Become a Stronger Leader Through Self-Awareness
As a small business owner, you wear many hats and juggle countless responsibilities daily. Strong leadership is critical to your company's success, from managing employees to handling finances to keeping customers happy. But what makes a truly effective leader? While there are many qualities that great leaders possess, one that is often overlooked is self-awareness. An in-depth understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, communication styles, and natural tendencies cannot only help you maximize your potential but also empower you to unlock your ability to inspire and motivate others.
Two tools that can provide you with invaluable self-knowledge are the DISC assessment and the Kolbe assessment. In this article, we’ll break each down so you’ll understand how to use these self-awareness tools to improve your leadership skills. Let’s start with the DISC assessment.
The DISC Assessment: Understanding Your Communication Style
The DISC assessment helps you understand your behavioral styles and preferences. It is based on psychologist William Marston, who categorized behavior into four main styles: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The assessment is typically taken online and consists of questions asking you to choose statements that best describe your behaviors in various situations.
The assessment analyzes your responses and provides a detailed report outlining your dominant behavioral traits. It categorizes you into one or more of the four behavior types, highlighting your strengths, communication style, and potential areas for development. This information can be valuable for understanding how your behavior impacts your interactions with others.
Here’s what each type indicates:
Dominance. If you score high in the Dominance dimension, you are likely direct, results-oriented, and willing to challenge the status quo. As a leader, this can help you stay focused on goals and drive your team to achieve them. However, you may also need to be more patient and consider others' perspectives.
Influence. A high score in Influence indicates that you tend to be persuasive, enthusiastic, and socially confident. These strengths can help you inspire and motivate your employees. However, you should be mindful of not being seen as overly talkative or lacking focus.
Steadiness. If Steadiness is your primary dimension, you are likely patient, calm, and excellent at building relationships. As a leader, these qualities can foster loyalty and help you support your team. However, you may need to push yourself to be more open to change.
Conscientiousness. Finally, those who score high in Conscientiousness tend to be detail-oriented, analytical, and good at following rules and procedures. This attention to detail is invaluable, but you should be careful not to get bogged down in minutiae and remain open to new ideas.
Taking the assessment yourself and giving it to your team members is beneficial in several ways. First, it can help you better appreciate your tendencies and how your decision-making and communication styles affect the organization. Second, it can aid you in building effective teams by identifying the behavioral strengths of team members and how they complement each other. And third, it can reduce conflict by providing insights into how individuals prefer to communicate and interact. Overall, the DISC assessment can be a valuable aid to help boost your self-awareness, leadership skills, and team dynamics, fostering a more harmonious and productive work environment.
Now that you know the DISC's purpose, let’s turn to the Kolbe assessment.
The Kolbe Assessment: Understanding Your Natural Instincts
While the DISC reveals your typical behaviors, the Kolbe assessment dives even deeper by measuring your instinctive method of operation, or "modus operandi" (M.O.). This sheds light on your natural strengths, abilities, and tendencies that you don't have to put conscious effort into. Developed by Kathy Kolbe, this assessment is based on the idea that each person has a natural way of taking action, which remains consistent throughout their life. Unlike personality assessments, which focus on behavior and emotions, the Kolbe assessment focuses on how you naturally solve problems and make decisions.
There are four key areas the Kolbe explores:
Fact Finder: How you gather and share information
Follow Thru: How you arrange and design
Quick Start: How you deal with risk and uncertainty
Implementor: How you handle space and tangibles
By understanding your Kolbe results, you know why you naturally excel in certain areas and struggle in others. For example, as a leader, if you are a high Follow Thru, you likely shine at creating efficient systems and processes. But if you are low in Quick Start, you may become paralyzed when faced with constant change. With this knowledge, you can capitalize on your strengths while finding ways to compensate for your areas of avoidance.
How does this tool help you as an entrepreneur? First, it enables you to understand your natural strengths and leverage that knowledge to improve decision-making and problem-solving. Second, assessing your team can help you increase your team’s performance by identifying each member's unique strengths and how they can work together more effectively. And third, the tool can help you reduce conflicts by providing insights into how individuals prefer to approach tasks and projects. Overall, the Kolbe assessment can be a powerful tool if you’re looking to optimize your own and your team's performance.
Leading With Self-Awareness
Now that you understand how the DISC and Kolbe assessments work, you can see how they can transform you into a more self-aware, conscious leader. Thanks to DISC, you can adapt your approach to better connect with each employee, vendor, or client when you know your typical behaviors and communication styles. And with Kolbe's deep insight into your instincts, you'll have the self-knowledge to double down on your natural gifts while shoring up your blind spots.
Perhaps most importantly, leading with this level of self-awareness allows you to understand yourself and appreciate the diversity within your team. You'll recognize that just as you have your unique combination of DISC dimensions and Kolbe instincts, each employee has their strengths, communication styles, and tendencies to contribute. Creating an environment where you validate these differences will not only empower your team but also inspire them to work together like never before, fostering a sense of inclusivity and understanding.
As a small business owner and leader, gaining deeper self-awareness through assessments like DISC and Kolbe is one of the most significant investments you can make in yourself and your company. When you commit to truly understanding your behaviors, communication styles, instincts, and innate abilities—as well as your team—you'll have the foundation to become an exceptional leader who brings out the best in yourself and others. So take the first step on your journey of self-discovery today and unlock your full potential to inspire, motivate, and drive your business toward incredible success.
How I Support You So You Can Focus on Your Business
As your trusted Business Advisor, I know how important it is for you to hone your leadership skills and build an effective team. Practical leadership skills help you develop your business but also help you avoid risk and conflict, both of which can nullify everything you’ve worked for.
That’s why I offer a Business Breakthrough Session, where we’ll analyze your company’s foundational systems to protect your business from risk and conflict. Then, we’ll put together a plan for filling in any holes so you’re free to develop yourself as a leader, grow your business, and empower your team without worrying about what could go wrong. I’m the trusted advisor you can always turn to.
Contact us today to get started.
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