Leading Whole Self-Assessment Recap

with Russell Matthews and Catherine Flavin

In the video we will hear from a researcher-academic, Russell Matthews, PhD, and a researcher-practioner, Catherine Flavin, MA, CIPP, on what makes a good developmental assessment and a couple of key takeaways from the Leading Whole pilot.

1. Because LeaderMoms are often consumers of developmental assessments in general, we want to build your skill general. According to our experts, a good developmental assessment (as distinguished from a pre-hire assessment).

   • WILL NOT box you in or define you in a restrictive or static way.

   • WILL NOT just reinforce what you already know about yourself.

   • WILL OFFER real fodder for self-reflection and dialogue with others.

   • WILL ENABLE you to make connections, e.g., across domains of work and life, across constituencies of your leadership, etc.

   • WILL DRIVE your behavior forward.

2. On the Leading Whole Self-Assessment, we are pleased to see that the 4 dimensions performing well and that they “mean something outside of themselves,” as Dr. Matthews put it. That means the validation process is showing us that each dimension is correlating with a different outcome variables (i.e., well-being, ill-being and effective work+life integration). This means we are focusing on changeable behaviors that matter. That makes us even more confident in the assessment’s ability to support our members’ growth. (We can already hear our coaches saying, “To get better at X, the data indicate it is wise to focus on Y.”)

3. Finally, as an author of nearly 70 academic papers, we asked Dr. Matthews to name areas that he thinks are especially high-impact for LeaderMoms. In the video, he first names avoiding procrastination as a key for work+life effectiveness.