Human Relations in Admin:Team Effectiveness, Leadership, and Management Skills

I scored a 56 on the team effectiveness self-assessment; this score indicates that I am a solid team member and that I am a part of an effective team. This result surprised me because I expected to score in the 31-45 range because while my team works well together at work, there are still some areas we need to improve upon. I have not shared my results on this self-assessment with anyone yet, but I think it might prove helpful to my team if I were to share this self-assessment and we could discuss our separate results as a group. This self-assessment scored me and my team based on seven key areas of team effectiveness; these categories are team development, feedback, participation and articulating vision, managing conflict, group roles and structures, team member development, and understanding and collaboration. My team scored the highest in the areas of feedback, managing conflict, group roles and structures, team member development, and understanding and collaboration. My team scored the lowest in the areas of team development and participation and articulating vision. My team scored low in team development because we have never really thought about Bruce Tuckman's forming, storming, norming, and performing model in relation to our team. To improve team development I plan to work with my group to create a team orientation process and develop a team charter. My team has never invested much time or energy into exploring the purpose and vision of our team. To improve participation and articulating vision my group needs to take the time to explore the overall purpose and vision of the team; this process will help us to stay focuses through the emergence of a set of goals and objectives. As a learner, this self-assessment taught me that when I work with a team I need to focus on the seven key areas of team development in order to ensure that my team reaches its full potential. I plan to incorporate the knowledge I gained about my team work in the rest of my education by focusing on learning more about team development and participation and articulating vision.

I scored a 56 on the leadership self-assessment; this score indicates that I am well on my way to becoming a good leader. My results on this self-assessment were very surprising to me because I felt that I should have scored in the ok leader range. I found it difficult to answer some of the questions because they did not really apply to my current position as an after school counselor. I feel that my score would have been more accurate if I could have left a few of the questions blank instead of being forced to answer them. I did not share my results with anyone because I found them to be inaccurate. This self-assessment scored my leadership ability based on my: self-confidence, positive attitude and outlook, emotional intelligence, ability to provide a compelling vision of the future, ability to motivate people to deliver the vision, ability to be a good role model, ability to manage performance effectively, and the ability to provide support and stimulation. The self-assessment scored me the lowest in self-confidence. This is the only portion of the assessment that I found myself agreeing with; I do have a low level of self-confidence. As a learner this self-assessment taught me that my low self-confidence may actually be holding me back from achieving my full potential. To improve my self-confidence I plan to work on becoming aware of all of the things I've already achieved.

I scored a 47 on the management skills self-assessment this score indicates that I am on my way to becoming a good manager, but that still have a lot of learning left to do. I felt that these results were mostly accurate, even though I did struggle to answer a few of the questions. I felt that the questions I struggled with were not relevant to my current job and since I have never been in a leadership role I did not know for sure what I would do in some of the situations the questions described. The results of this self-assessment did not surprise me as I expected to core in the middle range. I did not share the results of this self-assessment with anyone. This self-assessment scored me based on my ability to: understand team dynamics and encourage good relationships, select and develop the right people, delegate effectively, motivate people, manage discipline and deal with conflict, communicate, plan, make decisions, and problem solve, and avoid common managerial mistakes. My scores were almost all even, but I did score lower in the areas of effective delegation and communication. As a learner I now know that I need to focus on improving my communication skills as well as my ability to delegate. To do improve my communication skills I am minoring it communication at Southern New Hampshire University; to improve my ability to delegate I need to allow myself to pass on certain things to other people.