Final Post

One of the interesting subjects for me was the topic of intuition and confirmation bias. We have all had right and wrong intuitions in different matters, but we have to be careful not to make decisions solely based on our instincts. It’s amazing that how as rational beings we make many of our judgments based on our feelings, and any evidence that supports our hunches seems credible to us automatically, as we tend to ignore any contradictory evidence. For instance, If we have a good feeling about a new system, a project or even our personal relationships, even if we get warning signs of early troubles, we usually tend to interpret the evidence in our favor and pretend like everything’s going well. A wrong intuition and overconfidence in our feelings can lead to erroneous decisions.

My favorite book was Drive by Daniel Pink. The subject of motivation is always engaging to me since being motivated to enjoy my job is a constant problem for me. I get tired of any job and task easily. Even an activity that I consider my favorite hobby at one point, will become a nuisance after some time. The introduction of this book prompted me to read the related article in the Reader more closely. What I liked about the book was dividing intrinsic motivation into three elements of autonomy, mastery and purpose. I believe at least one of these three elements was missing in all the jobs I’ve held in the past few years. Whenever I liked the task in my job, due to the supervisors' micromanagement, I didn’t have enough autonomy to perform the task the way I wanted, . When I was working as a computer programmer, I had the autonomy and purpose, but unfortunately didn’t see the capacity in myself to improve - and without enough motivation I left the field of computer science indefinitely.

The Final Post

Be honest with you, I did not think leadership skill is that important and hard to obtain before I took the class. However, through many activities, books, and lectures, I began to grasp the essentials of leadership. My deepest internal feeling about this topic/ skill is that leadership is everywhere in our lives. If we spend time carefully to examine things around us, we can find leadership is everywhere. Without the ability to recognize its existence, people would have a meaningfulness life. I like this leadership development class not only because it helps me define my personal mission, value, and goals but also it helps me realize the importance of caring others with your heart and love.

I like to thank Dr. Johnson for providing us with many wonderful activities and lectures to help each of us developing our leadership skill. I learned many great principles underlie the activities designed by Dr. Johnson. People learned things through experiences instead of pure equations and principles from textbooks. I like all the activities designed by Dr. Johnson.

As for the book, I like to recommend one called Multiplier. This book helps you define clearly about who is a multiplier and who is a diminisher. Multipliers have characteristics of helping others, listening to others, and caring for others. These multipliers receive way more benefits than they actually give away to people who need help. It is a very interesting book to read. Hopefully, you would enjoy reading the book.

Good Luck to all of you and have a wonderful life ~~

Final Post

The reading that I found most interesting and useful was “How to manage your boss”. The topic of “managing up” was really interesting and definitely something I have observed but never paid close attention to or attempted to do myself. The reading came at a crucial time for me because I just got a new boss. My new boss is completely different from my other boss and I wasn’t quite sure how to “manage” the relationship. My old boss was very detail oriented and put everything into lengthy emails, as her primary form of communication. My new boss, is a male, and sis much more concerned with “big picture” results / problems and less concerned with whether I had a bad day or not. He also prefers to communicate in person, and constantly asks me to “remind him later” about issues I bring up. This was an adjustment for me and I was reluctant to have to adapt to his style. However the article showed me this is critical to having a successful relationship with your boss, not just for me personally but for the organization as a whole to function efficiently. I was able to point out the differences in his style and personality and adapt my behavior accordingly.

The book I found the most interesting was “Drive” by Daniel Pink. This book really spoke to me about motivation and made me realize that it is important to find out what motivates you and why. I still am trying to figure out “my sentence” and I think I am getting there. The book (presentation) also made me start to think that it is important to make every day count. To continually improve, and think about your actions and the how and why of what you do. I do feel like I get stuck in going through the motions, just waiting to get off work and waiting for the weekends to come. I am hoping to purchase and read the book after this semester because I felt the material is valuable. Also in a previous posting I mentioned that I am extrinsically motivated, and I would like to work on my intrinsic motivation. This book seems like it will help me to do that.

