UNIT 1: SELF-ASSESSMENTS 1

Unit 1: Self-Assessments

Brian Koster

Organizational Leadership, Arizona State University

OGL 482: Organizational Leadership Pro-Seminar II

Instructor: Janice Lawhorn

Date: October 23, 2022

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Section 1: Kuder Career Interests

My highest personality types in Kuder’s career interests are investigative, enterprising,

and conventional. I am the lowest in artistic and social skills in both career interests and skills

confidence. Nothing really surprised me when it came to the results.

Some of the careers that stuck out were analytics (and the many varieties thereof) and

occupational health and safety specialists. This is vastly different from my original thoughts of

management and human resources. When doing these assessments, I could imagine myself in

either a higher position or a desired career. The problem is getting there. Another is the devotion

and time needed to make all these feasibly happen.

An “aha moment” would be integrating my work and lifestyle. It was because of

questions involving thoughts of wanting weekends off and still owning a business where the

busiest days are the weekends that made me pause to consider what was more important. (The

questions didn’t specify weekends off, but merely implied it.) This is where I have to decide

when finding a job if it would have weekends available. I can tell these assessments are doing

their best to direct me. With so many options, I need time to consider the best possible answer.

The only way I could see this assessment moving my career/life forward is by

recognizing that certain professions have people with similar personality types. The careers

involved have expanded my view of options, some being intriguing to consider. I don’t know if it

will change anything post-graduation, because I am still interested in applying for a graduate

program once I finish school. (Plus a semester off would be nice.) Talking to my peers during

coaching sessions has allowed me to verbalize my areas of interest and discover a little about

myself, much like other evaluations (Harrington and Hall, 2007, p. 37 & 42-43).
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Section 2: Kuder Skills

When it came to filling out questions in Super’s Work Values Inventory, certain thoughts

of external control were prevalent in assessing the answers. Another is getting everything I want.

(You cannot get everything you want; it’s good to see what I value more than others.) For

example, when questions were asked if my job was important in an organization as long-lasting,

I didn’t believe it was my choice to make that decision. Markets and needs of an organization

change. As much as I would enjoy stability, the needs of the organization take precedence over

that of a single job itself. Another example were questions asking about my supervisor/boss. I

didn’t feel I had control over that, either. Would not having a boss that values my work be a

breaking point? In fact, most of these questions, although spoken as personal values, could be

revolved around a control or acceptance factor, to which I wonder how much control (or

allowance) a person would expect from their career within these categories. If I don’t get what’s

truly important to me, will I quit or find a way to make it happen? Honestly, I doubt it.

I took the work values inventory two times. Again, independence and lifestyle were top,

but instead of the workplace as third, it’s now security. And, again, just like my first run, I

questioned “how important is a job where I am looked up to by others,” because this implies that

the position is what matters, not the person itself. I see all positions as important. Some people

may not want the responsibilities of a boss, instead opting for easier roles. Others may want a

position but are unable to achieve it because of any number of factors: commitment, age, legal,

experience, etc. Additionally, skills and traits would attract me to the leader, not the position

itself. So when I look at people in positions of power, I don’t think about their position, I think

about their traits and how they got there. It was after this second attempt where prestige grew

from 12th to 7th, and income went from a small percentage to a much larger volume of
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importance. All others stayed relatively the same (in either ranking or within their

low/medium/high range).

There were no “aha moments” due in part to my inability to fully understand my values.

Yes, I have values. I just don’t know where some of them lie. Income I could do without as long

as I’m content. I see prestige as something internally acquired, at its best, through self-esteem or

self-actualization. This is something one has to learn. And security needs more time to consider.

(Why would a work environment not address security concerns?)

I have taken two other value assessments in previous classes. Only one of them still

contained finished writing. In it, I valued happiness, a sense of accomplishment, and wisdom as

my top three terminal values. As for instrumental values, the highest were logical, clean, then

ambitious. Nowhere on the list contained issues of income or supervision.

Moving onto the skills confidence assessment, my highest types are conventional,

investigative, and realistic. With a Bachelor’s degree, this opened the door for careers in

environmental compliance inspector, information security analytics, data scientist, or statistical

assistant. If I moved further with a Master’s degree, I would have statisticians or lawyers.

Strangely, business management or human resources were not among them.

The skills I excelled in past assessments fostered around planning/organizing,

management, and a good amount of analytical problem solving. I could tell I was looking at

careers that correlated to personal bias or linking to my Indigo career suggestions. To me, having

a title or career that highlighted these skills was important. More research will be needed to

move into a career that I find compelling.

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Section 3: Career Anchors

I have taken the Motivation and Career Anchors Assessment in a previous class. (I don’t

know which class.) My numbers for that were 54/60/70/74/73/56/68/53. This means I am highest

in managerial competence and entrepreneurial creativity. This latest run produced scores of

51/65/62/69/52/39/54/43. Again, managerial competence was highest followed by

autonomy/independence. Looking at the questions, as was in Kuder’s other assessments, made

me speculate about the viability of some of their meanings. When it talks about separating work

and family, to what degree will that entail? As of right now, “family” is of little concern to me as

I am single (divorced) and have no children. Perhaps later in life, prioritizing family will matter,

but currently my focus is on studies and career opportunities.

No surprises, again, were surmounted in this assessment. Perhaps the only surprise is how

low I scored on sense of service and life-style integration. I wonder if this was because of

changing values associated with increased educational matters. Sense of service was lowest,

perhaps, because of my commitment to myself and personal association with a greater cause. For

whatever reason, as with family, gaining a higher education must have done something different.

That is my only excuse at this time.

Section 4: Three Additional Self-Assessments

All assessments I cite are from paper documents I have retained. In a different assessment

from Indigo using DISC behaviors, based from an earlier OGL class, possible degree matches

included facilities planning and management and culinary science. Taking the Humanmetrics

Jung Typology Test (similar to Myers-Briggs) resulted in my being an ENTJ type. Interested
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careers from that are business management, counseling, and law. I am currently looking into a

Master’s degree in management or human resources, so seeing the Kuder results and returning to

analyzing past assessments have made me consider additional careers just a bit. In moving my

life/career forward, I’m using these assessments as a guide to possibilities. The real question is

whether I take their advice or seek my own path.

One assessment that was not from a class was work performance evaluations. These have

helped showcase my strengths and weaknesses within the team and organization (Harrington and

Hall, 2007, p. 37-38). My family (significant other) added onto this outside of class assignments

most likely resulting in their concern for my well-being (p. 38-39). I find myself listening more

to these evaluations as ways to grow. I used to see them as focusing on my weaknesses. Instead,

I now see positives and look at addressing the negatives through repeated efforts.

The Kuder assessments merely added more career possibilities to my pool. Looking at

past assessments have made me curious about how these answers differ from originally taken

versus the end of my college degree. As I look back, the most significant were DISC, Jung

Typology, and the Big Five personality test. Most others were around assessing my leadership,

learning, or listening styles and potential, not really skills. DISC stands out the most because of

how it describes me in great detail.

To end, I see myself taking these assessments and analyzing their results and processes. I

am constantly looking for ways to improve a process, make it faster/easier, or question why the

original creators use certain wordings, numbers, or artifacts. One thing I know from experience,

not from assessments, is that I can be brutally honest. These Kuder assessments have told me

more about myself, but there is always something that an assessment can never find except by

having self-awareness. (Having friends tell us this is helpful, too.)

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References

Harrington, B, & Hall, D. T. (2007). Career management & work/life integration: Using

self-assessment to navigate contemporary careers. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Publications, Inc. ISBN: 978-1412937450