...GM591 PREPARATION GUIDE: LIFE STYLES INVENTORY(LSI) Introduction: Thinking and Behavior "The quest for leadership is first an inner quest to discover who you are” (p.391).[1] --Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner--- Self-awareness is foundational to effective leadership and organization success[2]. Research in leadership and organizational behavior indicates that managers who are blind to who they are, and to the effects they have on other people in their organizations, place their effectiveness and their careers at risk. A frequently cited axiom is "the first commandment of leadership is to know thyself." For example, in their studies of managerial and executive derailment, the Center for Creative Leadership found that successful managers: (1) understand their values, personal styles, and strengths and weaknesses; (2) know the impact of these values, styles, and strengths and weaknesses on their ability to effectively work with others and achieve their goals; and (3) are quick to reflect upon and learn from their own experiences. Despite these advantages, we often resist opportunities to increase our self-awareness or to acknowledge error. We fear that learning something new about ourselves will be painful -- doing so may require us to change our treasured and habitual ways of seeing, thinking, and behaving. Self-awareness is also an important barometer to ensure that even the best leadership practices don't become destructive. As Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner caution...
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...Personal Thinking Styles Pursuant to my Life Styles Inventory (LSI): Self-description results my primary personal thinking style is “Avoidance” with a percentile score of 55% and my back-up thinking style is “Conventional” with a percentile score of 50%. As I reviewed my circumplex I became rather disturbed as I tried to understand the “Avoidance” scale. The LSI description of Avoidance states that the this thinking style is defined by tendencies of denying responsibility and your behavior, feelings of guilt and an obsession of your own concerns. I have trouble relating to these characteristics as I hardly stray from responsibility if it’s warranted or of having guilty feelings and am definitely not obsessive over my own concerns. In fact, I always own up to my responsibilities and/or any mess ups either at work or at home. I have not been in a role of a manager yet have supervised a number of interns and I have never been threatened by or with any responsibilities pushed upon me. In fact, I almost always took same on with confidence and a sense of dedication. I do agree with the assessment that at times I may not give myself full credit where I completely deserve it; I have attributed this more to humility than to insecurity. Although I am not hard on myself for mistakes and misjudgments I do, however, tend to dwell on things far longer than necessary. For example, if during a presentation I stumbled in answering a question I would live with the embarrassment of same...
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...Life Styles Circumplex Profile By: November 4, 2011 Introduction: The Life Styles Inventory (LSI) assessment exercise is a self evaluation survey that measures various thinking and behavioral patterns. The LSI assessment exercise provides an opportunity to evaluate oneself against twelve (12) distinctive styles within three (3) core evaluating areas: Constructive, Passive/Defensive, and Aggressive/Defensive styles. The results from the LSI assessment pinpoints my strong and weak attributes, and provide suggestions on how to improve on my less desirable characteristics which will enable me to implement a Self Improvement plan to better equip myself effectively within my work and personal lifestyle. Position | Style | Score | Percentile | 1 | Humanistic-Encouraging | 40 | 99 | 2 | Affiliative | 40 | 99 | 3 | Approval | 23 | 90 | 4 | Conventional | 35 | 99 | 5 | Dependent | 28 | 95 | 6 | Avoidance | 23 | 99 | 7 | Oppositional | 17 | 92 | 8 | Power | 26 | 99 | 9 | Competitive | 31 | 99 | 10 | Perfectionistic | 35 | 99 | 11 | Achievement | 38 | 90 | 12 | Self-Actualizing | 34 | 80 | Part 1: Personal Thinking Styles (Primary, Backup, Limited) My LSI assessment results constructed a profile which indicated that my primary style to be Humanistic-Encouraging, my backup style to be Affiliative and my limiting style to be Oppositional. The Humanistic-Encouraging style is described as individuals who believe that they can help others...
