Coaching: Development Plan For Strategic Self-Awareness
Coaching: Development Plan For Strategic Self-Awareness
Introduction
The Coaching Report is designed to guide you through the development planning process. The report will help you bring
together the results from the Leadership Forecast Reports (and any other assessment data you may have) and integrate
those results into a comprehensive development plan. You can make effective use of this report on your own or in
conjunction with a more formal coaching process. The report includes the following components:
Process Checklist
The process checklist shown below outlines the steps necessary to fully understand the large volume of information you
now have regarding your development and how to use the information to create a comprehensive development plan.
Before you begin to build your development plan, you should carefully read the next section outlining the Hogan
Development Model. The model provides an excellent overview of the steps involved in creating a development plan.
This report follows the sequence of steps listed below beginning with the section following the Hogan Development
Model.
General Model
One of the most difficult challenges associated with development is sifting through performance data and targeting
areas for change. The Hogan Development Model is a simple way of meeting this challenge. The model has three
components: Behavioral Attributes, Competency Domains, and Job Performance. Behavioral Attributes describe "why
we do what we do." Competency Domains describe "what we do and how we do it." Job Performance represents the
requirements necessary to be successful in a job. If you have development information on your Behavioral Attributes and
Competency Domains, you can relate that information to job requirements. Accurately targeting development is a matter
of choosing those areas that you can reasonably expect to change and, if you make the change, it will produce a
noticeable performance improvement. The best targets are those that will produce the most improvement with the least
amount of effort to change.
Competency Domains
Business Skills
Leadership Skills
Interpersonal Skills
Intrapersonal Skills
Job Performance
An appropriate development target should have a significant impact on job performance. If you understand the
requirements of the job that impact successful performance, then targeting development is a matter of lining up the
three components of the model. You should think about job requirements in terms of the Competency Domains. In other
words, consider the competencies responsible for successful performance and group them according to the four
domains. The domains will then serve as an organizing structure for all development planning activities. Your manager is
probably the best source of information regarding those competencies most responsible for successful performance.
Competency Domains
Competency Domains are clusters of competencies that tend to go together. They are best measured using on-the-job
behavioral examples obtained through feedback. This can be done systematically using a 360 rating process or by simply
asking for feedback from those individuals that know your work best. Four domains capture most of the competencies
that commonly occur in business. Business Skills include competencies that can be done on your own and usually are
thoughtful in nature. Leadership Skills include competencies used in managing others. Interpersonal Skills encompass
competencies used in getting along with others. Finally, Intrapersonal Skills refer to competencies considered to be at
the core of how one approaches any work assignment.
The Competency Domains have an important developmental relationship to each other. Intrapersonal Skills develop
early in life followed by Interpersonal, Leadership, and Business Skills. The earlier in life a skill is developed, the more
difficult it is to change. For example, planning skills (Business Skills Domain) are much easier to develop than initiative
(Intrapersonal Skills Domain). This distinction should be considered when choosing development targets.
• Vision
Business Skills • Problem Solving
• Planning
• Delegation / Empowerment
Leadership Skills • Coaching
• Managing Performance
• Approachability
Interpersonal Skills • Listening
• Building Relationships
• Action Orientation
Intrapersonal Skills • Initiative
• Composure
Behavioral Attributes
Behavioral Attributes are best measured by assessment inventories that are capable of looking beyond a small sample of
behaviors to provide a description of "why" those behaviors occur in the first place. Behavioral Attributes are comprised
of personality characteristics, cognitive abilities, and motivational characteristics. The Leadership Forecast Potential
Report and Challenge Report both provide excellent measures of personality characteristics. A measure of critical
thinking such as the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Inventory is a good measure of cognitive abilities. Motivational
characteristics speak to our wants and desires and are often manifested in our values. The Leadership Forecast Values
Report provides a good understanding of motivational characteristics. Understanding your personality characteristics,
cognitive ability, and motivational characteristics is the foundation for development. Knowing "why you do what you do"
often dictates the targets you are likely to be successful in changing. It may also dictate the change strategy with the
highest probability of success.
Personality Characteristics
Motivational Characteristics
Sales jobs have many critical requirements including planning (Business Skills), listening (Interpersonal Skills), and
initiative (Intrapersonal Skills). In analyzing the sales job, you find that initiative is the most important competency
followed by listening, then planning. In reviewing Competency Domain data (from your 360 ratings), you were rated high
in initiative, but low in listening and planning.
Turning to data on your Behavioral Attributes, you were somewhat low on personality characteristics associated with
listening and planning. Since you have Competency Domain and Behavioral Attribute data that indicate weaknesses in
listening and planning, which one should be the primary target for development? You have to use some judgment at this
point. Since listening was rated as more important to success than planning, it would be reasonable to target listening.
However, it is important to realize that your listening skills develop long before your planning skills and will be a more
challenging development target. You essentially have to balance the development challenge with the potential impact
on successful job performance. In this case, it would be reasonable to conclude that, as a sales person, listening skills
take priority over planning skills.
The following pages will help you apply this model in building a development plan for your target job.
Review your multi-rater data and think about what the results reveal about your strengths and opportunities for
development in each of the competency domains. Note your strengths and opportunities in the space provided and write
down the specific multi-rater item (or statement) that was most important in leading you to your conclusions.
Strengths:
BUSINESS
Opportunity:
Strengths:
LEADERSHIP
Opportunity:
INTERPERSONAL
Strengths:
Opportunity:
INTRAPERSONAL
Strengths:
Opportunity:
Performance Strengths
Personal Impact
You are active, hardworking, competitive, and eager to get ahead. You like leadership positions and enjoy being in
charge. You are willing to take initiative in a group and, with the appropriate interpersonal skills, you will be able to
assume leadership roles on team projects. These tendencies are particularly important in jobs that require directing
others, persuasiveness, and working without supervision. Others will see you as energetic, talkative, and socially active.
