5 Top Examples of Leadership Self-Assessment

Self-awareness is an important trait in the workplace. Successful leaders can and should look inward and reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, resulting in stronger leadership skills and a more productive organization.

That’s where a leadership self-assessment comes in. In short, self-assessment questionnaires and other tools help you understand your leadership style and identify areas to improve. Self-assessment is an important tool in leadership development because it provides insight into your performance and allows you to consider what motivates you as a leader, so you can better use your skills.

Are you ready to reflect on your leadership style and communication skills to have a lasting impact on your team and business? Keep reading to learn more about the benefits of regular self-assessments, self-evaluation examples, and techniques for implementing an effective leadership self-assessment.

The benefits of self-assessments

For the business and its leaders, several benefits can come from routine and honest self-assessments in the workplace. While all workers can benefit from self-reflection questionnaires, leadership self-assessments can impact supervisors in a way that trickles down to the entire team.

Leadership self-assessments benefit the business by:

• Providing insights for setting goals and establishing performance improvement plans for the next period
• Offering positive feedback that can boost self-worth and encourage business leaders to work hard to achieve organizational objectives
• Showcasing opportunities to capitalize on leadership strengths to avoid wasted time and resources
• Sharing constructive criticism that can help individual workers and entire teams assess and close gaps in performance

Leadership self-assessments benefit employees by:

• Giving those in leadership roles the tools to assess themselves and boost their credibility, making employees more open to trusting and supporting leadership
• Mobilizing a team to work together toward the same goals with specific core values in mind
• Teaching business leaders how to communicate with employees and co-workers in a more effective and supportive way
• Allowing the leader to establish personal career goals and individual development plans for their success and well-being

The self-assessment is not about how you want people to view you but how you actually think and act regularly. Be honest with yourself to gain the most insight from every assessment.

5 leadership self-assessment examples

A professional can perform an effective self-evaluation in several ways, and evidence-based assessment tools are critical. For instance, the Situation, Task, Action, Result (STAR) approach works for job interviews but can also help with assessments.

This method encourages you to consider work-related situations and tasks and assess your actions and the resulting outcomes. How did you handle a certain situation? What could you improve next time?

You can apply this self-reflection approach in multiple assessment categories:  

1. Assess goals and achievements

Include questions encouraging professionals to reflect on and assess their current and future goals and achievements during their recent performance (i.e., the assessment period). Setting goals in specific areas and establishing measurement processes upfront is important.

Questions can include:

Q: What were your goals for the past quarter? Were you able to fully meet those goals?

A: “I wanted to boost sales of product X by 15% and expand our reach on social media. I met both goals by taking a graduate-level course on social media marketing, attending free professional development opportunities, and problem-solving with my team to develop sales solutions. We ended up boosting sales by 17%.”

Q: What were your greatest company-related achievements last quarter? In what ways could your contributions to the company improve over the next quarter?

A: “I implemented a team-building routine for Friday mornings to foster a positive work environment and allow for critical thinking, mentoring, and problem-solving opportunities. I’d like to harness this camaraderie to create stronger teams that can work together on more complex tasks.”  

2. Assess strengths and weaknesses

Leaders should assess their strengths and weaknesses to improve in all areas continually. The following questions can help professionals reflect on current leadership strengths and weaknesses within their recent performance.

Include questions on leadership skills like communication, time management, teamwork, and problem-solving.

Q: What is one self-perceived weakness you’d like to improve over the next quarter?

A: “I struggle with public speaking in front of potential donors, so I’ve enrolled in a public speaking workshop to improve these skills.”

Q: List a strength you’ve shared with another team member. How did this strength help the company?

A: “People have always told me I have strong time-management skills, and I agree. I shared some tips and tools with my team to help them understand how to use their time more meaningfully.”

3. Assess values and ethics

Your values and ethics should mesh with your team and align with company goals. Do you believe in pay equality, charitable giving, or a diverse workforce?

These sample questions and answers can help you along:

Q: What’s one personal value you hope to share with your team?

A: “I must be honest with my staff and our clients. I strive for full transparency regarding pay, budgets, and cost of goods and hold regular meetings for open discussion.”

Q: How does your personal code of ethics align with that of your team members?

A: “We all possess positive core values and a strong code of ethics related to honesty and respect, proven by our growing client base and last quarter’s increased retention rate.”

4. Assess your feedback process

Reflect on both giving and receiving feedback when completing a self-appraisal. Are you receptive to feedback from others? Do you share feedback with your team in a fair and timely manner?

Here’s one sample question and answer for each feedback scenario:

Q: On a scale from 1 to 5, how would you rate your feedback strategies?

A: “4 because I try to give feedback in real time and help develop a plan for moving forward, but I think I can work on my verbal communication skills.”

Q: How do you typically respond to feedback related to your performance?

