Self-Assessment Analysis
Introduction
Self-assessment is a very crucial factor in the life of each individual. This is because it provides insights into an individual’s comprehension and perception of a particular aspect of life. In the past, it was challenging to do self-assessment because the tools for this task had not been model. It is currently easy to perform self-assessment since several tools have been designed to measure several aspects of people’s lives. This study will explore three self-assessment tools: Myers Briggs Profile, Costa & McCrae Big 5 Personality Traits, and McClelland Analysis. These tools are powerful and play a significant role in our lives as they allow us to identify our strengths and weaknesses.
Review of my findings
The big five personality traits tool is a respected model constructed to measure extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect. I used the tool, and my results were high for extraversion, intellect, and conscientiousness. However, they were low for agreeableness and emotional stability. Myers Briggs profile is another respected model. It measures extraversion, sensing ability, thinking, and judgment (Lloyd, 2012, pg. 28). I also used the tool to self-assess myself, and the results were high for judgment and extraversion but low for sensing and thinking. McClelland’s analysis model was the last method I used to rate my personality. The tool assesses an individual based on achievement, affiliation, and power. My result based on this tool was high on achievement, followed by affiliation, and lastly, power. It is clear that the tools help individuals identify their strengths and weaknesses so that they can improve in their weak areas.
In the big five personality traits tool, the conscientiousness category surprised me. This is because McShane revealed that such trait, “Characterize people who are careful, goal-focused, organized and self-disciplined” (46), and my results were high for this factor. However, I do not see this trait in my daily life because I am a person who does not set goals before I perform tasks. Therefore, being orderly is a bit problematic for me. For instance, I do not plan my activities during school days I approach the day without any plan but organize myself based on the free times I have since the school’s schedule of events controls a larger part of the day. I was quite happy with high intellect results. Intellect is a crucial factor that every individual wish to have. With intellect, you systematically approach ideas and any event and make precise conclusions (Mischel, 2013, pg. 40). Therefore, being rated high in intellect was something to be proud of since it will help both in my academic life and in my future career.
According to Isabel Briggs Myers and her mother (Myers, 2016, pg. 5), sixteen types of personalities exist. These traits are considered in the Myers-Brigs type indicator. However, the results are presented extrovert, sensing, judging, and thinking in the Human metrics Jung typology test. My results in this test were high for judging and extrovert and low for sensing and thinking. The traits are measured in percentage terms of which the opposite of each trait is considered, that is, the trait is split between 100 at one end and 100 at the other. For instance, in my case, the extrovert trait was 22%, which means that I am 78% introvert. The results of this tool are of significant importance since they help individuals identify areas that need improvement. In my case, the tool rated by thinking capability as 10% and therefore, this is the area that I need to improve so that it may help me in my future work as many jobs require people who can think and see an opportunity in areas that their competitors do not see.
Critical analysis of the topics
Self-assessment tools play a crucial role in helping us to identify our personalities. People have different personalities, and all affect the way we interact with other people. Myers Briggs Profile, Costa & McCrae Big 5 Personality Traits, and McClelland Analysis tools are used to carry out personality assessments. The results provided by the tools are the reflection of our personalities. It is crucial to understand the kind of personalities that exists in us as they influence how we relate with others and discharge our duties at our workplaces. For instance, I would like to be the CEO of Amazon in the future. Amazon is the world’s largest organization, with hundreds of thousands of employees and deals with enormous activities daily. As a leader in this organization, my leadership skills need to be robust. The self-assessment tools are therefore important in helping me to identify my attitude, values emotions motivation and personality so that I may refine both my leadership and managerial skills to meet the thresholds for the Amazon’s CEO.
In order to succeed in managing a large company like Amazon, it is essential to know the personality make-up of the workforce. Self-assessment tools are designed to reveal people’s personalities. For instance, the big five personality traits tool was modelled through the traits theory of personality. The theory was narrowed down to “big” five after the researchers agreed that five major factors are influencing the personality trait of an individual (Stajkovic, 2018, pg. 240). Through this tool, I learnt that people could be both extroverted and not much introverts. Therefore, when I achieve my goal of becoming a CEO of Amazon, I would not be shocked to see a person whose character occasionally changes from silent to vocal. Sometimes, such people can be misunderstood as not having a specific stand on an idea. However, this does not have an impact on their judging and thinking capacities.
