Leadership and Teambuilding

As MBA students, who are studying to become the leaders of tomorrow, it is important to understand oneself. Personality and behavior tests are a helpful tool to provide us with characteristics or traits we might not be aware of and give insight for learning how to change our behavior to become a more effective leader and better interact with others in a team environment. This paper will examine and make reference to the four behavior tests we underwent in class, my desired leadership and follower traits while studying at Hult that I have learned through the results of these tests, my personal behavior trait I will need to change and how I will set about accomplishing this.

The first test we completed was the Transactional Analysis Questionnaire, which uses the model of the ego state (Parent-Adult-Child) to explain how people function and express their personality in their behavior. As discussed extensively in class, the Parent State is more authoritative behavior learned from parents and other people of influence especially during early life; the Adult is the more rational part of the personality and decision-making based on examining the facts; and the Child pertains to mostly emotional aspects. I scored equal on both Parent and Adult. Although each is a source of managerial behavior and are appropriate in different situations, problems occur if Parent and Child are the only basis. Individuals may not recognize problems because perceptions are dominated by their early experiences stored in their parent tapes, and the child ego state may result in creative ideas, but may not be able to offer the required direction (Weihrich, 1979). The adult, however, is able to restrain the automatic parent and child responses. They are able to recognize relevant factors such as they type of the organization, nature of the task and problem and then select the ego state that is appropriate for the situation (Weihrich, 1979). This in turn is what makes an effective leader.

The Drivers Questionnaire examines the strong, edited Parent Type which acts as an engineer or a driving force within us for life, contaminating the adult (TA & Drivers, Sept 6). There are five main drivers: "Be Perfect", "Please People", "Be Strong", "Hurry Up" and "Try Hard". I scored extremely high in Please People as my primary driver. This indicates that I am a good team member, but not a team leader. I tend to be apologetic, agree too easily, avoid conflict, worry about upsetting other people and cannot deliver criticism to others. Although we discussed in class that all drivers are "bad", certain combination and balance of characteristics of different drivers can form the foundation for an effective leader. For myself, I would like to have the organizational and preparation skills of a "Be Perfect", be able to accomplish a lot and come up with solutions quickly to problems like a "Hurry Up", and be able to tackle projects enthusiastically like a "Try Hard", while still being able to maintain harmony in a group as a "Please People".

The Conflict Style Questionnaire identifies conflict style and how it varies in different contexts. I scored equally high on avoiding