A: “This is an area I can improve; I need to remember that negative feedback doesn’t directly relate to my self-worth. I sometimes struggle to accept that it’s intended to help me succeed.”

5. Assess personal growth and advancement opportunities

Be honest with yourself regarding current and future personal growth and advancement opportunities. A self-assessment can help you decide where you want to go within the company and what positions might suit you.

Maybe your analytical skill set would be more useful in another department, or your advanced degree makes you a top candidate for a promotion. No matter how long you’ve been in leadership, assess future opportunities and strive for continued growth.

Some self-evaluation examples include:

Q: Describe a moment of personal growth over the past year.

A: “I learned a lot from my colleague who returned from parental leave this past year. I often feel like my team must work long hours to complete all their work, but they showed me that someone can be just as effective working from home as needed or leaving the office early.”

Q: List one short-term advancement goal.

A: “I plan to enroll in a leadership series to learn more about emotional intelligence and leadership philosophy. I’d also like to look into development programs related to strategic decision-making.”

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Techniques for effective self-assessment

The following techniques can help leaders complete effective self-assessments. Consider using one or more of these each quarter — or however often it makes sense for your field.

Encourage co-workers and other leaders to complete self-assessments simultaneously to advance together.

Performance assessment rubrics

Rubrics are useful templates for competency-based performance assessments. They can combine qualitative data related to soft skills and quantitative data related to individual and team metrics.

Rubrics can help you remain objective when assessing your strengths and weaknesses. For instance, if you’re rating a specific skill, include a description of the skill, a performance rating scale, and criteria for each level (ratings typically run from poor to excellent).

Here’s a sample leadership self-assessment rubric scale in one skill category:

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360-degree feedback

Constructive feedback can benefit the self-assessment process, and 360-degree feedback is a much-used option for leaders. Unlike feedback from one supervisor or co-worker, 360-degree feedback includes comments and suggestions related to your strengths and weaknesses from multiple colleagues, managers, subordinates, and even customers.

This type of constructive feedback is great for hearing from multiple sources and discovering new ways to improve and grow. Still, multiple voices weighing in may create a focus on the person’s weaknesses rather than their strengths. Businesses should use this technique with one or more of the others mentioned.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test is a self-assessment tool designed to identify a person’s personality type, strengths, and preferences. It’s a helpful tool for leaders when conducting self-evaluations and can provide useful insight into how leaders best operate.

Consider the following question related to a person’s decision-making preferences: “When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).” This question could help a supervisor look inward to learn more about how they make business-related decisions.

Once you’ve answered all the questions on the MBTI test, you’ll better understand your personality and leadership style and can use that information to improve your interactions with others in the organization.

The Emotional Intelligence Assessment (EIA)

The Emotional Intelligence Assessment (EIA) is a free 40-question test that typically takes about 10 minutes to complete but can provide invaluable insight into your emotional intelligence. It can benefit the self-assessment process by providing an analysis of your capabilities in four areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.

Take the following sample question: “I generally learn most by (a) actively doing activities or (b) reflecting on past experiences.” This can help leaders understand whether to take a hands-on approach to learn new skills or review what they’ve worked on in the past to move ahead.

Once you have your overall results, it’s good practice to engage in critical self-reflection (that is, reflecting on both your personal and professional assumptions to better understand and interpret your experiences in the workplace). It’s important to ask yourself why you answered the way you did for each question. Once you can get to the root of your assumptions, you can change your pattern of thinking and your perspective (called transformational learning).

Assessing personality and communication

Communication plays a critical role in self-assessment. When you assess your communication style and personality traits, you gain a better understanding of how you share information and how you can better communicate with your colleagues.

People often fall into one of four communication or personality styles: Task-focused individuals fall into the analytic or driver styles, while people-focused individuals fall into the amiable or expressive styles—with several variances in each style.

It’s important to learn how to use various communication techniques that may not explicitly fit your personality style. For instance:

• If you tend to fall under the driver style, avoid the temptation to answer every question immediately.
• If you are expressive, tone down emotional responses by focusing on the facts.
• If you are analytic, remember to show emotional support when handling work-related issues.  

This type of self-understanding can prove invaluable in leadership. Reflecting on how your personality type (and that of your colleagues) affects how you do business is one of the easiest ways to adjust your communication style positively.

Develop strong self-assessment skills with help from an Upwork professional

Self-assessment in leadership development is important for many reasons, especially regarding the future of your business. Consider areas where you’d like to improve and capitalize on the standout skills and core values that can encourage your workforce and create a lasting positive impact on your business.

Address gaps in your skill set by attending a leadership training course or using Upwork to hire an independent professional specializing in employee performance review and evaluation. Let someone from our talent pool assist you with communication techniques, leadership development, competencies assessments, and more.

Are you an independent professional with experience in self-assessment processes and ready to share your expertise with businesses worldwide? Consider offering your services on Upwork and help business leaders become the best version of themselves.

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Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this article. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.