INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT AND SDI PAPER

Running head: INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT AND SDI PAPER

Introduction

The self judgment and the enhancement or rectification of the personal behavior and feelings through different suitable ways like assessment, analysis of the result and corrective action is all about the individual development and SDI. Individual development and SDI is the used of techniques and procedures of knowing the ways of being able to handle different life situations and to develop oneself mentally and spiritually in a self-conscious way. Becoming more developed is becoming more able, having greater understanding and becoming more effective through. The SDI is unique motivational assessment tool as opposed to being a behavioral assessment. The SDI goes below the surface of the behaviors into the motivations and the values that underlie and influence those behaviors. By understanding what motivates me in my life to do the things I do, I can better manage my behaviors, and in turn, my relationships with others. Additionally, the SDI integrates going-well and conflict motivations into one easy-to-administer tool that has immediate and lasting results.

My leadership style and traits

After my individual assessment and SDI analysis, I realized I have high leadership potentials, task oriented leadership as my leadership style. As my personality profile, I try to influence other people to get my way. My personality dimension is agreeableness and openness to experience. As my scores are high I have greater theory Y beliefs. I am highly oriented to the task and focus only on getting the job done. However I also spare some time for well-being of my team. I find self-confidence as my trait. It is a seemingly intangible which is hard to define but clearly recognizable when I encounter it. Self-confidence is important for my success because people gravitate to those who have it, and together they achieve superior results.

Motivation theory to my leadership style:

I use expectancy theory to motivate my team. It means to motivate people to do something by showing them something desirable, indicating how straightforward it is to get it, and then supporting their self-belief that they can get there. When I was working in a hotel called Taj Holiday Village in India, I was assistant manager for restaurant and I used to motivate my staff by showing promotion chances and increment in the salary.

My source of power and preferred means to influence others:

From the individual assessment score I found out that I use more political behavior. I have average effective networking. From the score, it shows I am more effective in negotiating. I lead my team by example. I don’t expect someone to do one thing when I am doing something completely opposite of what I am telling them. My example can be one of my strongest influences on others. Effective communication is also one of the strongest ways to influence others. The better I understand where someone is coming from and how to communicate with them, the better I will be at knowing what will influence them. If i can’t communicate effectively I will soon become very frustrated because people won’t be influenced by me at all.

My leadership Strength:

One of my greatest strength in leadership is teamwork. I am a good team player and work in a team as leader in any character. I know the importance of team and the benefits of team in a human being to become a successful leader. One should be very prompt and co-operative to be a leader of a team. Positive outlook and adaptability is my another strength which I will use it for leading the team towards success and better productivity. I have very positive thinking which give the positive result in my performance also. I can easily adaptive to different situations and conditions. This will help me to learn more and to explore new ideas for betterment of my personal life. I am easily influenced by people and I learn lots of things from them also. The way people speak, the way they react, the way they learn and the way they convince other are the main influencing characters which attracts me towards that person

Self deployment inventory self appraisal (Blue)

·         When things are going well:

Referring to the SDI blue edition, I am an assertive-directing leader which has several benefits. Being direct is, for most everyday matters, the best way to interact.

·         It saves time

·         Misunderstandings are reduced

·         It enables genuine negotiation to take place

·         You get more easily and quickly to a win-win solution

·         Other people don't have to second-guess what you are thinking

·         Things go the way I would like them to be.

·         People trust my honesty.

I feel this instrument depicts the real me in terms of the valued relating style. I compete for authority, responsibility and position as a leader. I exercise persuasion being alert to opportunity and claim the right to earn rewards. It is the set of behaviors that I choose. These behaviors need to satisfy the priorities set by motivational value system. I act in accommodating and assertive and analytic ways, just with differing frequencies and intensities and often depending on the situation. As I am assertive-directing person I am more likely to speak in short, direct sentences. This of course is broad generality; I use my own unique valued relating style to represent my own motivational value system. Relationship Awareness theory allows me to choose my valued relating style based on what I feel would be best in meeting the needs of my own motivational value system in any situation.

