Leadership Assessment

Ms. Agnes Sie was working for Valspar Corporation from the year 2005 till
2011 as the Marketing Director Asia in the wood coatings business unit. She
was leading three teams across different geographical locations. Based on
different styles of leadership, my evaluation of Agnes is that she has a
Participative leadership style. She provides a team focused and collaborative
environment between team members. She does not micromanage, seeks
every team members input and gives and makes sure that he/she is listened
to. When it comes to setting objectives/goals she is very direct, clear and
transparent in what she expects. She is high on Agreeableness as she is very
flexible and makes sure the team reaches a consensus with importance
given to every individuals inputs. She is very approachable and considers
cultivating and coordinating the actions of her team members towards the
common goal of the organization. Overall, Agnes has a leadership style that
is significantly high on emotional intelligence. On the motivation graph, she
provides individuals opportunities to role-play their leadership styles thereby
enhancing an individuals scope of responsibility and grooming them into
effective decision makers. Apart from that, she keeps a record of every team
members areas of improvement and makes sure the employee attends the
training to overcome shortcomings. She is proactive enough to provide her
team members new areas to try and build up their potential. She is high on
the empathy graph as she considers others feelings especially at a time of
making decisions. Apart from that, since one of the teams that she was

handling was based in a different country she was sensitive towards cross
cultural differences.

My ideal recommendation for Agnes would be to develop a model of

distributed leadership that views leadership as a set of the following
capabilities
Sense-making It stresses upon understanding the changes in business
environment

such

as

impact

of

technology,

globalization,

cultural

expectations etc. Agnes has always been involved in the industrial side of
business and not on the technology side. Technology plays an indispensable
part in todays economy. Therefore, Agnes could enhance her knowledge
base by learning about technology side of business.
Relating

organizations.

It

focuses
It

on

consists

building
of

relationships

inquiring

which

within

relates

and
to

across

genuinely

understanding the thoughts and feelings of the speaker. Advocating implies

making other clear about how they reached their interpretations and
connecting implies cultivating a network of confidants who can help a leader
accomplish wide range of goals. Although, Agnes has been extremely
successful in building relationships within her team and business unit by
showing genuine concern to her team members and providing significant
learning opportunities through coaching and feedback. However, she could
improve upon this area by building strong relationships across cross
functional departments.

Visioning It encapsulates one of the important points of transformational

leadership. It produces a blueprint of what the future might look like.
Although, Agnes seeks inputs from her team members while accomplishing a
task but those inputs are only task related. By sharing her vision of the
enterprise and encouraging her team members to share their vision can
really act as a catalyst and provide employees a sense of meaning in their
work.