book.chapter Exploration - assess your own executive skills profile and those around you

To optimize your executive skills, it's essential to evaluate yourself to understand where you excel and where you may need improvement. This self-awareness can guide your career development and enhance your collaboration with colleagues. By assessing your proficiency in twelve key areas, you can identify your primary strengths and weaknesses. Rate each statement on a scale from one to five, where one means you strongly disagree and five means you strongly agree. After evaluating five statements per skill, calculate your score out of a maximum of 25 for each area. Focus on the two or three highest and lowest scores to create your executive skill profile, which can inform how you approach your job, plan your career, and consider new directions. Self-Restraint involves thinking before you act, avoiding impulsiveness. If you're methodical and not hasty, you likely score high in this area. Consider how often you take time making decisions, act tactfully, think before speaking, verify facts before acting, and avoid making others uncomfortable. Working Memory is the ability to retain information while managing multiple tasks. If you can remember details without needing lists, your working memory is likely strong. Reflect on how well you remember facts, commitments, and tasks, maintain focus on goals, and keep the big picture in mind when busy. Emotion Control is about keeping emotions from interfering with work. High emotion control means staying positive and not succumbing to self-doubt, while low control may indicate sensitivity to criticism. Assess how well you manage emotions at work, handle confrontations, stay focused despite frustrations, control anger, and set aside personal feelings until tasks are completed. Focus is the capacity to stay on task until completion. If you're not easily distracted and consistently meet deadlines, you have strong focus. Evaluate how well you avoid distractions, persist with tasks, stay on assignments, refocus after interruptions, and continue with tedious tasks. Task Initiation is about starting tasks promptly without procrastination. If you begin work immediately and don't delay, your initiation is strong. Rate how quickly you start new assignments, whether procrastination is a problem, if you start early, work despite lack of motivation, and begin tasks ahead of time. Plan & Prioritize involves organizing efficiently and thinking clearly. Strength in this area is shown by saying no to distractions. Weakness may manifest as a lack of direction. Consider how clear your daily plan is, how you prioritize when busy, your plans for long-term goals, your ability to set and stick to priorities, and how you break down big tasks. Organization is reflected in your workspace. A tidy, minimalist desk suggests strength, while losing items or disarray indicates weakness. Think about your organizational skills at work, maintaining systems, keeping your workspace neat, tracking materials, and managing mail and tasks. Time Management is demonstrated by efficiently meeting deadlines. Underestimating the time needed for tasks suggests poor skills. Rate how well you pace yourself, finish daily tasks, estimate time needed, are punctual, and follow a schedule. Goal-Directed Persistence is shown by following through despite obstacles. If you bounce between ideas without progress, this may be a weakness. Assess your drive to achieve goals, maintain high performance, set long-term goals, and forgo short-term pleasures for goals. Flexibility is the ability to quickly adapt and revise plans. Inflexibility means struggling with ambiguity. Rate how adaptable and flexible you are, your problem-solving approaches, handling unexpected events, considering other perspectives, and thinking on your feet. Metacognition involves self-reflection and strategic thinking. Strength means considering multiple solutions, while weakness leads to repeating mistakes. Evaluate how well you recognize suitable tasks, improve performance, think objectively, enjoy strategic problem-solving, and review situations for improvement. Stress Tolerance is staying calm under pressure. High tolerance allows for confident crisis management, while low tolerance can make you feel overwhelmed. Consider how much you enjoy fast-paced environments, how pressure affects your performance, your appeal for unpredictability, your willingness to take risks, and your preference for jobs with flexibility. After identifying your top strengths and weaknesses, use this information to adjust your work approach, plan your career path, and explore new opportunities. Your unique combination of executive skills opens doors to various possibilities.