HS850 Unit 3 Leadership Versatility Self-Assessment Example

Too Much of a Good Thing, but Only for Physicians: A Unit 3 Self-Assessment Analysis Using the Leadership Versatility Index

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

HS850: Advanced Health Leadership

Unit 3 Self-Assessment Analysis

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the hospital and the ratings are composite and shown as placeholders; the instrument and research cited are real.

Why This Instrument

I chose the Leadership Versatility Index because of its rating scale. Most 360-degree instruments ask how often or how well a leader does something, which assumes that more is always better. The Versatility Index asks raters to judge each behavior on a scale running from much too little through the right amount to much too much, so it can detect strengths that have been overused (Kaplan & Kaiser, 2003). It groups behaviors into two pairs of opposites: forceful and enabling, which describe how a leader leads, and strategic and operational, which describe what a leader focuses on. The underlying argument is that effective leaders are versatile, able to use each side of a pair as the situation requires, and that overdoing one side usually goes with underdoing its opposite.

The Raters and the Results

Twenty-two raters responded: my boss, the system chief executive; [6] peers, other hospital presidents and system vice presidents; [7] direct reports from nursing, finance, operations and quality; and [8] physicians, the medical staff president, department chairs and two hospitalist leaders. I also rated myself.

On the strategic and operational pair, all groups rated me close to the right amount, with a slight lean toward too much operational focus from my boss.

On the forceful and enabling pair, the picture split. My boss, peers and direct reports rated my forceful behaviors, taking charge, declaring my views and pushing for performance, at or slightly above the right amount, and my enabling behaviors, empowering others, listening and supporting, at about the right amount. Physicians rated my forceful behaviors as too much, with an average near [+1.8] on the scale, and my enabling behaviors as too little, near [-1.5]. My self-rating matched my direct reports, not the physicians.

The same behaviors that my staff experience as decisive, physicians experience as a pharmacist telling them what to do, and I rated myself the way my staff see me.

Interpreting the Physician Ratings

Three explanations are possible, and the analysis tests each.

The first is that physicians simply dislike being managed by anyone. If so, they would rate other presidents the same way. The system's leadership development office shared, without names, that physicians rated two other presidents' forceful behaviors at the right amount. The ratings therefore cannot be a general reaction to management.

A second possibility is that physicians see more of my forceful behavior because our interactions are concentrated in conflicts: budget hearings, the hospitalist staffing dispute and the operating room block-time change. My direct reports see me across many ordinary days. This explanation fits partly. My most frequent physician contacts in the rating year were in decision meetings where I needed outcomes.

The third is that the same behavior carries a different meaning when directed at professionals with autonomy over their own work. Research on overused strengths finds that leaders rated as doing too much of a behavior often see it as a core strength and use it more under pressure, and that this lopsided pattern is common among senior leaders (Kaiser & Overfield, 2011). A pharmacist taking charge in a meeting of department chairs signals something different than the same move with a nursing director who reports to me. This explanation fits best, and it combines with the second.

What My Self-Rating Reveals

My self-rating matched the direct reports. I assumed that the way I lead is experienced the same way by everyone. The gap is not in my behavior but in my calibration: I have not adjusted to the audience for whom forcefulness costs the most. The instrument's design shows that the issue is not that I am forceful, which my boss and peers value, but that I do not shift toward enabling with physicians, where enabling is the more effective approach.

What the Comments Added

The instrument allows raters to add written comments, and [5] of the [8] physicians did. Read together, the comments narrow the problem further. Three described meetings in which I "came in with the answer," two mentioned that I interrupted department chairs who were explaining clinical constraints, and one wrote that I am "a good listener in private and a poor one at the table." No comment described me as disrespectful or unfair, and two praised my follow-through. The comments place the overuse in a particular setting, group decision meetings with physician leaders, rather than in my relationships with physicians generally. That matters for development, because a goal aimed at a setting can be practiced and observed, while a goal aimed at a whole relationship cannot. The comments also confirm what the scores implied: the problem is the order in which I speak and decide, not the decisions themselves.

Strengths to Protect

The ratings also say what not to change. Every rater group, including physicians, rated my operational follow-through at the right amount, and peers singled out my ability to push decisions to closure. Overcorrecting toward enabling across the board would weaken a strength the hospital needs. Versatility means adding range, not swapping one style for another.

Connecting the Results to the Hospital's Situation

The pattern matters more in this hospital than it might elsewhere. Over the next two years, the hospital must renegotiate hospitalist coverage, consolidate two surgical services and recruit a new chief medical officer. Each depends on physician leaders choosing to commit, not merely comply. If physicians experience my leadership as more forceful than it needs to be, they will engage less in exactly the decisions where their judgment is indispensable. The development goal is therefore not a personal preference but an operational need.

Limits of the Analysis

The physician sample is small and drawn mostly from leaders I see in difficult meetings. Ratings were collected once, during an unusually contentious year. Multisource feedback produces modest improvement on average, and leaders who receive unfavorable feedback and do not act on it rarely improve (Smither et al., 2005). The value of this assessment depends on what follows it.

Implications for Development

The analysis points to one development goal: increase enabling behavior, especially listening and inviting physicians' views before declaring my own, in settings with physician leaders, while keeping forceful follow-through elsewhere. The final unit will turn that goal into specific, observable behaviors that physician raters can track.

References

Kaiser, R. B., & Overfield, D. V. (2011). Strengths, strengths overused, and lopsided leadership. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 63(2), 89-109. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024470

Kaplan, R. E., & Kaiser, R. B. (2003). Developing versatile leadership. MIT Sloan Management Review, 44(4), 19-26.

Smither, J. W., London, M., & Reilly, R. R. (2005). Does performance improve following multisource feedback? A theoretical model, meta-analysis, and review of empirical findings. Personnel Psychology, 58(1), 33-66. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.514_1.x