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...Life Styles Inventory Assignment Traya Ransom ransomtj@verizon.net MGMT591 – Leadership and Organizational Behavior Brett Gordon November 11, 2012 This paper discusses the content Life Styles Inventory (LSI) results for Traya Ransom. It identifies her primary, backup, and limiting thinking styles, the impact her personal styles have on her management style, and it also explains how she developed the personal styles that were reveled in her LSI. The LSI results are shown on page 5. Primary, Backup and Limiting Styles Traya’s primary style is Achievement, with a percentile score of 99. This thinking style describes a person who has confidence in their ability to improve situations and is not afraid to take action. They are able to inspire confidence in others. Achievers set realist goals and usually able to obtain high quality results. On her job, this style is manifested often in the way she distributes work to her employees. She is able to identify their strengths and weaknesses and utilize this knowledge to obtain the best outcome. As a result her employees work with confidence because of their high degree of success. Therefore, Achievement style is an accurate description of Traya. Traya’s secondary style is Self-Actualizing, with a percentile score of 93. This thinking style describes creative people who have great sense of personal fulfillment. Self-actualized people enjoy living in the moment. They take the time to develop themselves and are intuitive. This style...
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...RUNNING HEAD: LSI Paper I am charged with the task of completing the Life Styles Inventory Survey to give a self-description of my thinking styles. The purpose of this assignment is to determine the impact that the personal styles have on my management style and to identify which one of my thinking styles may be reducing my overall effectiveness. After completing the survey, my circumplex shows that my primary thinking style is the “Conventional Style”(4 o’clock) and my backup thinking style is the “Power Style” (8 o’clock). I agree with the results of the conventional thinking style, but, I do not fully agree with the results of the power thinking style. According to the LSI results, the conventional thinking style is one that measures our inclination to act in a compliant way. Conventional thinkers worry about adhering to rules and established procedures. According to the LSI results, when we depend on on established procedures in determining how we do things, we risk losing our sense of uniqueness and individuality. I would have to agree with the results of this survey that I am a conventional thinker. As a child, my parents had very strict household rules that, simply, were not to my benefit to break. Therefore, I often abided by the rules. I think this is why I tend to do things strictly by the book. Doing things by the book gives me a sense of security in knowing that I followed the policy, in case something goes wrong. As a conventional thinker, I prefer...
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...Organizational Behavior Dr. Barbara Vallera Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University Abstract This paper explores the Life Styles Inventory (LSI) assessment and pitfalls of the competitive and approval management styles. In this evaluation, I also examine strengths and impacts of these styles. Specifically, how they can be utilized to benefit the organization and how these styles impact the four functions of management. This paper also reviews my circumplex (a person’s personal LSI profile) and critically evaluates and explains how these styles were developed. Through the course, Management 591 (MGMT 591), Leadership and Organizational Behavior (LOB), I also reflect on goals and accomplishments that can be achieved through the analysis of these frames. Combating the Aggressive Life Style Inventory and Gaining Success in the Workplace The LSI assessment helps an individual understand themselves by measuring what motivates individual behaviors. This assessment was developed by Robert A. Cooke and J. Clayton Lafferty, copyrighted by Human Synergistics International. It takes into account one’s thoughts and self-concepts and translates it into how one behaves. It looks at how one’s thinking influences goals, relationships, leadership effectiveness, and the ability to cope with stress (“What LSI Measures”, 2014). The assessment uses 240 words or phrases to represent ways of thinking, or thinking “styles”, and shows visually how these modes of thinking translate...
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...yourself new challenges in your life, such as me doing my foundation degree! Learning at a professional level differs from that of a personal learning as you must be open to learning and willing to engage in new learning opportunities. We reflect on our practices, by having staff meetings, appraisals, and analyse where we need to gain a better understanding and do this by attending training courses to enhance our professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes and by keeping us up to date with current frameworks such as EYFS. Within this essay the following will be explained; the relevance of personal and professional learning to myself, what a learning style is, a comparison of Honey & Mumford and Kolb, validity of results when completing a learning styles questionnaire, my own personal learning style along with the strategies I have put into place to help me learn more effectively and finally a conclusion on learning styles. Everybody has a preferred learning style. And it is now understood that not everyone will achieve when taught the same way. Knowing and understanding our learning styles helps us...
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...we are?” Personality defines who we are. It defines every part of our lives, choosing friends, where we work and who we have relationships with. Most of the factors which shape someone’s personality are a result of his/her heredity and the environment in which he/she was exposed to. (Essays, 2013). A LSI (Life Style Inventory) self-description questionnaire was presented, allowing the raw material to be analyzed and examine our way of thinking and how it influences behavior. Our results are broken up into twelve styles that reflect on our personality. But what affect does our personality play into our lives. Do these styles have an impact on our management style? Do they define who we are or how we think? Did we develop our personal style from relationships, school, or curricular activites? Let's discuss what shapes our personalities and why we act the way we do. Looking over the results from the Life Style Inventory (LSI) test, there was a consistency noted within my specific scores. My two highest scores came for the passive/defensive style. My primary style was avoidance, with a score of 98%, and my backup style was dependent, with a score of 94%. It is apparent that these two styles are a strong description of who I am as a leader. According to the LSI, “The avoidance scale measures our tendency to use the defensive strategy of withdrawal” (Cooke & Lafferty, 1987-2015). Avoidance is often used in unfamiliar, threatening situations, for instance, when dealing...
