Running head: SELF-ASSESSMENT

7250 Leadership Self-Assessment

Lauren Smith
Auburn University/Auburn University Montgomery

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Self-Assessment

Merriam-Webster (Leader, 2013) defines a leader as a person who leads: as a guide or

conductor with commanding authority or influence. I have always considered myself a leader. I
established myself as a leader within school activities in middle school and high school by
holding offices in student body government and honor societies. I continued my leader roles at
Auburn University by representing the School of Nursing in recruiting events, being chosen as
the student representative for faculty committee meetings, and by being chosen as the Nurse of
Nurses among my graduating class. I find it natural to assume the role of the leader and take
charge of whatever team project or work implementation that is taking place. I began my career
as a registered nurse on an orthopedic/medical-surgical floor and was soon taught the role of
charge nurse because of my ability to create a team work environment and my dedication and
determination to get the job done. After deciding to start the next step in my education, I took
another job with an Urgent Care clinic. In three months of working with the Urgent Care I was
promoted to nurse supervisor. I am currently the nurse supervisor and oversee the functions of
the clinic. Anybody can have a supervisor position, but what makes that supervisor a leader?
To answer the question of whether I am truly a leader in my position I found a selfassessment tool to help me understand what my strong and weak points are in leadership. The
Leadership Framework by the National Health Service (NHS) of the United Kingdom has a selfassessment tool that explores the leadership behaviors across seven domains. The seven domains
are personal qualities, working with others, managing services, improving services, setting
direction, creating the vision, and delivering the strategy. The seven domains are broken down
into four subgroups with two questions each in the self-assessment tool. Each question has a
possibility of three answers and it uses a traffic light symbol with the green light as a lot of the

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time, yellow light as some of the time, and red light as very little/none of the time. At the
end of the domains there is a guide describing that mainly red and orange lights are areas where
you need to develop more and the areas with green lights are your strengths (Leadership
Framework, 2012).
My results were predominantly green lights or strengths, fewer yellow lights or needs
improvement, and only two red lights. My strongest domains were demonstrating personal
qualities, managing services, improving services, setting directions, and delivering the strategy. I
needed improvement in working with others and creating the vision. I confirmed that I hold the
qualities of a leader; that I am able to manage resources, people, and performance; that I strive to
improve services and facilitate transformation; that I can identify the need for change and set the
direction for that change; and that I can implement and deliver a strategy as a leader. I found that
I need to improve my leadership skills in working with others; the tool showed that I am a team
player, but I need to develop comfort in handling conflicts or differences of opinions. The tool
also provided that developing the vision, influencing the vision on the organization, and
communicating the vision were areas that I needed to work on in my leadership role (Leadership
Framework, 2012).
This assessment is an exceptional tool due to its validity and reliability for studying
leadership roles in a person. The purpose of validation is to see if the tool measured what it was
supposed to measure. Due to the lack of external criteria data, the validity of this assessment
tool must be viewed internally, because questions relate to each other and produce correlated
results rather than random results. The reliability is concerned with the consistency of the
results. The tool is taken by different people with different results, so the reliability can be hard
to examine. The NHS Leadership Framework looks at the validity and reliability based on the

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relationships between the questions, the elements, and the domains. The eight questions per
domain were correlated with each other to provide that the internal consistency and validity
appear to be strong with high correlations exceeding their .60 target. There is a high correlation
between the elements which exceeded the .60 giving a strong internal reliability. The results are
consistent with the pilot study and suggest this tool is a stable structure to measure leadership
(Leadership Framework, 2012).
Having a strong leader is important for the healthcare field, especially nursing. There are
many levels that nurses can act as leaders such as team leader for unit improvements, charge
nurse for a unit, nurse manager for a unit, and chief nursing officer. As a nurse supervisor of my
clinic, this self-assessment provided me with a valid and reliable tool to assess my leadership
abilities. The tool provided areas that needed improvement as well as areas that I was strong in
ability. The framework also encouraged me to be self-aware of the leadership roles and ensure
that they are not overplayed strengths that can negatively impact performance. This leadership
self-assessment tool helped me as a supervisor to see my strengths and weaknesses in the role of
a leader in healthcare delivery. I can better serve as a supervisor and change agent for my clinic
by understanding my leadership abilities.

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Reference

Leader. (2013). In Merriam-Webster, An Encyclopedia Britannica Company online. Retrieved

from: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leader
NHS Leadership Academy. (2012) Leadership Framework: Self assessment tool. Retrieved
from: http://www.leadershipacademy.nhs.uk/discover/leadership-framework/