Summarize your thinking on leadership, and on themselves as a leader. Included should be at least:

1. the identification of and rationale for your top 2-3 most influential leadership strengths;
2. identification of, and an action plan for addressing, 2-3 'blind spots' you may have;
3. discussion of your three most influential assessments (Self-Insights).

Locate three self-insights/assessments of choice from any chapter. Reflect on your results. Here are some examples from Chapter 4: Leader's Self-Insight 4.1 The Big Five Personality Dimensions; Chapter 2: Leader's Self Insight 4.2 Measuring Locus of Control; Leader's Self Insight 4.3 Instrumental and End Values.

If you choose to complete the Big Five Personalities self assessment, you will need to reflect on your results. Are you an extrovert? Would this help you as a leader? Do you agree with your results? Could you provide with an example to support your thoughts?

1. other important lessons learned - what surprised you? what will you take with you?

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READ this and WRITE based on this Chapter.

Big Five personality dimensions five general dimensions that describe personality: extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience

Most people think of personality in terms of traits. As we discussed inChapter 2, researchers have investigated whether any traits stand up to scientific scrutiny, and we looked at some traits associated with effective leadership. Although investigators have examined thousands of traits over the years, their findings have been distilled into five general dimensions that describe personality. These often are called theBig Five personality dimensions, which describe an individual's extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.Each dimension contains a wide range of specific traitsfor example, all of the personality traits that you would use to describe a teacher, friend, or boss could be categorized into one of the Big Five dimensions. These factors represent a continuum, in that a person may have a low, moderate, or high degree of each of the dimensions.

Extroversion is made up of traits and characteristics that influence behavior in group settings. Extroversion refers to the degree to which a person is outgoing, sociable, talkative, and comfortable meeting and talking to new people. Someone low on extroversion may come across as quiet, withdrawn, and socially unassertive. This dimension also includes the characteristic of dominance. A person with a high degree of dominance likes to be in control and have influence over others. These people often are quite self-confident, seek out positions of authority, and are competitive and assertive. They like to be in charge of others or have responsibility for others. It is obvious that both dominance and extroversion could be valuable for a leader. However, not all effective leaders necessarily have a high degree of these characteristics.

Agreeablenessrefers to the degree to which a person is able to get along with others by being good-natured, cooperative, forgiving, compassionate, understanding, and trusting. A leader who scores high on agreeableness seems warm and approachable, whereas one who is low on this dimension may seem cold, distant, and insensitive. Studies show that people who score high on agreeableness are more likely to get jobs and keep them than are less agreeable people.Although there is also some evidence that people who areoverlyagreeable tend to be promoted less often and earn less money, the days are over when leaders can expect to succeed by running roughshod over others and looking out only for themselves.

Today's successful leaders are not the tough guys of the past but those men and women who know how to get people to like and trust them.Leaders are making a concerted effort to present a friendlier face to employees, the public, and shareholders after years of headlines exposing white-collar crime, CEO arrogance, and complaints over exorbitant pay. Lee Raymond, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, made plenty of money for investors but was described by some shareholders as "stubborn, self-important, [and] rude." In contrast, Raymond's successor, Rex Tillerson, was publicly thanked at one annual meeting for his "friendliness, humor, and candor."

The next personality dimension,conscientiousness, refers to the degree to which a person is responsible, dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented. A conscientious person is focused on a few goals, which he or she pursues in a purposeful way, whereas a less conscientious person tends to be easily distracted and impulsive. Recent research suggests that traits of conscientiousness are also more important than those of extroversion for effective leadership. A study at the Stanford Graduate School of Business found a link between how guilty people feel when they make serious mistakes and how well they perform as leaders.Guilt can be a positive emotion for a leader because it is associated with a heightened sense of responsibility to others.

Consider former International Monetary Fund leader Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was likely on his way to the French presidency before he was arrested in New York and charged with the sexual assault of a hotel housekeeper, with further allegations from other women later coming to light.Strauss-Kahn displays a low level of conscientiousness, whereas a leader like Anne Mulcahy, former CEO of Xerox, reflects a high degree of this characteristic. Mulcahy felt a strong sense of responsibility to employees and shareholders when she was named CEO of Xerox in 2001.The company was in a free fall, with the stock price plummeting and its credit rating downgraded. Advisers urged Mulcahy to declare bankruptcy, but she chose instead to focus on a vision of restoring Xerox to greatness. Although she had tough decisions to make, she always kept the best interests of employees and shareholders in mind.

