Genesis (Chandler) Scott 000831503

Performance Assessment: IT Leadership Foundations D370

Part A.
1. Discuss the results of the five categorical strengths from the CliftonStrengths self-assessment,
including what those results indicate about your leadership.

The CliftonStrengths self-assessment indicated that my top five strength categories are Activator,
Adaptability, Ideation, Empathy and Strategic. Activator speaks to my capacity to lead with initiative,
contrasting with some leadership styles that prioritize collecting all possible information before acting. This is
relevant to my second-highest strength, Adaptability, which speaks to my tendency to view the future as a
product of effective decisions in the present. There is a connection between the Activator’s acting without all
possible information and Adaptability’s responding to the present as it changes. Both Activator and
Adaptability speak to a higher risk tolerance which is a necessity for the third strength, Ideation. Ideation
speaks to my tendency to respond to problems with originality and creativity. I agree with this characterization
because, through the Adaptability framework, no present experience is completely alike and, as such, each
problem requires a solution tailored to the causes and conditions of the present. However, a problem does not
occur in a vacuum, it exists because of human actions and, my third strength, Empathy, speaks to my capacity
to understand the emotional experiences of people around me. Empathy impacts my leadership by
underpinning the creative, adaptable initiative with the understanding that each person has a specific language
of appreciation and, as such, adapting uniquely to let people be heard and understood is a priority in my
leadership style. Finally, complex problems and positions require scrutiny, and this is reflected in my final
strength listed, Strategic. Strategic emphasizes distilling complex plans into easy-to-follow steps, a process that
requires acting on the unknown in accordance with creative thinking, making sure each person’s emotional
capacity is taken int consideration. This reflects a leadership approach that synthesizes all 5 of my strengths as
stated by the CliftonStrengths self-assessment.

2. Explain how each of your five identified strengths from the CliftonStrengths self-assessment
influence your thoughts, decisions, and behaviors as the IT manager in the provided scenario.
a. Activator would impact my delegation of problems to specific teams based on their
competencies. Additionally, Activator would emphasize my trust in teams to solve problems
even without prior evidence of their exposure to problems of a similar capacity.
b. With Adaptability, it’s important to be flexible in both the function of each member of a team,
and in the problem-solving approach each team prescribes to the problem. As such, it’s
prudent to filter the new processes to my team in a way that may change as performance is
evaluated and as skillsets grow with time.
c. Ideation is essential in solving unique problems as they arise in a creative capacity. The new
processes are to be followed in trust of upper management, but the implementation of those
processes can be suited to the nature of each problem. Despite the changing requirements,
each problem still necessitates a unique and original solution and, as such, the grouping of
teams per problem may also change based on the evaluated strengths of each team member.
d. Empathy is the rudder for driving effective collaboration and feedback mechanisms. Given
the already present friction in the Senior developers against changing processes, it is essential
to find a middle ground that implements the new processes while tailoring their intermediate
steps to gradually change the workflow to consider the emotional comfort zone of every
employee.
e. Strategic thinking would emerge from the interplay of all the above stated forces. It’s
necessary to be reminded of the endpoint, which is the improved efficiency of work in
response to a late deadline. Through gradual change and consistent metrics that track
performance indicators at each step of the problem-solving process, the efficacy of business
processes can be strategically evaluated. Similarly, through qualitative surveying of team
satisfaction, increasing the investment in remote collaboration tools and normalizing feedback
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channels, the team will improve in both its quantitative and social efficacy.

Part B.
Leadership Goal
Implement a structured decision-making framework for all projects I lead by June 2025, to
translate my strategic thinking into sequential action. I will accomplish this by completing a
course in project management by April 15 and will practice linear problem-solving through
three documented case studies evaluating my effectiveness. Success will be measured by
reducing project turnaround rate by 20% and increasing on-time deliverables by 15% in Q2
compared to Q1.

Note: The IT leadership goal should focus on improving your leadership, not on improving your team.

1. Discuss two specific actions you will take to support the goal discussed in part B.
To implement a structured decision-making framework that improves my project organization and
linear thinking, I will take a project management course and measure performance through three case
studies over the course of the next project lifecycle. The project management course will teach me to
approach problems from a more grounded and logical approach to challenge my capacity to be overly
spontaneous and emotion driven. The case studies will provide a quantitative basis for my decision-
making which challenges the pitfalls of an excessively empathetic approach, which at times has the
tendency to hyperfocus on subjective results rather than the quantitative deliverables such as deadlines
or project efficiency.
Part C.
1. Resistance to change
a. The Transformational leadership style would effectively address the experienced developer’s
resistance to change because reminding the senior developers about the common mission
could offset the friction created by drastic changes to processes. Similarly, through
emphasizing the positive aspects of the changes by example, the senior developers will
become more acclimated to new policies and procedures. Both examples are cornerstones of
the transformational leadership style, which emphasizes leading by example and “articulating
an appealing vision” to the team to increase the efficacy of collaboration (Yukl and Gardner
2019).
2. Project coordination
a. The Strategic leadership style would effectively address the project coordinators’ struggle to
balance the transition with keeping projects on track. Strategic leadership emphasized long-
term goals and as such, each goal can be broken down and applied to projects as they are
assigned. Through consistent project planning sessions, dogmatic adherence to core values
and principles, and established quantitative performance goals per quarter, project
coordinators can delegate priority according to the agreed upon principles established
collectively in planning sessions. This dual focus on measurable long-term goals and
quantitative core competencies are cornerstones of the strategic leadership style, which make
it an effective intervention to resolve this problem (Yukl and Gardner 2019).

1. Describe how applying both leadership styles from part C would motivate the team.
Provide two approaches for each style.
1. Transformational:
1. Weekly all-hands meetings to discuss the progress on current projects, and future projects would
ensure the experienced developers have a chance to voice their concerns about the new processes.
Additionally, regular meetings would be an opportunity to remind the developers about the common
mission which is currently guiding the team’s general focus.
2. Collaborate with each team in solving problems according to priority to have a relevant and timely
experience with what the teams are currently grappling with. This would show that, as a leader, I
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intend to be fully involved in the work just as much as any member of the team. Thus, leading by
example, I would offset the negative perception of the new changes through exemplifying that we are
all working collaboratively.

2. Strategic
1. Establishing quantitative long-term goals, our project coordinators will measure the efficacy of each
new process and pivot our strategy according to performance indicators, a process that embodies two
central components of the Strategic leadership style (Yukl and Gardner 2019).
2. I will ensure each process contains a level of flexibility to suit the “core competencies” of each team
member, emphasizing a more hands on approach when necessary for newer members of the team or in
projects where there’s a significant skill gap between the domain expert and any of the senior
developers on the project. This careful consideration of competency combined with a candid
evaluation of each team member’s strength and weaknesses is central to the Strategic leadership style
(Yukl and Gardner 2019).
Genesis (Chandler) Scott 000831503

References

Yukl, Gary, A. and William L. Gardner III. Leadership in Organizations. Available from: Western Governors
University, (9th Edition). Pearson Education (US), 2019.