Yes, I work in the environment that is rewarding. Rewarding environment is progressive, innovative, evocative, challenge, fast moving, stimulating competitive, creative. Personal material rewards are available which the potential for winning are. Working in rewarding environment creates the type of environment that inspires enthusiasm and increases employee retention.

·         When things are in conflict:

Stage 1

·         Red: Simply rising on the challenge being offered.

Stage 2

·         Blue: Giving in and letting the opposition have its way.

Stage 3

·         Green: Having to retreat completely.

According to the SDI score my conflict sequence is RBG which says I am a person who first meets conflict head-on with a strong self-assertion and challenge to the opposition. If this doesn’t work than I initiate efforts to restore and maintain harmony. If this does not end the conflict, I then withdraw as a last resort.

I totally agree with the findings as conflict can be warranted or unwarranted. I learn to distinguish the difference and identify the circumstances where I might encounter one or the other type of conflict. I also learned how others respond and what those responses mean.

In the first stage of conflict, an individual focuses on three factors-the other person, their self. In the second stage, the other person is no longer of concern to the person experiencing the conflict. In this stage only the problem and their own self worth are of concern to the person experiencing the conflict. In the third stage of conflict, the person experiencing the conflict no longer cares about the other person or the problem. All that is of concern to a person in the third stage of conflict is their own self-preservation. Stage three is thus a "do whatever is necessary to save myself" phenomenon.

Points of Comparison:

When comparing to the patterns of motivation when things are going well and things going wrong the result matches the motivational value system retrieved from SDI which is assertive-directing motivational value system.

Self deployment inventory self appraisal (Red)

·         Overview of appraiser:

I have taken Mr. Ravi Kota as the leader who completed the red form for me. He owns two Indian restaurants in Cincinnati and Columbus. He was working as an interior designer for Ford motors in Detroit before getting involved in restaurant business. He earned his engineering degree in mechanical from Hyderabad University, India. I met him in his restaurant when I once went to had lunch with my friends. During my conversation, I realized that he is a very good and successful leader. There are around 50 people working under him. According to him, he has created a very pleasant working environment where all his staffs are very happy to work and perform their best. He is more of democratic leader who give equal opportunity of development for his entire employee. He always involves one or more employees in the decision making process. However he maintains the final decision making authority.

·         Similarities:

After charting and reviewing the results from the SDI red edition, I found the some similarities to my appraisal in the blue edition with red. As my leadership style and trait, I found my personality dimension is agreeableness and openness to experience as my leadership in both the edition.

·         Differences:

I got some differences in the result between blue and red edition. The red edition shows I have greater theory X beliefs as my scores are less in it.

Leadership Map

·         Future Endeavour:

I want to be sincere in my actions and I do not try to deceive or impress others.  I do what I feel is right based on my values and beliefs. I always follow my heartfelt values, and never let a situation or anyone steer me away from doing what I know is right. I want to be someone that people can look up to and respect and not someone who trades my moral values for material gains in life. I want to be a good team player, responsible and enthusiastic leader. I want to give my best in everything that I do. I want to be honest in dealings with myself and with others. When I lead others, I want to let them see me as a reputable, respectable and genuine leader. I will do when I will say I will and never use fraud or deception to get ahead in life. I want to use ethics, morals, and honor as my compass as the leadership quality.

My ultimate aim in my life is to reach the highest of my profession through the constant and qualitative work. I want to use my strength to become a successful leader. After my MBA, I want to work in a multinational company (5 star hotels) as a marketing manager and after 4 years of experience I want to open my own star category hotel. I also want to open a Hotel Management college to provide practical and theoretical knowledge of hospitality industry. It will help my nation to produce more hospitality related manpower which will also help to improve my nation’s economy.

When I imagine myself in my ideal future, I see myself with many responsibilities and better performance. I see myself as a successful leader as entrepreneur in good financial situation and at the same time many people getting employment under me. I love to work with people and respect their feelings and hard work. I will give equal development opportunities, privilege and benefits to each and every employee working under me. I will let all employee to taste my success by providing them better working environment and self satisfaction.