Self-assessment tools provide a means we can identify our abilities. A manager or a leader in any position of the career needs to be aware of his/her abilities. This will help him/her to identify the gaps that exist in his/her managerial skills. When leaders identify their management gaps, it is easy for them to develop skills which will aid in their decision making, stress management and motivation of oneself and their subjects. As the aspiring CEO of Amazon company, I believe that the self-assessment tools would shape me to be able to lead the company to significant success. Smooth run of the large company such as Amazon requires best decision-making processes. Through these self-assessment tools, I will be able to exploit my strengths and weaknesses, thus making me to be productive in decision making.
As self-awareness tools help us to identify our personality, values, habits, needs and emotions, it would easy to control ourselves in a workplace to display a professional image. It is worth noting that people have different personality traits and behavioural styles. However, in the workplace, employees are required to portray professional behaviour so that these varying behavioural styles may not lead to conflict. Emotional self-awareness is another crucial factor that attracts attention in both small and large corporations. This is because emotions affect our thoughts and actions. When employees are working together, at one point, one employee may stumble at hit another in the process. If the other employee is not aware of his/her feelings, it would be difficult for him/her to control oneself, and it can breed discord which is not professional value. Therefore, as a manager, I would apply the emotional awareness in my leadership and to train my subjects to have emotional intelligence.
Recommendations
Self-assessment tools are essential in promoting a better workplace environment. I recommend them to be used in any organization, both small and large. Such organizations comprise of people with different values, attitudes and personalities. For instants, some get hurt easily or those that have mood swings. It is worth noting that the self-assessment tools capture these factors, and if the workforce uses these tools, they will understand themselves and therefore, it will be easy for them to control them. Thus they will be able to maintain professional relationships among themselves in the workplace. Leaders at the workplace need to understand the personalities of their subjects so that they may know how to supervise them. This will enable leaders to relate well with the employees and promote a good relationship among the employees. Thus enabling a company or an organization to its long-term and short-term goals.
Moreover, through these tools, I was able to learn that I do not use the power of thinking in approaching a problem, and therefore, this is the area I need to work on. However, my results were high for achievement. It is evident that the tools helped me to identify my strengths and weakness, and therefore, I will need to improve on that weakness so that they may not affect me in capitalizing on life opportunities. Self-assessment is suitable for use in health facilities, especially those that provide psychological counselling. However, the inventors of these tools need to address the challenges of their tools based on the critics raised so that they may be universally accepted. More research needs to be done to ensure that self-assessment tools provide results that are the actual personalities of the people based on the data fed to them—thus increasing their use in various institutions.
Conclusion
Self-awareness is an essential factor in our day to day activities. Much of these activities involve interactions with people with different habits, emotions, personality traits and behavioural styles. All these characteristics affect our thoughts and reactions. In the event that people are not aware of such characteristics, it would be difficult for them to relate well with others. In the workplace, the employees are required to work in teams to address a particular task. Within a team, everybody has a different idea on how to perform the task and therefore, without emotional intelligence, it would be difficult for them to work effectively. Therefore, self-awareness is an important factor that benefits both managers and workers in their work.
References
Lloyd, J.B., 2012. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and mainstream psychology: analysis and evaluation of an unresolved hostility. Journal of Beliefs & Values, 33(1), pp.23-34.
McShane, S., and Von Glinow, M.A., 2010. Organizational behaviour: Emerging knowledge and practice for the real world. McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
Mischel, W., 2013. Personality and assessment. Psychology Press.
Myers, S., 2016. Myers‐Briggs typology and Jungian individuation. Journal of analytical psychology, 61(3), pp.289-308.
Stajkovic, A.D., Bandura, A., Locke, E.A., Lee, D., and Sergent, K., 2018. Test of three conceptual models of the influence of the big five personality traits and self-efficacy on academic performance: A meta-analytic path analysis. Personality and individual differences, 120, pp.238-245.