Dr. Earl R. Smith II

Dr. Earl R. Smith II
Managing Partner, The Federal Circle
DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com
Dr-Smith.com

Many of my leadership coaching engagements begin with a leadership assessment. When done early on in the process, such an assessment provides a baseline against which we measure our progress. Once the engagement progresses, we run regular assessments in order to measure progress and identify fresh focus for our continued work. I have found leadership assessments one of the most effective and easily used tools in the leadership coaching toolbox. The leadership assessment process I offer is a cost effective, rapid turn-around way to help you to develop into a more effective leader by identifying your strengths and pinpointing opportunities for improvement. It will also help you to develop a strategic plan for correcting them.

A Leadership Assessment Program (LAP) helps you become a more effective leader, develop a plan for managing improvements and track your progress against ‘best practices’. This kind of assessment is particularly useful to CEOs as it covers both leadership competence and character and draws data from several levels of the organization. It also collects data on your organizational culture and design … two areas that can significantly affect your leadership success. Based on the insights and lessons learned from the world’s greatest leaders, it can help you reach an understanding of how to improve your leadership style … how to become more effective in your role.

A LAP is a technology-assisted process that gives you a validated, fast track ability to identify, and agree on, those areas that are critical to your success as a leader but where your current performance compromises your ability to achieve that success.

Most available tools are self-administered. Leadership assessment tends to be far less effective when it is self-applied. Because of that, the results can often be spotty at best and a waste of time and resources at worst. Follow up (and improvements) can be poorly focused and limited in results. Often these programs are marketed as 360 assessments. The user needs to realize that a 360 assessment is focused not on the holistic but the spatially limited … it is inherently two dimensional in its focus and analytic. The difference between a traditional 360 and a LAP is much like the difference between a map and a globe. With the one, you can get from here to there as long as where you are going is within the same two dimensions. With a globe, you can view the entire planet and think in three and four dimensions.

I go beyond a traditional 360 and help you look at the entire culture/values/leadership environment in which you are operating … a LAP is about your context as well as about you as a leader. I work with you to interpret the results and develop a plan for managing improvements. You are not left on your own to make the best of what you have learned … I act as an experienced guide for the process.

You will notice the difference from the very beginning. The focus of a LAP is not only how the world sees you as a leader, but also on the relationships between you and your superiors, peers and subordinates. An important distinction here is the recognition that your company doesn’t value you because of this or that strength … nor because your combined strengths and in spite of your combined shortcomings … but because of your holistic value. It is one thing to see what people think of your performance; it is quite another to see how people feel about the importance of what you do or who you are. A LAP helps you see your true value to the organization and highlights the areas where improvements can be realized.

What does a LAP cover?

To discuss how you can get started with a Leadership Assessment Program, contact: Dr. Earl R. Smith II at DrSmith@Dr-Smith.com

© Dr. Earl R. Smith II

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Related Articles:

• The Essence of Leadership

• Lessons in Leadership – Part 1 – Motivational Maps

• Lessons in Leadership – Part 2 – Vision Mapping

• Six Qualities of a Successful Manager – How a Coach Can Help Bring Them Out

• How to find a leadership coach

• Five Rules for Choosing a Leadership Coach

• Assess and Fine Tune Your Leadership Skills

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Dr. Smith is Managing Partner of The Federal Circle. The Federal Circle partners with teams and existing companies. We help them up their game and win big in the Federal space. We also arrange funding for acquisitions and expansion by acquisition. Our model is based on the belief that, if you select the very best and work with them in a highly professional and focused manner, the results will be truly amazing. He is the author of Amazing Pace: Turbo-charged Business Development – a book that shows how Advisory Boards can dramatically increase revenue. Dr. Smith is also the author of Dream Walk: Parables for the Living – a book of Raven Tales and exploration.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 10:48 PM and is filed under Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.