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Self Assessment Analysis

Natalia Medina

OGL 482: Pro-Seminar II

Arizona State University

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The first time I ever learned about an assessment was with my previous employer. For

twenty years I worked for the local government and that year we had a new Human Resources

director that wanted employees to really get to know one another and what type of employee

they were. The goal here was to conduct a teambuilding session. The results were to mainly help

the leadership team to reevaluate their departments. The assessment that was conducted was the

DISC personality assessment. I recall we had to answer a series of questions. During my session

there were approximately 75 employees all taking the assessment simultaneously. At the end of

the assessment the room was divided into four areas: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and

Conscientiousness. I was categorized as Dominance. According to the person conducting the

assessment, people who were categorized as dominance were using those in a leadership role.

The assessment really put things into perspective for me and helped me evaluate my career and

future goals.

As mentioned earlier this assessment was conducted for the leadership team to reevaluate

their departments. Assessments are not just beneficial for an individual's career, it is also helpful

for an organization to see what is and is not working for the good of the workforce. The DISC

assessment was useful to us at that time because it helped the leadership find out what each

employee's strong suit was. During this time I was part of the leadership team and had the

opportunity to put into good use the results of the DISC assessment. My team shared their results

and I used these to find out if I had my employees doing the job that they actually enjoyed.

Because of the results of the assessment I was able to rearrange the duties of my division to

ensure the right people were in place doing the job that they were not only good at but that they

enjoyed.
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After completing the Kuder Assessments I have to say that the results were very

surprising to me and baffling. In the Kuder Career Interest Assessment, the results provided that

I would possibly be interested in careers in the medical field and education. About twenty years

ago when I first started as a college freshman I went in as Pre-Med, as I started completing my

first few science courses I quickly realized I very much disliked science. Today, as much I

respect people in the medical field, I am glad that career did not work out for me. Watching

everything people in the medical field had to endure during the pandemic I knew I had made the

right choice. There was no way I could have endured that amount of stress level, it would have

broken me. I will tell you right now that although I currently work for a school district I have

zero interest in teaching. Something I would have possibly enjoyed would be being a counselor.

In the assessment I learned that I enjoyed helping people which is true but I never put much

thought into it. As a former supervisor I always saw the good in my team. Whenever there was a

new position that was being flown by the Human Resources Department I would encourage them

to apply. Some of them had never applied for a full time job so they needed a helping hand. I

have been able to guide at least three of my former employees with filling out their applications

and preparing them for their interviews, fortunately all three of them were successful in

establishing those full time positions.

In reference to my Holland Occupations Code system my code is CES. The C is for

Conventional, E is for Enterprising and the S is for Social. After reviewing what each one

represents, every career choice I have made up to this point makes a lot more sense. Based on my

CES code it seems that my interests include developing and growing human relationships,

problem solver, and achievement in personal and economic gain. Based on these interests

another career interest that was produced from the assessment was arbitrator or mediator. After
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graduating with my degree in Organizational Leadership this Spring I was playing with the idea

of continuing my education with a Master’s Degree in Human Resources Management. This is

one area that has always captured my interest. For years I have been part of labor negotiations in

my previous and now more recently with my current employer. Since I have been newly

appointed as the Vice President of our bargaining unit I will be sent to special training in labor

negotiations and other related courses. The Human Resources Superintendent has also been

invited to sign up for a special certificate program for future leaders in the organization.

Based on my Kuder Assessment my skills include working with art or communication,

problem solver, leadership/entrepreneurial skills, human relations and business system skills.

Some of these skills were highlighted in my E-Portfolio as competencies such as decision

making/problem solving, empathy and social & cross cultural skills. I am glad to see that the

skills outlined in the assessment align perfectly with the core competencies I choose for the e-

portfolio. At this stage in my career I feel pretty confident on where my strengths and

weaknesses lay and that is reflected on the outcome of the assessment and e-portfolio. I could

use skills-based assessment to move forward in my career by not only continuing to improve in

my strengths but target the weaknesses to also make them into strengths.

In the Motivation and Career Anchors my primary career anchor was Managerial

Competence and my secondary career anchor is Security, Stability, Organizational Identity.

There were no surprises here although I was expecting to have Life-Style Integration as one of

my top two anchors. Work life balance is very important to me because everything revolves

around my family and their needs but I see why Managerial Competence came out on top. My

career goal is either to be the Deputy Director or Director of my department. I do understand that

the higher you climb the more work responsibility there is but in my field the higher you are the
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more time off you get and time off means time with the family. I have been in a managerial

capacity but I lost all due to the pandemic. My organization laid me off after 20 years of service

and I am trying to build what I had back up but in another organization. Stability is also

something I need from an organization. Before I got laid off I was a Recreation Superintendent

and always worked for a Recreation Department in local government, due to the pandemic I

learned that a Recreation Department is not an essential position so now I have decided to take a

different course and go for an essential career for job stability purposes. My lowest scoring

career anchor was Entrepreneurial Creativity. This does not come as a surprise because I have no

interest in creating my own business, I find it too risky. This goes back to my Security/Stability

career anchor. I do not like taking major risks where it involves my personal money. One day a

business can be thriving and another day your business can bomb and you need to shut down.

With the career path that I have chosen, that is a lot more security and stability which makes me

feel safe with my long-term employment.

During my journey in completing OGL courses I was able to complete a few

assessments. Some of them were the Cultural Dimensions Self Assessment, Path-Goal

Leadership Assessment, and the LMX. The LMX assessment also known as the Leader-Member

Exchange is a brief questionnaire that was provided to me in my OGL 300 course called Theory

Practice on Leadership. This questionnaire is an assessment that provides you information about

the relationship you either have with your leader or subordinate. The questionnaire, although

short, can be an important tool to determine the positive behaviors in the workplace. The Path-

Goal Leadership Assessment is a great tool for those who want to be in a leadership role or those

just entering in a leadership capacity in the workplace. The Path Goal Leadership Assessment is

a great tool to show you what type of leadership style you have. It may be either Directive Style,
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Supportive Style, Participative Style and Achievement-Oriented Style. The results of this

assessment do not mean that you are just a certain style of leadership, it shows you how you can

change styles depending on the situation you are dealing with. When I completed this assessment

I recall I was an Achievement-Oriented Style but was also ranked high in the Supportive Style.

When in a leadership capacity I do find myself being supported by not only subordinates but of

my team in general from the top down in the department. Another assessment that was helpful

and eye opening for me through my organizational leadership courses was the Cultural

Dimensions Self Assessment. This assessment is helpful in a much broader sense. When I first

dove into the workforce as a tiny college student trying to get their feet wet, cultural dimensions

were not brought up although cultural diversity was already on the rise. When I first started

working we did not think of culture in the workplace as a topic of discussion, everything was

always so cut and dry. Now that we are educating ourselves about culture and culture diversity

we notice that it was right in front of our faces. Take masculinity and femininity, in my culture

masculinity was a sign of a strong man and the breadwinner of the family. Masculinity versus

femininity is how a culture views gender differences and how they distribute roles between men

and women (Bauer, 2018). The knowledge you can gain from this assessment will help you

make sure you are treating your clients, supervisors, subordinates or co-workers correctly and

taking into consideration their culture and customs they may have.

Reflecting on all the assessments I have completed throughout my organizational

leadership courses and in this assignment I feel a lot more confident in the career I have chosen.

My goal is to get back into a leadership role and I have the tools I need to achieve it. I have my

22 years of experience and in May of 2024 I will have my second tool which is my degree. I

hope that this time next year I have achieved that goal.
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Reference

1. Bauer T. & Berrin E. (2018) - Organizational Behavior