by Joey Williams
Relationships are vital to developing the mutual trust demanded by the Army’s mission command philosophy. To build mutual trust leaders must understand themselves and others around them. The Army has introduced personality assessments for professional development, recognizing its importance. The Center for Army Leadership’s Athena provides survey fact sheets, self-help frameworks, videos, and articles.
However, many leaders do not have low-stakes tools to quickly assess themselves in the context of their relationships. This article introduces the Preferred Style Assessment (PSA) tool to enable leaders to better understand themselves and presents a way to foster mutual trust.
The Preferred Style Assessment enables people to assess how they prefer to interact with people, ideas, decisions, and their environments. The tool does not assign labels, but rather allows leaders to recognize and communicate their preferences, saving subordinates weeks, even months, of relationship trial and error or personality recon-by-fire. It is unique from other types of assessments in that it is a free and simple one page questionnaire that can be completed during a morning coffee.
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To take the PSA, work your way through the sheet below. Circle your preference on either the left or right. You can also implement a number scale or allow “center marks.” This can be valuable if neither option stands out or you agree with both. There are no right answers other than answering authentically rather than aspirationally.
Once complete there are multiple ways to utilize your results.
Self-reflection: One method is to take the PSA as a self-reflection exercise. When finished, compile your takeaways in the bottom writing section. Did anything surprise you?
Interpersonal reflection: Another method is to use the PSA during counseling sessions. Both leader and subordinate complete a PSA prior to the meeting. Use the meeting to compare your results. Where do you overlap? What differences are most drastic? Where there are large discrepancies? You may discuss whether any resolution is appropriate or if awareness of the differences is sufficient. Were either of you surprised that you aligned or differed?
External reflection: A third method is for leaders to have their subordinates complete a PSA to assess the leader’s tendencies. This can shed light on how the subordinate views their relationship and interactions. Use this information to have an honest conversation. Whenever the subordinates assess center marks for their leader, they should be able to articulate the conditions in which they observe both “directions” of behaviors. A simpler method is for each person to select the five strongest preferences of the other from across the entire list. This very simple method can reveal a lot about one another.
Meta reflection: A final application is to conduct a self reflection by answering how you think a specific person would answer about you. Then, after asking that person for their assessment of you, compare to see if your leadership aspirations match your leadership style.
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All parties should understand that this assessment is an imperfect tool, like all other assessments. People generally act differently in different situations and slowly change over time. Sometimes people change rapidly as a result of acute experiences and extreme environments. The PSA is a tool for leaders and subordinates to understand their behaviors at a snapshot in time.
Follow-through is the most important step of the PSA. Your snapshot should not just increase your self-awareness, but be utilized to deliberately increase transparency in your formation. While fixed leaders demand the adaptation of others to their own styles, growth leaders build organizations that thrive on diversity of thought and cognitive diversity. By not only taking the PSA, but applying it to further level your organizational differences, teams can be more understanding, accepting, and adaptable.
Joey Williams serves the Army Headquarters at the Pentagon. He is fortunate for his diverse career opportunities and will transition this summer to infantry battalion command.
