Self Assessment.
It is important that a leader understands himself before he can focus on the challenge at hand. The reason for this is that until he understands his own personality, beliefs, motivators and behaviors he cannot lead a team effectively. An understanding of these personal traits is required so that a leader knows how he will react to situations, how he relates to employees, subordinates and peers and how he make decisions.
One approach that has been developed for individuals to gain a better understanding of their own behaviours and personal characteristics is the Emotional Intelligence theory. Emotional Intelligence being the "ability to manage ourselves and our relationships effectively", proposes that there are four core elements - self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and social skills. Each of the core elements of personal behaviour consists of a series of competencies.
Research conducted by David McClelland, Harvard University suggests that "leaders with strengths in a critical mass of six or more emotional intelligence competencies are far more effective than peers who lack such strengths.".
For example a leader with a high degree of self-awareness and self-management competencies, who is lacking in social skills and awareness of his teams or customers needs (the social awareness competencies) may achieve positive results but may not be as effective as leader with competencies in these areas. An example of this is the Director of the organisation with which I am currently working, the Building & Construction Industry Training Fund. The Director was employed two years ago and has led the organisation through considerable change, programs have been restructured, new managers appointed, better outcomes achieved and a whole new focus adopted for the organisation. Whilst results have been improving, staff morale is low as the Director often has outbursts during times of stress, publicly blames others for mistakes, does not seek feedback from others, nor consider the feelings of subordinates.