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...LSI Results(circumplex and chart) Your LSI Styles Profile The raw and percentile scores in the table below and the extensions on the circumplex shown below depict your perceptions of how you think and behave. The CONSTRUCTIVE Styles (11, 12, 1, and 2 o'clock positions) reflect self-enhancing thinking and behavior that contribute to one's level of satisfaction, ability to develop healthy relationships and work effectively with people, and proficiency at accomplishing tasks. The PASSIVE/DEFENSIVE Styles (3, 4, 5, and 6 o'clock positions) represent self-protecting thinking and behavior that promote the fulfillment of security needs through interaction with people. The AGGRESSIVE/DEFENSIVE Styles (7, 8, 9, and 10 o'clock positions) describe self-promoting thinking and behavior used to maintain status/position and fulfill security needs through task-related activities. Position | Style | Score | Percentile | 1 | Humanistic-Encouraging | 35 | 80 | 2 | Affiliative | 35 | 75 | 3 | Approval | 19 | 80 | 4 | Conventional | 22 | 90 | 5 | Dependent | 17 | 63 | 6 | Avoidance | 10 | 75 | 7 | Oppositional | 3 | 18 | 8 | Power | 4 | 34 | 9 | Competitive | 10 | 34 | 10 | Perfectionistic | 12 | 9 | 11 | Achievement | 36 | 80 | 12 | Self-Actualizing | 34 | 80 | The raw scores potentially range from 0 to 40. The percentile scores represent your results compared to those of 9,207 individuals who previously completed the Life Styles Inventory. For example, a percentile...
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...Self-Description GM591: Leadership and Organizational Behavior Instructor: Christine Rainwater Ada Freeman afreex4@yahoo.com March 11, 2010 Abstract This paper explains the current way I think and behave using the results of the Life Styles Inventory (LSI) as defined by Human Synergistics International’s LSI Circumplex. The resource maintains that there are three major “life styles” traits. The first is the constructive styles which depict synergy and helps validate why certain individuals, groups, and organizations are particularly effective in performance, growth, and work quality. The second is the passive/defensive style which can produce a predictable and secure situation, however, learning, the ability to adapt and the organization’s survival is hampered. The third is the aggressive/defensive which may lead to stress, decisions are often based on status as opposed to experience and conflict instead of a team effort. Keywords: life styles inventory (LSI), constructive, passive/defensive, aggressive/defensive As I reviewed the LSI Styles Circumplex after the Life Styles Inventory, I could immediately see that some of my results for the behaviors were right on the mark. Others I felt were a bit off the chart but no results seem completely off the chart. After reviewing how the scores were calculated, I began to understand some of the inter-relations between the styles and my corresponding behaviors and beliefs. My primary thinking style is exemplified...
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...questions the results are going to give me an insight on how my thinking styles will influence my behavior as a manager and allow me to use the results for self-improvement. My results show that I Research has shown that the styles measured by the LSI are related to a number of indicators of effectiveness and success, including leadership effectiveness, management effectiveness, problem solving effectiveness, quality of interpersonal relations, salary, organizational level, individual health and well-being, and organizational culture. In my Leadership and Organizational Behavior class, I had the task of completing a Life Styles Inventory Survey to come up with a self-description of my thinking styles. The goal of this exercise is to find out how thinking styles may influence my behavior as a manager and to help me to determine how to use the results for self-improvement. After taking this inventory, my circumplex shows that my primary thinking style is affiliative (2 o’clock position) and my back up thinking style is conventional (4 o’clock position). While I can identify with the affiliative style of thinking, I do not believe the conventional thinking style is a true depiction of the way I think. Part I Personal Thinking Styles: At the 11 o’ clock position was my “primary” thinking style was “achievement.” My ranking on this style was in the 95% percentile. The achievement style indicates an interest in and a proficiency at attaining high-quality results on challenging...
