MAN 2100 Module 4 Leadership Self-Assessment Example

What My Traits Predict and What My Staff Need: A Leadership and Motivation Self-Assessment for a Library Branch Manager

Student Name

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Thomas Edison State University

MAN-2100: Principles of Management

Mentor Name

Month Day, Year

What My Traits Predict and What My Staff Need: A Leadership and Motivation Self-Assessment for a Library Branch Manager

Module 4 asks what makes leaders effective and how managers motivate the people they lead (Lumen Learning, n.d.). This second career development assignment applies those ideas to my own work as manager of a library branch with eleven staff in a composite county system in central New Jersey. It examines what my personality traits suggest about my leadership, how I adjust my approach to different staff members, how I can motivate one employee who has become disengaged, and what I will do next to develop as a leader.

My Traits and What Research Says About Them

I completed a free, research-based Big Five personality inventory and scored high in conscientiousness and agreeableness, moderate in openness, and low to moderate in extraversion. Judge et al. (2002) pooled dozens of studies and reported that the five broad personality traits together had a substantial relationship with leadership, with extraversion the most consistent correlate of both who emerges as a leader and who is seen as effective, and conscientiousness and openness also related.

That finding is useful and uncomfortable. My conscientiousness shows in reliable scheduling, prepared meetings and follow-through, and staff trust me to do what I say. My lower extraversion means I rarely speak first in system-wide meetings and can be slow to champion my branch's ideas to the director. My high agreeableness helps relationships but also explains the weakness I identified in my Module 2 analysis: I avoid conflict until it grows. Traits are not destiny, but they tell me which behaviors I must practice deliberately, such as speaking early in meetings and addressing problems in their first week.

Adapting My Approach to Different Staff

Situational leadership models suggest that leaders should shift between telling, coaching and stepping back depending on how able and willing each person is. Research support for the specific prescriptions is limited. Thompson and Vecchio (2009) tested three versions of situational leadership theory and found little support for most of their predictions, although employees who were new to their jobs did appear to benefit from more structure. I find the general idea, that one style does not suit everyone, more useful than the model's precise rules.

Three staff members illustrate it. A new part-time page needs clear instructions, short checklists and frequent check-ins, and gets them. A children's librarian with fifteen years of experience needs almost no direction and does her best work when I clear obstacles and stay out of her way. A teen services librarian who is skilled but uncertain after a difficult program last spring needs encouragement and a chance to succeed, so I have paired her with the children's librarian on a summer reading event she will lead.

Motivating a Disengaged Clerk

The hardest case is a circulation clerk with eight years at the branch whose work has slipped since the self-checkout kiosks arrived. Using the module's discussion of motivation, I see three possible causes: he may believe his effort no longer matters, he may not see a path to anything he values, or he may feel that the change was imposed without regard for his skills. The expectancy view of motivation asks three questions of him: does he think trying harder will change his results, do better results earn him anything, and does he care about what they earn?

In a conversation last month, he said the job had become watching machines. Together we identified something he values, helping patrons with technology, where his patience with older adults is an asset. He will now run a weekly drop-in technology help hour, which links effort to visible results and to recognition from patrons. I will check in after a month to see whether his engagement has changed, rather than assuming it will.

The page and the experienced librarian also show why consistency matters. Staff notice when one person gets more freedom than another, so I explain my reasons openly: freedom follows demonstrated skill, and anyone can earn more of it.

My Development Actions

Two actions follow from this assessment. First, to address the extraversion gap, I will present my branch's quarterly results at the system managers' meeting rather than submitting a written report, and I will ask a peer manager for feedback on each presentation. Second, to address conflict avoidance, I will complete the county's course on difficult conversations by March and commit to addressing any performance concern within five working days of noticing it. I will measure progress through feedback from my deputy director at my mid-year review and through a short anonymous survey of my staff in six months.

Conclusion

This assessment confirmed that my strengths are reliability and good relationships and that my growth areas are visibility and directness. Research on traits told me where to look, and attention to each staff member's needs told me how to adapt. The development actions are small, specific and measurable, which makes them more likely to happen.

References

Judge, T. A., Bono, J. E., Ilies, R., & Gerhardt, M. W. (2002). Personality and leadership: A qualitative and quantitative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 765-780. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.765

Lumen Learning. (n.d.). Principles of management. Open Educational Resources. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-principlesofmanagement/

Thompson, G., & Vecchio, R. P. (2009). Situational leadership theory: A test of three versions. The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 837-848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.06.014