Hogan Reflection
After completing the Hogan Leadership Assessment, I took the time to evaluate what my results were, and thought about why I obtained the results that were presented before me. Overall, I felt as if this exam was pretty accurate, as it really went in depth on a lot of traits, and I think that attributes to the quantity of questions that were presented to us. There were certainly some repeat questions, but I felt as if they did that on purpose. This was the first time that I had taken a leadership exam like this, and was very intrigued by the results that were given back to me… which has led me to want to improve some areas my leadership skills may lack right now for the future.
As far as my strengths go, I have been commended on my social skills for quite a bit of my life, and that was directly reflected in the Hogan Assessment. I felt as if Social Leader was also my most accurate score, with a close second being my Results Leader score. Diving into my social skills scores, I received an 86 for Sociability and a 93 for Affiliation. Under social skills, it mentioned that I seem to enjoy working with others, and work well in this type of environment which I felt as if this was a very accurate description of myself. I feel as if I am always trying to meet new people and make new friends within the program, so even just doing schoolwork with others definitely is something that I feel is beneficial.
Not to be completely overshadowed by my Social Leader skills, my Results Leadership skills also play a huge part in how I feel I attribute myself to leading a group. I feel as if when working with others, we should all find common ground and achieve a goal. On the Assessment, it gave me a score of 73 for Ambition and an 80 for Power. I would even like to see my ambition score get a bit higher. Hogan cited that I have a great desire to succeed, although sometimes that can interfere with teammates if they do not match the same desire. Being versatile and helping to pick up teammates is something that I will work to improve on in various projects this year so that we are all on the same page in achieving our goals. I am looking forward to facing these challenges throughout the course of the program. The Hogan Assessment also mentioned practicing active listening, as great leaders tend to gravitate back and forth, and this is something that I would like to focus on in the future. Making sure we incorporate everyone’s ideas is a crucial part of having your team buy into what you are selling, and hence is a major part of being a good leader. I feel as if I do try to do this, but we can always improve and this is something I certainly want to focus on with my MSM small group as we approach a lot of upcoming projects.
The score I would like to improve the most throughout the MSM program is my Thought Leadership skills. In fact, this was the only category that I scored low in. Although this is not a bad thing, I am glad that I have been made aware of this now so that I can focus on being more well- rounded in this area. The Assessment gave me a score of 36 under Ambition and a score of 12 for Aesthetics. Hogan referenced an area of strength being my creativity and problem solving, which is something that I am going to need to pull to the forefront to hold up my end of the bargain when working in groups. The area it referenced for improvement is aesthetic looks for projects. The test felt as if I am more interested in how things work rather than how aesthetically pleasing the product is, and that is an area that will definitely need improvement before presenting real-world cases in front of big companies. I agree with this evaluation as I have always been a person who wonders why things work the way they do and I have always tried to dig deeper on the process of why things are done the way they are because I feel as if it really helps my overall understanding of whatever the topic may be.
As I concluded going through the assessment, I tried to think of some advocates that could help me in the areas I could seek improvement in. At this point in my process, I have been thinking about taking the Marketing-based courses during the Spring Semester, and need to improve my aesthetics and branding, so I plan to lean on Dr. Riley to instruct me on the topics of good marketing techniques and branding during our class this semester to help strengthen this skill. In addition, I plan on leaning on my father and my uncle to navigate me in the right direction on planning and setting set schedules. I have been improving on my daily routine since I have lived here in the summer, however I would like to translate this into my work, and my father and uncle are two of the most straight arrowed people I know, who always have set schedules and plan things thoroughly. These are traits of a good leader, and I feel as if soaking information from these 3 people in my life this semester will help shore up my leadership skills so I can be a more effective leader when I hit the real-world next year.
