As a person with an undergraduate degree in psychology, I have always enjoyed taking assessments to summarize characteristics, traits, perspectives, style, behaviors, and so many other identified attributes. In some instances the assessment reinforces what i already knew or brings into light something about myself I was unaware of. I have taken the StrengthsFinder assessment before; however, I never took it in relation to leadership.
The timing of this class and the assessment has proven to be very practical in my life because I just got a new job at TAMU-CC as the Assistant Director of Academic Coaching and Success. This is a new position and I will oversee 3 full-time staff members and 10 student employees, which is the largest group I have supervised of full-time staff.
When I think about my journey as a professional and my confidence level as a young professional I can remember feeling like I always had to prove that I deserved to be in higher level positions with more responsibility. In my early years, I did not have a high level of empathy for people or their situations and I believed this was a leadership trait in order to be respected. The more I began to supervise student employees and lead projects in the community, I realized that caring about the people I interacted with impacted the quality of work and the interactions we had. Using assessments, I was able to learn the skills of people who display empathy and over the years I worked on it. Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen posts on LinkedIn related to leadership and empathy, especially in today’s society with the global pandemics (COVID-19, social justice, financial).
Now that I am in a position to impact the professional development of others and help them identify their purpose and potential, I look forward to growing my leadership skills. I already see a different in my Top 5 Strengths from a previous assessment and the current strengths assessment.
deshawnamccray.me 