One book that I have read that I think is really important, but it may not be appropriate for the class as a whole since it is for women, is “Nice Girls Don’t get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make to Sabotage Their Careers”. This book definitely relates to our leadership class particularly for women in “observing” yourself and how you act, dress, talk; overall impression management. The author makes the argument that women engage in their own self-defeating behavior that prevents them from moving ahead at work. For example; smiling too much, being overly apologetic, taking on additional tasks all the time. The author discusses how women should act in meetings (power positions etc.) and even gets down to personal appearance: dress, too much makeup, not enough make-up , too much flashy jewelry, age-appropriate hairstyles. This book was really important for me because the author talks about how we are raised to be “nice girls” and that acting too “nice” all the time at work and engaging in demeaning behavior gives the impression that you are not a good fit for higher positions. The author lists in 101 mistakes and even though most women do not engage in all of them I think that a lot of women, including myself, make at least about 1/3 of the mistakes at some point or another. It is a great book with valuable insight and I recommend it to all my friends.

The Final Blog

The Final Blog= It is Just the Beginning

Why I chose This Course
Walking into this leadership course I was cynical about the possibilities and benefits of this class. I had very specific questions and a deep desire to learn about theoretical, academic leadership. Yet my limitation was my inability to see how the course generalities and possibilities could develop my “own” personal leadership style. I focused so much on the 30,000 foot flight above it all, that I found trouble landing my plane in the moment of the” here and now.”

My Personal Road Block
My cynicism and sharp criticism kept me from information processing on a relational level; meaning I had little value or understanding of the simplistic, applied view of leadership presented in class. I added this course because essentially I was captivated by the theory of leadership and not the practice of leadership. I guess you might say that I was looking for the theoretical approach to explaining leadership complexities and not how to implement them. My personal failure was that I did not see myself as a leader although in many many ways I was. Now that I think of it, it was ignorant on my part not to think of myself as a leader, when I was responsible for the total operation of a bookstore that paid my mortgage and put food on my children’s table. I am not sure how much more of a “bread and butter” leadership issue that could be.

What I Learned
Thankfully I learned from the course that there are many ways to finish the sentence “Leadership is…” I learned leadership could be viewed subjectively because the definition of leadership is as fickle as the type of people drawn to leadership roles. Throughout the semester we engaged in innocuous activities which evolved the leadership process. Each week, each activity, we found linkages and connections that allowed us to define our “own” personal interpretation of leadership. Dr. Johnson acted as both a guide and a facilitator of leadership in action. Thank you Dr. Johnson.


Memorable Activity
My most memorable class activity was choosing survival tools. I enjoyed the activity because it called upon my role as an influence and motivator. Having a medical background allowed me to call on my previous learning and not behave callously.

What Books Would I Suggest?
Bookstore shelves are filled with popular books about leaders and everyone I meet is mesmerized by the idea of leadership. Just a few weeks ago I left the book, Leadership Defined, published by Insight Publishing, (ISBN 0970620861) on a table at the Fourth Street Café and it was picked up in under five minutes. I strategically placed the book on a table and watched from a distance as five individuals timidly thumbed through the table of contents. Finally one last individual, overcome with interest, came along and just procured the book thinking no one would notice.
This is a silly but thought-provoking marketing gimmick that I use when deciding which hot sellers might work well in my bookstore inventory. I can’t tell you how many books people believe they have stolen from me, when in fact they have been considered by my business as advertising tax deductions.

I stumbled across an excellent read, Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way, (ISBN 0735203245) and fell madly in love with a stunning woman who loved America deeply. For me Eleanor Roosevelt transformed the world with her leadership and weaved her story into empowerment and goal setting. I can’t think of any other woman singularly that I respect and admire more. It’s Your Time, (ISBN 978 1439100127) by Joel Osteen is a magnificent warm holiday re-read for those of you who don’t mind the religious focus or tone. I enjoy that he uses practical tools for moving forward and realizing one’s dreams. Now how could I forget, Why We Make Mistakes, by Joseph Hallinan, (ISBN 9780767925052) I could not put the book down for lack of a better word. The book takes an interesting stab at how most of us desire and believe that we are more than average. This premise is researched and connected to both our strengths and weaknesses. In conclusion the class is a valuable addition to the MBA curriculum for anyone who is insightful enough to want to discover the tools to empower themselves.

