If you are looking for a person to fill up a vacancy that requires the employee to show some leadership skills, how will you proceed? How will you know which ones of your existing employees have the necessary ability to do justice to the vacancy? If you are hiring from outside the organization, how will you judge the applicants? Conducting a test for this purpose is the apt choice of determining who possesses the required qualities. The following paragraphs will discuss this in detail.
To put it in a nutshell and in simple words, this test examines the individual on his/her leadership skills. There are many qualities that a leader needs to possess, along with the right qualifications and knowledge. All these are required in the individual so that he/she does justice to the job. He needs to be well-versed with the related principles and values. All the people who apply for the position are assessed on all such parameters and the best amongst them is chosen for the job. The following is the skills list, based on which the individuals are assessed:
- Relationship
- Business Communication
- Forecasting
- Decision-making
- Planning
- Goal Setting
- Listening
- Team Building
- Persuasion
- Employee Motivation
- People Management
- Mentoring
Every organization has its own assessment tests. Some of these are written, while some are practical or situational. The written tests include questions about all these aspects. Some of them can also include essay-type question-answers, in order to understand how much the individuals know about the qualities and strategies. Answering these questions in the right manner is not expected; what matters is how much an individual knows about the subject. However, in order to know more about his/her capacities, it is necessary to test him/her in a different form, too. This involves presenting the individual with a situation and asking him/her how he/she will tackle it. Based on these tests, the management will not only be able to decide the right person for the job but also plan the course of development for the chosen candidate.
Another way of testing such techniques is role-playing. For this, the management of the organization can provide a group of people a current problem faced by the organization or a fictitious one. The individuals are asked to lead the groups and find the solutions to the problem together. These tests help the management understand almost all the skills possessed by the individual. As the leadership is more about behavior rather than talk, role-plays are better when it comes to assessment. The organization will conduct different tests for different levels of management as there are different skills that leaders at different levels of management must possess. For example, those for managers will be different from that of a supervisor.
Some people say that a person is a born leader and that he/she cannot be
taught such skills. However, if you inculcate these qualities in children, you can expect them to become good ones, once they grow up. In order to accomplish this, several schools examine them. Once the areas of improvements are identified, it becomes easy for the parents and the teachers to develop the kids.
In order to hire the best people to lead, it is necessary to conduct these tests to ascertain their leadership traits. This step assists the management in assessing the employees and choosing the right individual for the job.
