A Leadership Skills Analysis:
The Chance To Grow!

Leadership Skills Analysis - it can strike fear in the hearts of many! "What if I'm found wanting?" is the fear most of us have ...

Let's be real ... who wants to have themselves held up against the laundry list of leadership competencies that many organizations seem to love to fill their performance appraisals with! (Take a quick peek at the 50+ most popular leadership skills in my clients Performance Appraisals then come on back - to read this article and watch the video at the bottom of the page).

Instead take it is an awesome opportunity to breakthrough to another level of success.

View it as an opportunity for you to gain increased self-awareness ... the cornerstone capability of any great leader. With increased self-awareness and designing your life with deliberate intent you live and lead in a powerful and compelling way.

During a Leadership Skills Assessment/Analysis you may be able to discover:

1. How you want to lead (the best way to do this is through personal mission development)
2. The type of leader you want to learn from (and can learn best from)
3. Your strengths
4. Your weaknesses
5. How you want to continue to grow as an individual and as a leader

Here's a link to some leadership assessment tools that you like to use in your Leadership Skills Analysis. But before you go there, please make sure you read the rest of the page to avoid the trap many people and organizations make.

During Your Leadership Skills Analysis ...
      Don't try to fix your weaknesses!

Debate has raged over whether leadership is innate or whether it can be learnt. It's now widely accepted that leadership can be learned and managers can be transformed into leaders through training and development.

Certainly there's a series of characteristics and qualities of good leadership that are widely accepted as being important for success. Yet the latest research show that you don't have to be terrific at all of these to be a successful leader.

If you are lacking in some of these skills, the reality is you won't be "fixed" by being sent off on a leadership development programme. Training doesn't stick!

During your Leadership Skills Analysis ...
      Discover your Strengths!

If you would like to emulate the most successful people you'll do well to read Now Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton.

This book is based on years of research conducted by the Gallup Organization. The research conclusively shows that when you focus on enhancing your strengths whilst applying damage control to your weaknesses you will transform yourself and your organisation.

"Now Discover Your Strengths" gives you a powerful and accurate way to discover your strengths. A terrific bonus is that when you purchase the book you receive a personal access code to their web-site that allows you to take the StengthsFinder questionnaire - this allows you to discover your own top-five innate talents.

The book also provides a practical 'how-to' for developing a strengths-based organization. If your organization is dedicated to high performance you'll do well to review and then modify your leadership assessment and development program to reflect the information contained within this book.

Possibly you are working in an organization that still operates with the old-style thinking: for you to be an excellent performer you must excel in all areas. Therefore, you may need to introduce this information to people who are responsible for designing your leadership development program, so you don't waste your previous time on trying to build expertise at everything.

Certainly you must spend time in skills analysis and assessment so that you can identify your strength areas and highlight those areas of weakness that could cause you to crash and burn. But don't expect to become an expert in those areas in which you are weak.

Develop Strategies and Systems to Develop Your Strengths and Work Around Your Weaknesses

A well grounded leadership assessment and development program will enable you and your people to use, grow and develop your innate skills, talents, abilities. Your program should help you to put in place strategies and systems to enable you to work around any weaknesses that cause you to perform at a less than excellent level.

I hope you enjoy this video from Marcus Buckingham as he introduces how he came to be so passionate about the Strengths movement.

Following your leadership skills analysis it will be time for you to decide how you wish to develop your capability. Being a member at the Align Lead Inspire Club gives you many options to develop your capability.