·         Development area:

Through the individual assessment and SDI analysis I identified some weaknesses on me which I have to overcome in due course of time. I have less potentiality in patterns recognition and systems thinking. Sometimes I cannot identify the right pattern to be followed. I do my things randomly and try to reconcile things likewise. I cannot find the proper system and way to be followed in some cases. I need to rectify these weaknesses to make sure that I will not find any difficulties in my future leadership path. I believe that my intense learning habit will one day resolve my problems which I am facing occasionally.

My most important competencies which I will focus on will be adaptability and team work. I think these competencies are the key tool through which I can use to achieve my objective. If I will adaptable to different places with different people and different situations, I can be a good team player and this will categorize all my strengths and weakness for my future success.

·         Improvement plans:

In the light of what I have learned from my individual assessment and SDI analysis, I have sketched the way to get closer to my goals. I figured out my strengths and weaknesses from different prospective. I can use my strength to direct myself towards the achievements. I need to overcome my weaknesses tactfully to minimize the obstacles coming in between the way to my goal.

One of my greatest strength is teamwork. I am a good team player and work in a team as leader in any character. I know the importance of team and the benefits of team in a human being to become a successful leader. One should be very prompt and co-operative to be a leader of a team. Positive outlook and adaptability is my another strength which I will use it for leading the team towards success and better productivity. I have very positive thinking which give the positive result in my performance also. I can easily adaptive to different situations and conditions. This will help me to learn more and to explore new ideas for betterment of my personal life. I am easily influenced by people and I learn lots of things from them also. The way people speak, the way they react, the way they learn and the way they convince other are the main influencing characters which attracts me towards that person.

Assessment Evaluation

I have now experienced the SDI and other assessment tools which have given me the elaborated idea of their values. SDI and other assessment tools are the techniques to know myself from different prospective and different leadership traits and qualities. It has given me the image of real me. I also came to know the area where I need to improve to be an effective leader.

Summary

I consider that a great leadership seems easy to recognize, and you usually can tell when someone is lacking in leadership qualities. Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen. It is one of the most relevant aspects of the organizational context. The leadership trait and quality mentioned above will help me very much in my professional development.

References:

Lussier R. N. & Achua, C. F. (2010) Leadership: Theory, Application, and Skill Development. 4e Thompson-Southwestern.

Porter, E.H. & Maloney, S.E. (1989). Strength Deployment Inventory. Pacific Palisades: Personal Strengths Publishing. (Red and Blue Copies)

http://sdifacilitators.com/fsdi.php?id=1020&phpMyAdmin=qUly1vWAPqh50Z1rm4xjNAlFaR1

http://www.trans4mind.com/personal_development/1stSelfDevelopment/WhatIs.htm

Appendix:

s.no	Name of Assessment	Score
1.	Leadership potential	24 (which lies in 25-30)
2.	Personality Profile	Surgency=25 Agreeableness=30 Adjustment=24 Conscientiousness=27 Openness to experience=30
3.	Motive Profile	Need for Achievement=25 Need for Power=29 Need for Affiliation=29
4.	Motive & Socialized Power	Need for Achievement=25 Socialized Power=29 Need for Power=29 Need for Affiliation=29
5.	Theory X & Y	29(which lies in 25-30)
6.	Ethical Behavior	86(which lies in 80-90)
7.	Leadership Style	Task leadership style=7 People Leadership Style=13
8.	Skill Development
9.	Political Behavior	Learning the organizational culture and power players=3.4 Developing good working relationships, especially with your boss=2.8 Being, a loyal honest team player=4.7 Gaining Recognition=2.5
10.	Networking	45(which lies in 40-50)
11.	Negotiating	63(which lies in 60-70)
12.	Preferred Normative Leadership Style	The column with highest total =S3
13.	Preferred Communication Style	The column with highest total =S3
14.	Effective Followership	20( which lies in 15-25)
15.	Assessing Teamwork in your group	9(which lies in 10-9)
16.	Transaction VS. Transformational	35( which lies in 30-40)
17.	Personal Values	Professional=160 Financial=160 Family=180 Social=180 Community=170 Spiritual=160 Physical=190 Intellectual=170