Strengthening your self-understanding

Background

The Lectical® Self-Understanding Assessment (LSUA) is an assessment of how a person thinks about themselves within the context of their relationships with a selected range of people (eg family, co-workers, team members, etc).

A person’s response reveals how they think about these relationships, themselves, and their growth as an individual.   Through the assessment and the resulting findings, participants are challenged to critically think about how they relate to others and themselves.  Such understanding is crucial to enable leaders and team members to be engaged and fully effective in a complex, changing environment.

Process

The LSUA asks test-takers to choose four relationships – either personal (ie ‘self as parent’ etc) or professional (ie ‘self as leader’, ‘self as learner’ or ‘self as colleague’ etc), and reflect on how they see themselves in each of these roles.  These parameters are established as part of the set-up.

The assessment takers are then required to write short responses in which they describe those relationships, and discuss how they see themselves with regard to those relationships.  They do this from two perspectives: a view of the present (current self) and as they would like to be seen (ideal self).

They also take two short surveys that focus on optimism and character. The optimism survey sheds light on how the person views the world.  The character survey provides insight into leaders’ perspectives on aspects of their own integrity, perseverance, openness to learning, comfort with challenges and emotional awareness.

The results are analysed, and the resulting report helps the person consider their strengths and weaknesses, how these relate to how they see themselves, and how they think others see them.  The report covers: how the person thinks and learns, ethics, sense of responsibility to others, respect for others, personal responsibility, willingness to seek and accept feedback, and reflectivity.

Participant Outcomes

The LSUA provides reliable measures of key dimensions of self-understanding that are not captured with conventional assessments.

Participants walk away with a greater understanding of themselves, and how they see themselves vis-à-vis their relationship with others.  They also receive a learning plan that identifies suggested areas for growth and tools, techniques and potential approaches to deliver on those learning goals.

This knowledge is critical in helping a person become a better leader, as you can’t understand others if you don’t first understand yourself.  It helps people better manage their own behaviour and how they interact with and engage with clients, colleagues, stakeholders and family/friends.

The LSUA supports development efforts by explaining what participants are most likely to benefit from learning next.  It does this by suggesting specific learning activities that are tailored to their needs.

Further details: LSUA tool.

Additional Details

Michelle Gibbings is one of the few accredited practitioners able to use this tool in the Asia-Pacific region.