right information and mindset to grow.
At a seminar we attended last month by Peter Berry Consultancy on Hogan Assessments and insights for leaders, this concept was examined against predictors of the potential to get along and get ahead. The slide that stood out states ‘leadership is consequential, measurable and improvable’.
Consequential
Effective and inspiring leadership is powerful, it can change lives and nations, and every day in the organizations we work in we see leadership in all forms. A leader’s impact on performance and culture is profound, if you’ve worked with a fabulous leader or an absent one, you’ll know. Leadership drives engagement and engaged teams perform better, are more productive, have less absenteeism and less safety incidents. So how we can improve our leadership skills?
Measurable
The positive news is that leadership skills are learnable.
We all have blind spots, or biases that are unknown to us, but apparent to others. We mostly judge ourselves on our intent, not on our impact on others and this is where things unravel. Feedback about your behaviour and an awareness of how you appear at work, gives you the opportunity to change. A common blindspot for executives is not listening. You might rationalize this behavior because you’re busy and you have lots of competing demands on your time, but the impact on others is that they don’t feel heard, valued and you may be missing important information and perspectives. Prioritising listening to your team, speaking last in meetings, ensuring everyone is heard is a change you can make today. The key to effective performance and productive relationships is to understand your blind spots and work to manage them.
So, what does good like and what behaviours do we need to amplify?
Effective leaders need to do four things well: they need to manage themselves well, work well with others, deliver results and think about the future opportunities and risks for their organization and industry.
Improvable
Most people aren’t naturally talented at all four, but good leaders are good learners, so think about how you’re performing now and what do you need to change? What behaviours can you dial up or down? What’s holding you back?
For example, we work with many engineers, scientists, accountant and lawyers. Highly educated professionals who are technical experts and at mid-career stage often need to decide whether they will manage teams or remain an expert, working more independently. This can be a tough but rewarding transition and if they move into a leadership role they need to build a different set of skills to perform well.
As a leader your success is measured by your team’s success, so setting goals, listening to others, leveraging their skills, developing the team, being calm and dependable and shielding them from opposition, noise and interference is your key job.
As we move into 2025 what’s the impact you want to have on your team and organisation?
• Do you have KPIs for leadership?
• What does a good year look like for you?
Measurement is an important first step, it’s like stepping on the scales, we can all tell ourselves that we are near our goal weight, but data doesn’t lie, so embrace the feedback and set some goals.
If a 360 Assessment is not for you then ask a trusted friend or colleague these four questions and I’m confident there will be valuable insights for you to shape some professional development goals.
1. How do I handle stress?
2. Am I a good listener?
3. How do I lead others?
4. What change could I make to improve my leadership effectiveness?
McCarthy Mentoring has accreditation in the Hogan Assessment tools and uses the LFS and 360 tools in all its leadership programs.