The dimension ofemotional stabilityrefers to the degree to which a person is well adjusted, calm, and secure. A leader who is emotionally stable handles stress well, is able to handle criticism, and generally doesn't take mistakes or failures personally. Leaders with emotional stability typically develop positive relationships and can also improve relationships among others. Marillyn A. Hewson's high degree of emotional stability is part of the reason she was promoted to be the first female CEO of defense contractor Lockheed Martin, after the man originallypicked for the top job was fired following discovery of an ethical violation. It's a challenging time for Lockheed, but Hewson has shown that she can handle crises without becoming unhinged. Over her 30-year career at the company, her calm, steady hand has earned her a reputation for being able to combine toughness with graciousness. "Marillyn will be exactly what Lockheed Martin needs in terms of patching up its relationships ..." said defense industry consultant Loren Thompson.

Leaders who have a low degree of emotional stability are likely to become tense, anxious, or depressed. They generally have lower self-confidence and may explode in emotional outbursts when stressed or criticized. The related topic ofemotional intelligencewill be discussed in detail in the next chapter.

The final Big Five dimension,openness to experience, is the degree to which a person has a broad range of interests and is imaginative, creative, and willing to consider new ideas. These people are intellectually curious and often seek out new experiences through travel, the arts, movies, reading widely, or other activities. People lower in this dimension tend to have narrower interests and stick to the tried-and-true ways of doing things. Open-mindedness is important to leaders because, as we learned inChapter 1, leadership is about change rather than stability. In an interesting study of three nineteenth-century leadersJohn Quincy Adams, Frederick Douglass, and Jane Addamsone researcher found that early travel experiences and exposure to different ideas and cultures were critical elements in developing open-minded qualities in these leaders.Travel during the formative years helped these leaders to develop a greater degree of openness to experience because it put them in situations that required adaptability.

Few studies have carefully examined the connection between the Big Five and leadership success. One summary of more than 70 years of personality and leadership research did find evidence that four of the five dimensions were consistently related to successful leadership.The researchers found considerable evidence that people who score high on the dimensions of extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability are more successful leaders. Results for openness to experience were less consistent; that is, in some cases, higher scores on this dimension related to better performance, but they did not seem to make a difference in other cases. Yet, in a study by a team of psychologists of the personality traits of the greatest U.S. presidents (as determined by historians), openness to experience produced the highest correlation with historians' ratings of greatness. The study noted that presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson were high on this personality dimension. Other personality dimensions the team found to be associated with great presidents were extroversion and conscientiousness, including traits such as assertiveness, setting ambitious goals, and striving for achievement. Although agreeableness did not correlate with greatness, the ability to empathize with others and being concerned for others, which could be considered elements of emotional stability, did.

The value of the Big Five for leaders is primarily to help them understand their own basic personality dimensions and then learn to emphasize the positive and mitigate the negative aspects of their own natural styles. For example, people who are introverts often stagnate, especially in large organizations, because they have a difficult time getting noticed and are therefore less likely to be rewarded for their hard work.Four out of five introverts surveyed said they believe extroverts are more likely to get ahead at their place of employment.One experiment found that people who spoke up more often were rated as better leaders, even if they were lesscompetent than their quieter colleagues.Introverts can learn to behave in more extroverted ways when they need to in order to be more successful. For example, Richard Branson dresses up in silly costumes to publicize the Virgin Group, but he says that flamboyant public persona bears little resemblance to his innate personality. "I was a shy and retiring individual who couldn't make speeches and get out there," Branson says of himself prior to founding Virgin. "I had to train myself into becoming more of an extrovert" in order to promote the new company.

In recent years, there has been a growing awareness that introverted people have some qualities that might actually make them better leaders, as described further in theLeader's Bookshelf.Introversion or extroversion is simply one aspect of an individual's personality, and each style has both strengths and weaknesses.Exhibit 4.1gives some tips for both introverts and extroverts to help them be more effective and successful.