Intro:

The common definition of leadership is the action of leading a group of people or

an organization. While this does summarize the basic function of leadership I will

discuss with participants the complexity of leadership and elaborate on this definition.

Analyzing what qualities my interviewees associate with leadership, I will also reflect on

what leadership qualities I believe I possess as well as the qualities others perceive in

myself.

Methodology:

For this study I will be interviewing people both in my personal and professional

life. Doing so will create a more holistic understanding of how I can improve my

leadership skills. From my personal life I choose to interview Clarissa, she has seen my

work performance grow from my first job as a teenager to my current position. Her

viewpoint should highlight areas I need improvement. Clarissas interview lasted close to

fifteen minutes in total. Using an interview guide created from both (the textbook) and

OGL 483 suggested questions. Additional questions were used when responses

naturally lead to follow up questions. Recording notes during the interview and audio

recordings were used to record answers. Reflecting back on audio recording I corrected

or added to an interviewee sheet on my ASU google docs. My next interviewee is my

current boss in order to gain a professional viewpoint. Ideally, he can provide the most

current reflection on my leadership skills from an upper management point of view. Our

interview ran a bit longer than intended at almost 20 minutes. My next interviewee is

Tanner who also has a professional and personal perspective. This interview lasted just
shy of 15 minutes and was recorded as we interviewed and both with audio for later

reference. With the data gathered I will use it for this self reflection analysis.

After completing all interviews I compared two main aspects of the interview.

First, I noted key words used between interviewees in each question. Looking mainly for

similarities or differences expressed by interviewees about my leadership skills.

Secondly, I looked at the ranking questions and compared the results between

interviewees. I will then use this information in my discussion section later on.

SECTION 1: Write up a 5-8 page summary of your thoughts, answering the following

questions: (Include each of the questions, as well as your response to each in your

write-up.)

● What was your rationale in developing your interview guide sheet(s)? What

did you hope to discover?

Creating my interview guide sheets I hoped would inform me what areas I could

improve in terms of leadership. Oftentimes people say they would have preferred

feedback earlier in their careers so they could have avoided bad habits or practices. I

hoped this interview process would help me better understand my weaknesses and give

me an opportunity to start improving those weaknesses. Interviewing people in my

professional and personal life will allow me to better understand other perspectives

about my leadership abilities.

○ I hoped to discover 1) where my areas of improvement lie so i can take

action now to begin improve thoe said areas2) to see if others peoples

percpective of my ability matches what I think I am outputing

interview(s)?

Through this process I never felt uncomfortable during my personal interviews. I choose

these people for two main reasons. Firstly they have never shied away from giving me

their honest opinions. Having people willing to openly share their opinion is something I

feel very fortunate to have. Secondly, these people have previously been interviewed by

me for different courses regarding general business ethics. I felt this opportunity to learn

how they viewed me as a leader would result in valuable feedback.

○ I felt comfortable with a moajority of it. I know that I am new to an actual

leadership role so I know i have faults. I prefer to hear this now rather later

down the line when it might difficult for me to adapt.

● How comfortable did you feel listening to the feedback in your professional

interview(s)?

During my professional interview I was moderately comfortable. I was mildly distracted

by the idea of how my boss would go through the same interview but with my co-

supervisor. I caught myself a few times thinking as I documented my boss's response

"does he think the same thing about my co-supervisor or does he think they're doing

better than I am"? Repeatedly this would happen and distract me from recording the

response. Even after the fact I still ponder what my co-supervisor would receive similar

feedback.

○ I was failr comfortaable. The only thing that might have distracted me at

times is me comparing what I am hear to my co-supervisors performance.

he recievce similar fead back or other critics.

● What did you learn about yourself as a result of this process?

Going through the interview process I learned that people see a great amount of

potential in me. My personal interviewees felt confident that I would be able to succeed

in my current position or other roles. Two of the main areas of improvement my

personal interviewees mention is my confidence and organization. If I strengthen these

skills they felt that I would be able to reach my full potential.

○ I learned that a lot of people see very high potential for me to succeed in

this role. However there are still areas (confidence and organiztion) that

hold me bacck from reaching that potential.

● Were there any surprising results from your interviews? Explain?

I was surprised by how highly my boss ranked me in the professional interview.

His ranking for confidence and organization were higher than the remaining

interviews. The other interviewees had placed these skills as my weaker traits.

This contradiction in ranking is an area I would like to fuller study and see if I

improve on or get better data from a more extensive study.

○ I would say that my my professional interview i recived a high grade/

evalution./ trength of confidence. Others had said that was one of my

weaker traits. AKA my professional and peronal interviewscontradicted my

level of confidence.
 ● How will you think differently, and what will you do differently, as a result of

this assignment (self-monitoring, working on developing certain skills, etc.)?

○ Now that i have a better understanding of my lacking skills in both

professional and person context I will work on building these skill

(confidence and organization)

● How does what you found out pertain to your leadership style?

○ The most common thing interviewees mention is that i am a people person

and approchable. I think that goes into my socil skills seen in th Kuder

assessments. A second common trait mentioned was my entripunail skill. I

did

○ Kuders assents low scores snd if they conext or contradict. One of my

weakness was my problem solving and creativity. Not necesary that the

skill it self is low but that the interviewees view about me is that after few

tries i give up an let someone else try differently.

○ I am innovative however I caan not think of creating an actual process.

SECTION 2: Include your interview guide sheets / interviewee responses (at least three

interviewees). Include / summarize their responses to each of the questions separately

(Interviewee #1 / Interviewee #2 / etc) as Appendices at the end of your paper. Please

combine this information into one document for the purposes of assignment submission

(don’t submit multiple separate documents).

Conclusion: A conclusion, which will draw your narrative to a close, summarize what

you learned through this interview process. Include whether you included this document

in your e-portfolio, explaining your decision.

1. Be sure to develop open ended questions for your interview guide sheets.

Include some back-up probes and follow-up questions in case your

interviewee isn’t very talkative. In the write-ups, short answers to these

questions (two or three sentences) are generally NOT acceptable. I

would expect that each response would be at least a couple hundred

words.

If your interviewee is providing very short answers, it will be up to you to draw

that person out, and to try to get as much meaningful data as you can through

the interview process. Sometimes a manual note taking process can yield

short responses on the paper due to incomplete note taking or poor note

taking skills. This is why a strongly suggest that you RECORD each

interview. That way, you can play it back and do a much better job of

capturing the depth and detail of the interview.

2. Take a copy of your interview guide with you to each of your interviews so

that you can be sure to cover all the necessary items – and (as stated above),

consider including some of your own questions as well as probes / follow-ups

to allow you to get more detail of interest, as applicable.