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...GM591 LSI paper The LSI assignment gave me a chance to see on paper what behavioral and thinking styles I use more of on a daily basis and where I rank compared to others who have taken the same survey. My primary constructive style is affiliate, which fell into the high percentile range, and the one that I scored the most on in any category. My next highest ranking style is humanistic-encouraging, then self-actualizing, and last was achievement at the lowest percentile. Then for my back-up personal thinking style in the Passive/Defensive category dependent is the one that is the highest scoring. The next highest is approval, then conventional, and last is avoidance. I believe that some of the rankings for the constructive style category are pretty accurate in the way that I think and behave at work, as well as in my personal life. With the affiliative style showing up as my highest raw score, that really doesn’t surprise me because I think people are more important; I try my best to be available to answer questions, and provide the most help I can offer. I am also not surprised that humanistic-encouraging shows up as my next highest because it goes hand and hand with the affiliative style in being a leader, thinking people are worth more, and trying to bring out the best in others. What I was most shocked over was how low both self-actualizing, and achievement scored. I am not sure that I totally agree with the results. I believe that my scoring...
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...help or hinder a person to become a successful leader. In this paper, I will discuss the results of my learning styles inventory test. I was pleased and a little shocked to see my results. I believe the test was accurate, however, I was surprised to find out the how high I scored in certain areas. According to the Life Styles Inventory results, my primary style is conventional, and my backup style is affiliative. I have always been referred to as an “old soul” and being conventional has always been my second nature. Being conventional means you that I appreciate rules and structure. I also am reliable and follow policies. Conventionalism and accounting seem to go hand in hand, so I feel confident I can use this personality trait to succeed in my career path. The results of the LSI test concluded that being affiliative was my backup style. Affiliative means that you have a genuine concern for others, and are friendly, and cooperative. I believe this result is a true representation of me. I am not one to cause waves unless absolutely necessary. I also show a lot of empathy towards others and I am always ready to listen to others concerns. I was a little surprised; however, to see how high I scored in dependent and oppositional. I have always considered myself very independent, and very rarely oppositional. I prefer to work on my own without much help, and I am driven to succeed. These results have made me take a second look at myself, and behaviors so I can work to improve any...
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...thinking Style: As per the LSI results my Primary thinking style is “Approval” (98 percentile) and back up style is “Humanistic –Encouraging” (93 percentile). But I don’t think I am absolutely following these styles for all the situations. There are several instances in my life where my thinking patterns are varied. I think I have adopted this thinking style from my parents and cultural roots. Hindu culture always preaches self-less ness and humanity. I have almost all the characteristics of Affiliative and Humanistic-Encouraging styles like always cooperative, friendly, helpful, pleasant, diplomatic, tactful, sees best in others, sincere, warm, open, relaxed, at ease with people, liked by others, thinks people more important than things, good at interpersonal relations, likes to share feelings and thoughts, tries to help others, genuine concern for people, accept changes easily, likes to include others in activities, humanistic, considerate, popular leader in some areas like college, NGO activities, good listener, enjoying settling disputes, respects confidences etc. But all the characteristics are not equally applicable for both work and personal life. For example I was a well know leader at college, community activities at neighborhood and organizing NGO activities but not a good leader at work consistently. My wife will contradict with my team members if I say I am cooperative and good listener. So I agree with most of the characteristics specified in LSI guide and disagree with...
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...Akema Reid Akema.Reid@gmail.com Leadership and Organizational Behavior Professor Doctor October 9, 2011 After completing the LSI assignment, I have learned a lot about myself. Per the results of the LSI, my primary thinking styles are power at percentage of 65. My back-up percentile was humanistic-encouraging at 63%. The results for my power thinking style is at a medium percentage compared to others that have taken the test. I didn’t think that power would rate as the highest percentage for me, though I did think that it would fall in the median level compared to others. I don’t see myself as using or wanting much power at my job. I don’t see that power is manifested much while I am working, but I do see it manifested in other things outside of my job. I currently dislike my job and have no desire to be a part of the company; therefore, power is not anything that is manifested through my job. While I am working, I am more of a laid back person and I don’t feel the need to contribute any ideas. When I am working with others, I try to ensure that we are all at the same level, making others feel welcome and not make others feel as if they are inferior. When working with my peers, I try to establish equality. On the other hand, when dealing with management, I tend to exercise my own power in that aspect. Unfortunately, I am working for a company that demonstrates bad management practices. Management at my job...
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