My immediate superior, Tõnu Viik, Rector of Tallinn University, has emphasised in his management training courses that it is critically important to create space for strategic management and planned change. It is easy to get bogged down in the daily work of a large organisation, buried under a pile of tasks and problems that need to be done or solved, but it is more difficult to consciously plan time for something new or for doing something old in a new way. The latter requires effort, but also good and consistent persuasion. However, in addition to the goals of organisational development, people are also extremely important to me as a leader. In other words, how we do things. I am convinced that leaders play an extremely important role in creating this atmosphere.
As a member of the Hearth leadership club, I also completed a 360° assessment at the end of last year with the help of my colleagues – the Leadership Circle Profile. I have previously analysed myself using other tools such as the Tripod personality test and the Clifton Strengths Assessment tool. A few years ago, I also asked for feedback on my strengths from others as part of a leadership reading club when we were working on the book "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership."
However, feedback of the kind offered by the Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) has not been available before, because in addition to your own perspective, it also provides the views of colleagues at different levels.
The LCP is divided into creative and reactive sides. While both are necessary in life, as a rule, we can function well and effectively as leaders when our creative and innovative sides are strongly developed. The reactive side is where our defence mechanisms are located, i.e., how and how much we want to control things and how much we try to please others. The creative side, on the other hand, is where self-awareness and relating to other people are located, as well as how authentic we can and are able to be. The creative side also includes vision, system awareness, and achievement ability. In addition to the creative and reactive poles, the LCP also includes the relationship or people and task poles. Here, too, it is important to maintain a good balance, because if we focus only on achieving tasks or organisational goals and ignore people and their relationships, it may not end well. As our management consultant Erkki Vedder said: we work to achieve goals, but we work with other people to achieve them.
My analysis revealed also a few surprises. For example, in some cases, my self-assessment is significantly more critical than my colleagues' view of me. However, there are also areas where my self-assessment is more positive than reality. Perhaps what surprised me most was that although I rated myself as relatively critical and arrogant, others did not see me that way at all. I also rated my integrity significantly lower than others did. At the same time, I have room for improvement in terms of strategic focus, maintaining vision, and achieving results. The results are not low at all, it's just that my self-image is slightly higher than others' perception of me. Perhaps it is a question of how and whether I consciously talk about these issues or rather assume that others can read my mind. On the issue of criticality, I have come to the conclusion that my work at senior management has made me much more tolerant of different people, while my self-image is still stuck in the past.
In summary, my LCP shows that although I am quite balanced as a leader and manager (in terms of achieving goals, taking people into account, and creating new and responsive energy), my strength is still primarily in understanding people, the ability to build teams, and also in creating and building systems. The courage to be myself is definitely one of my key strengths.
However, if you ask why you should engage in such self-analysis, I am firmly convinced that it is important for a leader to think about their horizontal skills, be it better meeting management, presentation or data analysis skills, it is also important for leaders to think about their vertical skills, or their own depth. In other words, a good leader cannot exist without self-awareness and self-analysis. Brené Brown (American academic and podcaster), says that there is no courage without vulnerability. You are afraid, but you are still willing to do it. It is important to be aware of your (self) defences, in other words, the behavioral mechanisms that are activated in critical situations. Because then we tend to fall back into some deeper subconscious patterns, and in these situations, something may be expressed that we are otherwise able to hide or control well. It is precisely the courage to learn about our unconscious patterns and dark sides that helps us grow in depth.
