I think knowing and understanding your archetypes gives you a huge advantage when working on your leadership skills. The archetype book quotes: “Understanding their expression in our life myths or stories helps us gain access to unrealized potential, grasp the logic and importance of our lives, and increase our empathy for the stories that others live.” I strongly agree because the archetypes informs you of all possible situations, your personality at your best, at your worst, as a leader, the stories you like, why people may or may not be drawn to you, etc. It gives you a complete and up close vision and it really points things out to you that you may not have been able to see before. I think it’s hard to always see yourself while standing in your shoes, but the archetypes lets you see a broader possible story of yourself which will make you more aware of what you do well and what you need to work on. Leadership to me is about a transformation, bringing yourself and a group of people together to reach their full potential. If you know your story and self well, it can only make the path to leadership a stronger one.
Viewing yourself while standing in your own shoes is a very difficult task. It varies how people actually view themselves; some tend to put themselves on a pedestal and only focus on the positives, but ignore the negatives. Others are really hard on themselves and pick out every negative attribute and focus solely on that. After taking the PMAI test and figuring out the archetypes that relate to my personality and leadership traits it really opened my eyes to some things I was unaware of. If all leaders were to have knowledge of their own archetypes I think that it would help them tremendously with their leadership skills.
ReplyDeleteI would be more inclined to learn about my weakness than my strengths if I were going to develop myself as a leader. The archetypes tell us how we view life and then there is one or two that are not so active in our minds. While I do agree that knowing yourself is a start to becoming a great leader, knowing what you have to work on puts you on the path to actually start growing as a leader.
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