Final Blog Topic

We've reached the end of this part of your leadership journey - and hopefully you are ready to continue on your own! In this posting, please write about what activity, topic, or reading you found the most interesting and useful. It may be interesting to see how others saw the class and what they found of value.

Also, please briefly describe which book - other than your own - you think was most useful to learn about and if you know of other books that you think would be useful for a future class, please provide the title!

Blog Topic #7 Perceptions

Just fill in the blanks
Every ethnic group is plagued by inaccurate stereotypes. First things first, let’s be real honest about one thing: we all stereotype. For example, say you’re running late to attend a conference and you get lost. You see two groups of people walking by in the hallway. Who would you rather stop to ask for directions to the conference? Most you ask directions from someone who looks like you. One benefit stereotyping has is to simplify our lives by helping us make split-second choices. It’s snap mental shorthand for making decisions. When you have run out of the necessary time to make an educated decision about something you rely on stereotypes to fill in the missing ingredients; in this case it is information.
Our classroom activity regarding two truths and one lie played into this very concept of snap judgment. From an evolutionary viewpoint, a bias toward the negative makes perfect sense. When we see a warning sign in something we are unfamiliar with, we learn and remember what is safe from what is unsafe. Science has shown that people are able to pick an angry face out of a crowd of happy faces faster than selecting a happy face out of a crowd of angry faces. As a means of self-protection we want to be alerted to danger so that we are primed for action.
When I told my lie I primed and laced it with a grain of truth, and used the stereotype of class and ethnicity in my favor. I peppered my lie with the belief that African American women are always angry, and if given an appropriate opportunity can react violently.
So stereotypes can work as an advantage for those who understand how to use them as a competitive advantage. A “stereotype" simply is a generalization about a person or group that we know very little about. In the case of the classroom activity we were perfect candidates because we knew little about each other; outside of the visual obvious. We cultivate stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. When the "total picture,” is missing stereotypes in many cases allow us to "fill in the blanks."
Yes, I have worked as a nurse and statistically patients are more likely to injure nurses as opposed to nurses injuring patients.

Roles and Leadership

I would say that my leadership style is always changing depending on what situation I am in. In the classroom, I tend to sit back more often than not because I feel that others in the class have more real-life experience than I do in the business world. In my fraternity I am constantly taking leadership positions. I am very well known and have been around for awhile, so people respect my opinion and take what I say seriously. I am usually a different leader depending on what group it is since each situation requires me to act differently. This past weekend I went to Southern California and stayed with my family for a little bit. Even in my family my leadership style changes. When I am with my parents I would say that I always fall right back into the middle son role. But depending on the situation, I can break out of that mold a little bit. My dad was a police officer and doesn't know nearly as much as I do about business, sports, and a variety of other things so I often speak out on more topics now that I have the knowledge.

Power Blogging Topic #6

Power is such a loaded word…Often the word communicates images of something negative or harmful. Yet in a broad and simple expression, power means having the capacity to bring about change. Power can take on many forms, and take place in many places, and can be measured in many ways. It is not as simple as saying; power is who has it and who doesn’t. Examining the strict meaning of power I would say, yes I do have the capacity to bring about change. Yes, I have brought about change. In many ways through self discovery and self development I am seeking to change my leadership style from coercive to participative. I am seeking to create change by developing a working environment which “espirt de corps” is in effect. This kind of power is considered integrative power in which neither force nor trade is going on; instead the organization operates with agreed-upon rules and expectations.
These agreed upon rules or expectations are created in agreement because each member is on board for a common agenda. This kind of integrative power not only relies on action but action in concert.
As we discussed in class powerful looks, poses or dress are superficial at best and in time become transparent revealing a lack of real essence. I have spent too many years of my life watching superficial leaders come and go, I am ready for change and that change can only be guaranteed if I am that change.

