Measure your leadership level

Measure your leadership level

Leadership is complex. After 100-years of academic research on the topic, there is still no consensus on the critical qualities of effective executives despite a steady increase in resources dedicated to interventions designed to enhance leadership effectiveness.

Spending on leadership selection and development has steadily increased over the last 15 years but, sadly, the majority of people report declining confidence in leaders.

In a recent HBR survey, “managers rating themselves inspiring” was 86% while “employee rating their manager inspiring” was 18%!

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Leadership development is increasingly one of the top concerns for the organizations.

Moreover, recent changes in the workplace, driven by technological disruption, have forced organizations to rethink what makes someone successful when it comes to spearheading large organizations, because the leadership qualities that worked in the past may no longer be relevant in the future.

It is therefore less critical to focus on past achievements and expertise, than on future capabilities: Potential, is the new performance.

Accordingly, improving the state of leadership selection will require opting for a more scientific, evidence-based approach provided by Psychometric, behavioural and psychological science assessment.

A new selection model that requires new competences and new approaches.

Leaders are not only the executives or senior roles, the leader is the one who leads people driven by the right motivation and has a positive impact on the people around him or her.

Anyone who is charged with leading people and has the right level of empowerment has the opportunity to play an important role in the puzzle of the organization.

The leader’s expectations and abilities can be many:

1.????Build Relationships

• Establish connections with others to build trust, share ideas and accomplish work.

2.????Develop People

• Help others become more effective by developing their strengths, providing clear expectations and encouraging and coaching them.

3.????lnspire Others

• Encourage others through positivity, vision, confidence, challenge and recognition.

4.????Communicate Clearly

• Listen, share information concisely and with purpose, and be open to hearing opinions.

5.????Create Accountability

• Identify the consequences of actions and hold yourself and others responsible for performance.

6.????Lead Change

• Recognize that change is essential, set goals for change and lead purposeful efforts to adapt work that aligns with the strategic vision.

7.????Think Critically

• Seek information, critically evaluate the information, apply the knowledge gained and salve problems.

With the exception of the last point, that is part of the cognitive ability, this list of expectations finds in the emotional intelligence its foundation.

It does not mean the cognitive aspect is not important!

The ability to make inferences, assumptions, deductions, interpreting information… are fundamentals for a leader and statistically involve only 50% of the persons…

This make crucial the cognitive assessment!

However, in this article we focus more on the emotional side and one of the characteristics, which more than others in the last few years, is getting a lot of attention as enabler of solid and profitable relations in the organization.

We are referring to the Humility and Honesty (the “H” factor) personal characteristic.

Persons with very high scores on the Honesty-Humility scale:

• avoid manipulating or deceiving people
• do not cheat or feel entitled to take advantage of people
• feel little temptation to break rules
• are much more likely to prioritize ethics over mere interest

An important benefit of being high in H is that they treat people fairly, securing the benefits of future cooperation with others, because of the trust established

The person with low H, on the other hand, undermines the goodwill of others, thus losing their cooperation and even causing them to retaliate. In addition, people with very low scores on this scale will flatter others to get what they want, are prone to break rules for personal gain, are motivated by material gain, and feel a strong sense of self-worth.

Measure the “H” factor requires the correct and advanced tools designed to include this new personality trait.

Measure your leadership level

The relation between the emotional intelligence, the H factor and leveraging the 5 level of leadership model, provide our level of leadership.

We do not enter in the details of this model and for the purpose of this article, we stay with the explanations described in the diagram.

The self-assessment of the two dimensions is quite difficult and could be influenced by biases and misperceptions.

We can try to do it on our own or enlist the support of a psychologist who can handle psychometric instruments and has work experience!

But let's start doing it ourselves!

Evaluate your emotional intelligence following the seven expectations listed at the beginning and try to rate yourself on the left side of the diagram.

Then start drawing the line to your estimated H factor, based on the characteristics described. Sometime can be painful, but accepting ourselves is crucial! So be honest!

Then do that again re-evaluating yourself or draw the line from where you would like to be, and see how your leadership level will change accordingly.

You can also ask to colleague or persons who knows you, to rate your emotional and H factor and then draw the line. ?

The persons you select cannot be one of your direct report but persons you trust, know you and do not have reason to lie.

Are you satisfied with the result?

Are your results and those of the people involved similar?

Do you want to improve your level of leadership?

Are you ready to change?

Obviously, this is not a scientific approach, for which you need a trained psychologist with work-related experience, but this could be an opportunity to do some self-reflection on your professional goals and personal emotional resources.

Changes in self-assessment can result in a significant difference in leadership level, which means that the importance of the two dimensions is critical to be successful in one's leadership role or goal.

How can we improve our level of leadership?

“Know thyself” Socrate

It all starts with knowing ourselves and assessing our self-leadership, the ability to guide our lives!

Without knowing who we are, it is highly unlikely to be a leader for anyone.

Many of us would like to be a leader but very few will succeed.

The competition is high. Like every competition, it requires some training based on the level of the organization.

The initial training is focused at look yourself deep inside; understand what works “well” and what requires a reprogramming.

Like a computer, we think and act based on our operative system.

Created mainly when we were young, built on our belief, value, culture, prejudice,….and expressed by our emotions, that address 70 to 90% of our decision making and then actions.

There are people that by attitude and personal characteristics (their operative system) have an advantage, but competition is high and success is rarely the result of predestination or fate.

Without starting a self-analyses and improving journey, the success can turn into great failure and distress.

The work environment is full of stories of failure.

Excessive criticism is often the result of a person's failure to find his space and achieve his professional goal and self-esteem in the organization.

Moreover, he has not yet understood the reason for his failure, and the criticism is a manifestation of this.

It is not a question of right or wrong, the world is not always right (whatever right means), the question is whether we are right or wrong for a specific organization and culture. It does not mean that the "wrong environment" can survive for long, but we cannot be like Don Quixote, a bewildered Spanish knight fighting windmills like a hero!

This open another important topic about the importance of the culture in the organization but it would require a specific focus.