Introspection About Leadership Style

MBA 594 ASSIGNMENT

Trinity Western University

Zhuan, Yang (Kevin) & 642831

Leadership and Ethics

Dr. Robert Ian Angell

19 November 2022
CONTENTS
Preface.........................................................................................................................................2
Chapter 1 Enneagram and introspection.....................................................................................3
Chapter 2 Leadership style and personality tendency................................................................6
Chapter 3 Resonance with 3 authors in practice.........................................................................7

Preface

Thank you very much for this opportunity to show my real self to professors and classmates,
maybe this is the closest introspection to “The ID”, although I don't like Sigmund Freud either.
Leadership style is determined by personality characteristics, and the influencing factors are
internal cognition, behavior, attitude and external environment.

How to get a more objective understanding of oneself based on the output data of the enneagram
and the correction results through variables becomes very important. Allow me to add some
psychological theories or self-understanding to the results of the test to further analyze leadership
style.

Leadership style is very common in the work scene. I fully agree with some of the phenomena
mentioned in the three articles (videos) and the author's views. Although I cannot express them in
academic form, I try my best to describe the process and my thinking.

Finally, Since I haven't studied and practiced leadership in depth, some opinions may be biased or
wrong. I hope the professor will be outspoken.
Chapter 1 Enneagram and introspection

 1 Description

In the first part, I will introduce the differences in the purpose and results of my two tests at
different time periods, and then explain the underlying personality types through the official
definition. Assuming that the enneagram test is close to the truth, on this basis, I list some possible
bias factors and correct the results by introspection and asking others, rather than negating them.
Finally, through some positive and negative evidence to confirm my basic personality
characteristics. Based on these characteristics, I try to find descriptions that fit my leadership style.
Although the whole process is not a rigorous experimental test, introspection and personality-
based testing are instructive for future leadership development.
 Assessment Flow

 2 INPUT- Different Results

 Official Test Results1 from Enneagram

Official Test Results2 from CH-VER

The test results of the two versions show that the test results of Enneagram are 8-7 and the test
results of Chinese version are 7-8. The similarities and differences are as follows:

Common: The base personality of both results points to 7 and 8

Difference: Different permutations

 3 PROCESS- How to avoid bias?

“For most people, it’s clear what your basic type is. If your highest score is much higher (3-4
points or more) than the rest of your scores, this is most likely your basic personality type. You can
confirm this by reading about the type either on our site or in Personality Types and The Wisdom
of the Enneagram. If the descriptions of this type do not fit you, there are several other
possibilities to consider……”

- Interpreting Your Enneagram Test Results

“Don Riso and Russ Hudson have used two main words to describe each Function (see
Discovering Your Personality Type, p. 80-83) because each personality type represents two major
areas of activity—a Function that characterizes an internally held attitude of the type, and a
Function that characterizes the type's observable behavior.”

- More Advanced Interpretation Issues

Step 1: Official Definition & Bias, according to the official standard and interpretation, my major
types of differences are not obvious. Therefore, I would like to know More about the More
Advanced Interpretation, which officially explains Two important Two function characterization,
one is Attitude and the other is Behavior. According to the definition of ABC model, Attitude,
Behavior and Cognition affect each other, so I need to add a reference function cognition to
explain my test results. Generally speaking, the higher an individual's cognitive level, the greater
the effect of Social Desirability on personality tests. In addition, the diversity of social identity
will also affect the behavior and cognitive model.

Step 2: Multiple Source Assessments & Introspection, after finding the factors that might
influence the bias, I tried to correct the results through self-evaluation and third-party evaluation:

 Third party assessments, I choose a friend who appears in both work and life to evaluate, "In
work or life, I will appear as two different personalities, perhaps with a kind of purpose."
 According to my best friend, when I was young, I was curious and fond of fun, but always a
little clever.
 From the teacher's evaluation, if it is something I like, I will forget sleep and eat to study and
learn it, but soon will lose enthusiasm.
 My father commented on me: I was always a kid who was used to taking pressure on himself.
 A former subordinate told me that my harshness made him cry all afternoon. She thought I
was an inconsiderate leader.
 A summary of myself in the past, I have lost a lot, also know that other people's feelings are
very important, also know that in the future I need to be strict with myself to do what.

Step 3: Positive and negative evidence

I also try to recall many events that have happened and are happening from the memories
associated with pain and pleasure. Due to limited space, I cannot list them all. The summary of
evidence about 7-8 is as follows:

7 Personality: Most of the evidence is that I was this style before I was 30, but now I still take on
this form in some condition, maybe it's highly related to my stable personality tendencies.

8 Personality: Since I have experienced different career stages and I have been learning different
knowledge in recent years, I may have two different forms in the society.
Step 4 What is the truth

My stable personality tendencies are more in line with the 7, based on the developmental
perspective, social learning and knowledge acquisition, I am moving towards 8, perhaps in the
near future I will lose the 7 completely.

Chapter 2 Leadership style and personality tendency

7 personality is my basic personality trait, and 8 personality is what I may change in the future
based on the needs of my social role. The influence of personality traits on leaders is also direct.
After introspection and testing, I think I am relatively stable in the following aspects:

 Strong drive for achievement and a sense of adventure;

 High enthusiasm and creativity
 The tendency to act quickly when opportunity came;
 Often in a state of hurry and impatience;
 A certain amount of resilience and vision;
 Hate hierarchy and bureaucracy;
 Prefer to do business with external clients;
 Used to focusing on the future

Although scholars around the world have different understandings of entrepreneurial leadership
style, or it may be because the current task determines the required style, but in most task
situations, the behavior characteristics in management are consistent with my personality.
However, I do not rule out that I may have different leadership styles in some special situations.

This entrepreneurial leadership style can bring rapid performance in the early stage of
organizational development, but in the middle stage of enterprise development, this style will be
the bottleneck of enterprise scale development. For example, risk and decision making, motivation
level of team members decreased and the other.
 How to select leadership style for me?

Overall, in some natural situations, I tend to favor my own personality traits, such as risk-taking
and aggressive and preferences, in terms of management behavior style. However, I will also
change my leadership style through social learning and knowledge acquisition for different tasks.

Chapter 3 Resonance with 3 authors in practice

In the three articles/videos, I noticed that Simon Sinek and Confucian culture both mentioned the
family leadership style, it’s sound paternalistic leadership style. Each author explains the
behavioral characteristics of this leadership style from a different perspective and the different
influences it brings. I discuss the pros and cons of this style in organization only from my own
experience.

On the one hand, paternalistic leadership style is conducive to the formation of a sense of fairness
in the organization, while trust in the superior can improve performance and promote
organizational citizenship behavior.

Although Chinese traditional thinking emphasizes the family culture and is used to thinking in a
holistic way, within the enterprise, leaders need a lot of attention resources, which is also a
continuous activity, so this mode is not suitable for all work situations.

In any case, the sense of organizational justice, the sense of support, the organizational
commitment and the consistency of goals still have a positive effect on the organizational
performance. The unique leadership style in China still needs to be further studied.