Blog Post #9 :A rEaL uPsIDE dOwN DeAl

A rEaL uPsIDE dOwN DeAl
Years ago I remember a patient that I cared for who was diagnosed with the big C, Cancer. She was a rather bright and beautiful graduate student at the University of Wyoming and she had a promising future ahead of her. She was a quick witted sporty intellectual, who had a “can do anything” attitude. Her smile was invigorating and refreshing; no one could look her and not want to return the smile. Her intellectual capacity was many light years ahead of her 20 year old vibrant spirit. If you were to describe her in terms of a color she would be bright eye shocking red. If you were to describe her in terms of a car she would be a sporty Mini Cooper. The only problem was she was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma a rare, rapidly growing, highly invasive variety of cancer. It is a blood-fed cancer; meaning, blood vessels grow directly into the tumor and it is typically filled with blood. A frequent cause of death is the rupturing of this tumor, causing the victim to rapidly bleed to death. We all knew that she was not able to leave the hospital alive and irrationally, she oddly was okay with that, almost at peace with that.
The most irrational part of the entire ordeal was how insistent she was on taking her final exams.
She requested that each instructor come to her hospital room with the final exam in tow and allow her the prescribed time to take the exam. The entire staff was uneasy about her request but this was her last dying wish.
We have all put aside what comes natural, what feels comfortable and easy in favor of something which is the exact opposite. As a pessimist I am optimistic that one day my belief in the goodness and wholesomeness of mankind will change. But so far the insidious Christmas time robberies leave me somewhat questioning. We say that we don’t discriminate but we do unintentionally. We have preferences about ourselves, our tribes, our groups, our clubs, our beliefs and our chosen way of life. I can’t tell you how many times I have sat down, at the Fourth Street Café, staring at people whom I believe different from me wondering why they say and do the things that they do.
We irrationally anchor: Ask someone if they believe their sudden weight gain has a direct correlation with the Thanksgiving feast that they just consumed. Why wouldn’t the fact that an excessive caloric intake prior to Thanksgiving come into mind? Ask someone if a lucky charm really has the ability to change individuals luck and they will most likely respond with a yes.
Call this irrational or is it just a rational way of understanding the world.
We irrationally see patterns where none exist: Try to persuade a basketball player, fan, or statistician that there isn't anything to the idea of shooting streak. Try convincing him that it is all random luck. Chances are it won’t be that convincing.
...such "mind bugs" extend to the beliefs and preferences we have about ourselves and others.

Leadership Style

Happily I am able to operate a seasonal bookstore which I am able to close during the last month of November through December. The bookstore is a family owned and operated bookstore whereby I find myself using command-and-control leadership as the primary management style. We began as small operation with less than 200 customers, two years later we serve over 1000 loyal customers. Our survival demanded strict consistency and conformity to customer specifications because we were a new bookstore to a saturated bookseller marketplace.
During our infancy our staff was small and inefficient and it was vital to motivate and instruct our staff to climb up a steep business learning curve in order to remain profitable and efficient. Each employee was taught one simple operational task and not allowed to crossover due to fear of inconsistency and irregularity falling outside of customer requirements. The tasks became so narrow that all workers were adverse to change or transformation even when change meant increased productivity. Because my employees are family members my leadership style changes rarely which at times can become draining.
Although we have grown and our job duties have expanded and grown I still sometimes find myself reverting to the command and control role. I assumed this role because the organization was new and required absolute accountability and strict quality control. Now that we have expanded into new product lines we require product experts who can motivate workers to make independent decisions that will increase creativity and organizational growth.
Despite tough economic conditions we are growing but I fear that our growth will become compromised if we do not become a more team motivated organization. I believe a great new year’s resolution for our business will be to address the real problem of leadership which is the organizational culture.

Another View for Leaders

Leadership is for those who are always looking for challenges and ways to improve each others’ lives. From this principle, I don’t think it is necessarily to take charge and become a leader in every group. Sometimes, being a good follower is also a way of demonstrating your great leadership skills. So, I don’t actually find there is a repeated pattern for me to fall in. However, I believe, if you want to become an excellent leader, you have to diligently spend time to observe things around you in order to make changes. For example, if you work in a company and seeking to become a manager or leaser in the future, you have to spend a lot of time to examine things in details around you and listen to others to complement your lack of experiences and skills. There is no exception for people who seek to become a great leader unless you don’t want to be a good one. In fact, people gained experiences and leadership skills from putting their passion into things they focused. It does not matter which group you are in. What matters is that how much you are willing to take responsibility in your groups instead of simply want to share power in groups.

