EXL - Leadership Self-Assessment

First was the leadership self-assessment I filled out in the first month of my graduate degree. This involved ranking myself on different traits that showed my leadership capabilities. This exercise was meant to help me understand my leadership strengths and weaknesses so that I could utilize my strengths and work on my weaknesses.

The results showed that I was highly effective in the following skills: integrity, problem solving and people. The results also showed that I needed improvement in these skills: priorities and attitude. From these results I learned that I needed to focus on keeping my priorities in order and maintaining a good attitude when times get tough. To improve in these areas I set to goals for myself.

The first goal was to get a 3.5 GPA or higher by the end of my degree. This made me prioritize my life, which made school first and fun last. This worked for me because it is now the last month and I have maintained a 4.0 GPA for the entire degree. I’ve learned how to make a list of things I need to do and rank them from most important to least important. Being able to do this has helped me eliminate the clutter in my life as well as open up a lot of free time because I don’t waste time trying to figure out what I need to do anymore.

The second goal was to get perfect attendance, which I had never done my entire time spent in educational systems. This not only helped me with prioritizing my life but it also helped me with my attitude. I achieved this goal by waking up everyday with a smile no matter how I felt. Everyday I would show up 30 minutes before class, ready to start the day. This was a huge deal for me because I have always had a problem waking up with the attitude to “take on the world”. I forced myself to keep going and now it is engrained in my mind.

Overall this exercise has taught me a lot of important skills that will help me in the entertainment business industry. Most importantly it has taught me to sit down once a year and reflect on what I have learned and what I need to improve on. This will help me to make goals for myself so that every year I grow as a person and a leader a little bit more.