3 Keys to a Self-Assessment That Will Help You Build Leadership Skills for Finance

In today’s workplace, we often turn to AI, on-demand webinars and online training tools for development.

A touch of the fingertip can help you learn more about finance or improve leadership skills.

But where do you start? Do you know where your skills lack or what the latest finance trends are? After all, no matter your finance role, you don’t know what you don’t know.

And that’s where self-assessment comes in.

Self-assessment is probably one of the best places to start when you want to improve leadership skills or learn more in your industry.

Questions Help with Self-Assessment

When you consider what you know, what you might have forgotten and what you have to gain through learning, you can find the right training to help.

These self-assessment strategies – essentially, a series of reflections and questions – from Dr. Bill Donahue, Founder and President of LeadeSync Group, Inc., will help you identify the leadership skills to improve and any potential knowledge-gap areas:

Consider Past Decisions

As finance leaders, we’re inclined to scrutinize any bad decisions we’ve ever made. You’re probably unnecessarily hard on yourself when things go wrong.

While it’s important to review bad decisions and try to learn from them, it’s more important to assess good decisions.

That way, you can equip yourself to do more of the right stuff by focusing on developing the right skills.

Donahue suggests honestly reviewing these questions regularly:

• What was my process for making a good decision? Did I get input, go off intuition, gather data, etc.?
• How did my decision impact my employees and colleagues, work environment and success?
• How quickly was I able to decide? What influenced the speed of my decision?
• What was the ripple effect of my decision?
• Did I directly contribute to a significant business result?
• What other factor(s) outside my control had an impact?
• Overall, how do I feel about the decision? Would I make it again?

Then, “sift through your answers for themes, insights and wisdom for future decisions,” Donahue says.

Look at Relationships

No leader is an island, especially not in Finance. Other people affect and are affected by the actions, inactions, successes, and failures that their leaders experiences.

“Every leader leaves a wake. The question is, ‘What kind of wake?’ Is it the kind team members can surf or the kind they’ll get swamped by?” asks Donahue.

It might be difficult to believe, but even in Finance, the relationships you have impact how well you lead. So you want to look at how you relate to others and the quality of those relationships. Consider these questions and situations regularly:

• What kind of impact do I have on employees, colleagues and my bosses?
• What do they remember about me when we work together is over?
• Would others join me in the next step, project, initiative, etc.?
• How do people feel after I’ve left the room, meeting or conversation?

You might even want to ask a trusted colleague, “What do others say about how I act in meetings, the way I lead or how I come across to clients?” You’ll want to be open to candid feedback so you can learn about how you’re perceived and what soft skills you might need to improve.

Watch for Transforming Moments

Recent years have presented many transforming moments for everyone. Take the time to look for and recognize those moments – and others from the past and in the future.

For instance, consider professional situations that happened to or around you, such as when you had to be involved in necessary layoffs, took on new hires, strategic wins and had to defend unexpected losses.

You might even keep in mind personal moments, too, such as deaths, moves and life changes — anything that caused disruption to your norms.

Finally, look at communal shifts, such as industry shifts or local, all-encompassing events that affected the company and/or the majority of employees.

Then ask these self-assessment questions:

• What happened and who was involved?
• How did I feel and respond?
• What were the greatest struggles and best successes?

From there, you can determine some strengths and weaknesses – and the places you want to focus efforts to improve leadership skills, become better at handling out-of-the-ordinary situations and manage your people through them.