What influences my role?

I most certainly have different roles in different groups of people. I think my type of involvement in a group depends on two main factors. One is my comfort level with the members of the group. For example, I’m very comfortable with my family members and I give my opinion in most family matters and even try to convince others to follow my decisions. I think I’ve gained enough credibility over the years that I’m not worried to be accused of making a wrong decision. On the contrary, when I attended one of my neighborhood meetings, I met a group of older people who have lived in the neighborhood for many years and I didn’t know many of them. I was not comfortable to take any leadership role and I just participated in the discussions and brought up some concerns and questions.

The second factor that affects my group role is the kind of people in that group. I work more efficiently with people who have certain characteristics compared to others. For instance, at work, I am regularly assigned to different projects with different group members. I have worked with all of my co-workers in different projects and more or less know their characters. So from the beginning of the project, just by looking at the team composition I can predict how successful the project would be. Although many people learn to work with each other over time, I believe certain personalities work with each other and achieve their goals more efficiently. Certainly being a leader in some groups is easier than others. If I gain the leadership role in any of these groups, I try to change my style accordingly. For example, if I have passive or bystander co-workers in my group who are not motivated and need to be pushed, then I have to be more controlling and do more micro management. On the contrary, when dealing with self motivated co-workers, I change my style and try not to control the details, providing only an overall leadership of the project.

Different types of leadership

I suppose the main groups that I interact with are work connections, family, and friends. I interact with my family fairly regularly... I talk to my mom almost every day... and in that immediate family circle, I take on different roles depending on the situation. If we are hosting a party or some family event, I go into assistant party planner mode, letting my mom run the kitchen, etc and helping her get everything done. If I am hosting the event for family, the roles are reversed. I believe this is where my "hosting" gene comes from... my mom and I love to throw parties. When I am assisting my mom, I have noticed that she is good at delegating work, which is something that I need to improve on. When we are not hosting parties and just hanging out, I take on the role of bossy older sister, telling everyone what to do and fighting with my dad about the best way to do things. In these situations, I like to take charge and organize people, which is a lot like my mom again. I think with her years of experience, she has a lot of tips to give me about running a family... and I'd like to hear them :)

In my work life I am definitely not as bossy. I like to be in charge still, but am more open to other people's ideas and suggestions about things. I want to be seen as a hard worker, on top of my projects, and smart at work.. so I try to be as prepared as possible for all meetings I attend and projects I run. It is sometimes difficult for me to lessen my control grip when running an event, however I understand that working relationships are not as forgiving as family, so I can bite my tongue and just go with it... sometimes.

With my friends, again, I am a planner. I love to plan parties, get togethers, outings, whatever! With these types of interactions, I do like to remain very much in control. However I do work with my friends and their ideas if they have an opinion. It is not as hard for me to let go of my control with friends as it is for me in work situations. I think this is because in work, if you mess up, people form opinions of you quickly, and it is difficult to change their minds. With friends, you can mess up, fall down, scream and cry, but they will still be there for you and still believe in you.

It would seem that I fall into the same role in most aspects of my life... and I don't consider that a bad thing. My personality is a controlling, planning one... but one that still wants to be liked and make sure everyone has a good time. I feel that as long as I keep those two aspects balanced, then I will be pretty good :)

Leadership roles

Spending a long holiday weekend with family is fun but also very draining, I guess because you spend a long periods of time with a lot of the same people. I think my main groups that I interact with are family, friends, and work. My leadership style does change with these groups. I notice when I am making decisions with friends I typically step back and let other people make the plans and decisions, and I typically go along with whatever they have planned. I notice the leader in this group is usually the person who has the most connections with the majority of the people in the group. So she typically brings everyone together and coordinates the decisions.
Around family, I am definitely not as passive and usually have a large input in the decision making, coordinating plans, and bringing everyone together. I realized my influence among my family members when I was able to somehow convince everyone it was a good idea to go see Harry Potter the day after Thanksgiving. No one wanted to go because of crowds, traffic, and many other excuses. I was able to come up with all these reasons why we should go and eventually everyone agreed and we ended up having a great time! I think I have gained influence in my family over the years as I have gotten older and everyone is more on equal grounds since we are all adults now.
I suppose at work I am kind of in the middle, sometimes I try to be a leader and sometimes I step back and let other people be the leaders. I also think my leadership style varies based on how I think people perceive me, and sometimes I do or don't act a certain way in order to to avoid changing those perceptions. Like with my family, I don't care if they think I am bossy and try to get them to do things, I’m not shy about voicing my opinions or ideas. But with my friends I try to be a little more sensitive to what other's want to do and not be so picky or come off as controlling. I think work again falls somewhere in the middle, I don’t want to be a pushover but I also don’t want to come off as too domineering and inflexible. The most important thing that people do to stand out as leaders is to influence and persuade others; and I can learn from watching the different angles people take in order to get others to see things their way. I think this could be applied to all my different social circles to chose the appropriate leadership style for each.