You should meet the public well and create a strong, even vivid, impression on others. You seem well suited for work that
involves interacting with strangers. You should perform well in front of groups and like public speaking. This is
particularly important for jobs in which one must constantly deal with strangers in a positive way, for example, in sales,
training, marketing, and customer service work.
Interpersonal Skill
You are unusually diplomatic, friendly, charming, and sensitive to the needs and feelings of others. You will be able to
build and maintain friendships. You are concerned about staff morale and being a good team player. You value
encouraging, protecting, and helping others. These characteristics facilitate performance in jobs that require care giving,
customer service, and developing long-term relationships. You are typically planful, self-controlled, careful,
conscientious, and good with details. You will be a hardworking and solid organizational citizen (i.e., reliable and
dependable). You are concerned about rules, procedures, and task clarity, and will expect projects and assignments to be
done well and on time. You value providing high quality work products and meeting high performance standards. This is
particularly important in jobs requiring accuracy, precision, and attention to detail.
Social Interests
You enjoy meeting new people, you like working as part of a team, and you may not like working by yourself. You enjoy
the entire process of networking, including reaching out and communicating with others and renewing old
acquaintances. You enjoy assisting and developing others, especially those who need the most help. You help others
because it is the right thing to do. You also think it is important to pay attention to staff morale, communicate with staff
regularly, ask them for feedback, and to encourage and support their efforts. You seem to prefer a balance between
change and diversity on the one hand, and stability and uniformity on the other. You are neither liberal nor conservative
in management style; you seem to have a natural preference for moderation and compromise. You value the lessons of
the past but are willing to experiment for the future.
Entrepreneurial Values
You are keenly interested in financial issues and in discovering methods for increasing profitability and improving the
bottom line. You are alert for business and investment opportunities, do not make many financial mistakes, and do not
have a lot of sympathy for those who do. You seem unconcerned about job security and are willing to take chances to
advance your career. You do not need a lot of direction in your work, and you do not mind unexpected changes in work
assignments.
Challenges
Reactions to Others
You seem to be an intense and enthusiastic person, but one who, over time, seems easily frustrated and disappointed by
others’ performance. When you become frustrated, you may tend to give up on people or projects. Others may perceive
you as volatile and hard to please. You seem insightful about people and knowledgeable about politics, but vigilant and
alert for signs of mistreatment. When you think you have been wronged, others may see you as critical and
argumentative. You are a careful person who rarely makes silly mistakes. At the same time, however, you may be too
careful and, as a result, may seem slow to act or make decisions, and reluctant to take any risks. You are a person who
can take the heat without wilting. Because you are so private, others may perceive you as not listening, indifferent to
feedback, and remote. Unless you tell them, others will rarely know when you think something is wrong or could be done
better. Nonetheless, you have doubts about others’ competency, dislike being pushed, and when you are annoyed, you
may procrastinate and seem stubborn and hard to coach.
Reactions to Authority
You seem willing to let others do their work, but you may not give them needed feedback. You seem independent and
self-reliant, and may become tired quickly when working as part of a team.
Career Development
When Strengths Become Weaknesses—Development feedback for Sam Poole
In view of your unusual resilience and ability to handle pressure, remember your previous errors and mistakes in order to
learn from them, and make sure you are aware that others may be stressed when you are not. You are keenly interested
in career advancement. Work to stay alert and look for opportunities to make these interests known. You need to
remember not to intimidate inexperienced or more junior team members, to practice letting others be in charge, and to
be patient with others who are less motivated to succeed. You are so extraverted and enthusiastic that you may need to
remember to listen carefully to what others are saying and not interrupt them—especially when dealing with
inexperienced or more junior colleagues and with clients. You should also make a point to share credit with others for
successes achieved. Because you value getting along with others, you will tend to avoid taking unpopular positions.
Remember to be careful not to promise more than you can deliver, to confront problems promptly before they become
unmanageable, and to let others know where you stand on specific topics. You are so conscientious, you should
remember that you will not be able to do everything yourself and that it will not be possible to do every job equally well.
Learn how to delegate and prioritize work, and make sure you understand the need to be flexible when it is called
for—for example, you should allow people to interrupt you when necessary. Although you are imaginative and visionary,
you may become easily bored with routine tasks; remember to stay with tasks until they are finished. You value being
well-informed and will proactively seek training opportunities. Realize that you may become frustrated when they are
not available. Moreover, you will enjoy setting your own performance goals because you are very achievement oriented.
In the previous step, you reviewed a summary of the three Leadership Forecast Reports. You are now ready to complete
an in-depth review of the individual reports. We suggest you read all three reports before completing this section. Once
you have read the reports, you should go back, and beginning with the Potential Report, review and record strengths and
opportunities for development in each of the competency domains. Do the same for the Challenge and Values Reports.
Keep in mind that it is not necessary to list something in every box. Only record the strengths and opportunities that are
pertinent to your job success.
Domains Using the assessment data from Step 4, Using the 360 data (or statements) from Describe behaviors that need to change in
describe the results that indicate why you Step 2, list items that led you to select order to improve your performance.
do what you do. behaviors needing improvement.
BUSINESS
LEADERSHIP
INTERPERSONAL
INTRAPERSONAL
If an in-house approach is not available or if you are looking for an alternative, the following approach should be
considered.