Blog Topic 12: Groups and leadership

It is likely that over this long weekend, you are finding yourself interacting with friendship groups and family groups more intensely than you usually do. The holidays and celebrations typically bring people together - which is sometimes good and sometimes bad.

In class, we talked about adjusting your leadership for different kinds of groups - volunteer groups, paid groups, etc. Take this time to reflect on your leadership in the different types of groups of which you are a member (even if you didn't see them all this week). How does your leadership style change? Are you more effective in one group versus another? Do you fall into a pattern such that you are in the same role in all groups? Or, as is typical in family groups, do you find yourself regressing to the same role in the family that you've always played, regardless of other accomplishments? Think about other leaders in these groups. What do they do that is effective and how can you learn from them?

Feedback!

In the feedback that I received, I would say that a few aspects surprised me. I always thought that when leading a group it is important to have high-performance expectations, but the average of others was much lower than I expected. There is that one quote, "always aim for the stars, even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." These seems to be true, the higher you set your goals, the higher you will end up even if you do not meet them.

This is an important idea to note. The reason for this could be that people often set intangible goals. Setting a goal that is more easily attained might be more advantageous to actually reaching it. I don't really think that I get authentic feedback in my everyday life too often. Just by looking at these ratings has opened my eyes to a few things that I didn't already know. If I got more feedback more often, I would gain much more leadership skills.

I was also shocked that providing intellectual stimulation isn't too high on others ratings. Of all the ways to motivate people, one would think that stimulating your group would help in moving them to do something. This should definitely be a learning experience for everyone, sometimes the things we think motivate others can actually hinder your group from achieving its goal.

Relieved....

I was relieved to see my results. I definitely want to be liked by people, but at the same time I want to be seen as knowledgeable, reliable, and in control. I try to interact with people in a way so that I am pleasant to talk to / work with, but still convey my intelligence and managerial skills. Sometimes I think I can come off a little too friendly and not be taken seriously. Other times I think I can be seen as a pushover, or someone that you don't need to take seriously. I am glad that I got to see a small cross section of what people think of me...

I was not surprised by any of the results... more interested. In the Influence tactics section, my Pressure and Exchange scores were pretty low, while my Inspirational Appeal was super high. I do not like bartering as a way to get things done, so I was pleased to see that my score for that was low.

I receive feedback, whether I want it or not, on a daily basis from my boyfriend Jon. He has gotten to the point where he tells me point blank how it is and how I am coming across. I think we all know by now that I have "knee-jerk" reactions to things, get offended easily, and do not manage my emotional intelligence well. Well, when I start getting defensive about something or got super offended about something he says, Jon will look me in the eye and say "stop it, you are being irrational." Of course I get all upset all over again.. mostly because I know he is right and I am frustrated with myself that I can't control my emotions better. However this constant stream of feedback has helped me try to calm my emotions at work. If I am going to be a successful manager, I can't get all offended and hold a grudge and dwell if a co worker talks to me funny.. I need to control myself and his constant pointing it out.. though frustrating.. has made me more aware of my reactions and how they can be perceived.

The Feedback Says:

The feedback left me feeling cold, numb, anesthetized, drained and deadened because I recognized that I had “not” been authentically Asher all along. I had been wearing a disguise pretending to be someone I wanted people to believe I was. I traveled the path of least resistance simply because. I displayed a less complex Asher that was easier to palate.


The feedback made me feel as if I were flagged for having “shallow emotions,” meaning my show of warmth, joy, compassion may not have been authentic but aseptically feigned.
My display of emotions served as a cover for my ulterior motives or objectives. How could I feel so outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Truly I was not acting genuine, neither were my promises.
“Was anything surprising to you?” Nothing was really surprising for me because I interpret all feedback as useful. I may certainly digest things differently but none the less, I digest.


The primary framework I will garner from the feedback is its ability to support my learning, my change and my improvement. Darn Skippy, I know I need to learn from this experience and learning will take place by knowledge of how to manage my weaknesses.


It's not having been in the dark house, but having left it, that counts.
-- Theodore Roosevelt
Yes, what about my weakness? No matter my strengths I have to manage my weakness that are lurking around in the unfriendly darkness ready to strike at a moment’s notice when I least expect it. The contradiction in feedback scores exposes that deep seated rage, I experience often which is split off and repressed, at its core. I am concerned that I see others around me not as people but as targets and opportunities.
How can the information you received move you towards your leadership goals?
The first game rule is to identify my weaknesses which were pointed out in the feedback.

I identify a weakness as anything that complicates or gets in the way of excellent performance. Taken into totality my largest weakness appears to be transparency. Of the thousand roles that I play much like an actor reading for a movie, I have never found the role of playing Asher interesting enough to stay with it. So the pretender in me is on trial for lacking an authentic persona that is consistent with her values, beliefs and aspirations.


Without the skill of transparency I cannot articulate carefully and clearly my vision; my vision of creativity, resourcefulness and imagination.
Taken literally I need to: Stop faking it and live the life I was born to fulfill. I need to rediscover my core values and return to my authentic self. I need to lock down and regain the passion, excitement, and confidence locked inside of me. I shall get real and leave the old phony behind. I am not auditioning for a new role and that is the life of Asher.

No Feedback No Goals

Receiving feedback is essential and this phenomenon also guides us to the direction where we decide to head to. Without any feedback for your performance, people usually begin to lose their confidence and energy towards their goals. It is just like taking a math exam. When you realize that your teacher (leader) decides to keep the score secretly, you would have some sort of disappointments because you cannot get information about your performance and soon your energy will be drained and depleted. The same principle can be applied to our daily lives. As I working to achieve something great for personal or company, I always seek feedbacks, suggestions, and encouragements from my supervisor so that I can refuel my spirit and energy to step out of my comfort zone and make great things happen. Honest feedback help me understand myself more about the situation and it not only clears out my doubts but also points out the problems I should adjust before I move on. People need feedbacks to reevaluate their performance. Without feedback, we are likely to commit mistakes and fail our goals.

Time for a little self-reflection

There were definitely a few things that surprised me in the feedback. It is really important to recognize how others view you, mostly I think because you do things and repeat certain behaviors you are not always aware of. For example, I always consider myself to be in control of my emotions; however I scored lower on the average ratings of others across the board for emotional intelligence. This really surprised me because I thought this would be one of my strengths. I will have to reevalute myself in this area. I am grateful for the information because I value emotional intelligence, and now that I realize I am not as strong in this category as I thought I know this is an area I can target for improvement. I will definitely work on identifying emotions in others, and also regulating my own emotions. I have been trying to “self-monitor” the last few days to see how I am behaving and paying closer attention to the reactions of others.

In my every day life I would say I actually receive a lot of feedback from a few sources: my sister for one is constantly pointing out things about me and things that I do when I don’t realize. She always starts with “maybe you don’t realize this but….” And then proceeds to tell me her opinions about me and my behavior, what I say and how I say it. This is actually helpful because family knows you best and also doesn’t usually care if the truth hurts your feelings or not. I also get a lot of feedback about my performance at work. Everything I do is reviewed by 2 managers, so my work is constantly being handed back to make changes which is annoying but getting used to your work being criticized can make you more open and less defensive over time.

I think honest feedback is really hard for just about everyone, especially if you are a person who has or at one point had low self-esteem. If you already feel badly about yourself it can be really difficult to get feedback from other people, especially if you have tried to overcome years of low self-esteem.