Photo By Thomas Perry | Air Force Lt. Gen. Wendy Masiello, Defense Contract Management Agency director,...... read more read more
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DETROIT - After more than 18 months of planning and execution, Defense Contract Management Agency Detroit recently concluded an initiative designed to identify and eliminate leadership development gaps.
“I believe good leadership is built on the foundation of self-awareness,” said Army Col. Bill Robare, DCMA Detroit commander. “We realized there was a void in our Detroit leadership development process where the team leaders were afforded the opportunity to raise their self-awareness coupled with professional coaching assistance. We decided to tap into the Army’s Multi-Source Assessment and Feedback 360 program.”
According to the Army, the MSAF program is a web-based program that enhances individual and unit development by providing leaders with personalized and confidential feedback from traditional and nontraditional sources — superiors, peers and subordinates.
Retired Army Gen. Ray Odierno, former Army chief of staff, believed that multi-dimensional feedback played a key role in leadership development. “By encouraging input from peers, subordinates and superiors alike, leaders can better ‘see themselves’ and increase self-awareness … The ability to receive honest and candid feedback, in an anonymous manner, is a great opportunity to facilitate positive leadership growth.”
Hoping to facilitate their own leadership evolution, Detroit’s senior leaders first met with the MSAF team to discuss the initiatives basic structure and projected results in the summer of 2014.
Six months later, the MSAF team conducted an initial brief to team leaders and senior leadership, who said they were partially inspired to conduct the initiative by the private-sector’s growing emphasis on 360 assessments.
“I’m a big fan of continuous improvement,” Robare said. “It’s imperative for a learning organization like DCMA to keep the pulse on the latest innovations in both the public and the private sectors, assess their potential for adoption, and implement those practices that will improve our leaders’ development.”
From July to September, that development began as more than 225 team members assessed 16 — GS-13 and above — Detroit leaders. In December, the MSAF team provided onsite coaching to help leaders understand collected feedback and develop long-term solutions to deficiencies.
Tom Coyne, a DCMA Detroit price/cost analysis supervisor, was initially skeptical of the assessment program, fearing it would become a “non-functional solution to an imagined problem.”
He reluctantly agreed to participate, but his opinions were not swayed by the assessment’s first two phases.
“Initially I thought that the process would simply tabulate information which everyone already knew,” Coyne said. “The tabulated data would then be filed for a future reference to which no one would refer for any practical reason. After I saw the data in the report, my opinion remained unchanged, probably partially due to the superficial review to which I subjected the report, and I filed the report with no intention to do anything with it.”
Then the MSAF organizer asked Coyne to take part in December’s coaching sessions. Although he was still not convinced in the program’s validity, the veteran supervisor agreed to participate in the sessions to “be a team player and help enable the others to get their coaching sessions.”
As the period of instruction progressed, Coyne’s attitude began to shift. The coach enabled him to fully understand the report’s information, developed an action plan to use that information to facilitate improvement, and provided insight into Coyne’s professional attitude and demeanor suggesting alternate ways to interact with his team and environment.
Coyne ended the coaching session “extremely” impressed, and said he is now working to integrate the guidance into his workplace philosophy.
According to Robare, Detroit plans to use the MSAF results as an integral part of its leadership development process moving forward, and will conduct a second 360 assessment in 18-24 months to ensure it is meeting individual and organizational improvement goals.
“The true long-term benefit is realized when we build adaptive leaders who are continuously working to improve their strengths and shore up their weaknesses in leadership competencies and attributes,” Robare said. “I firmly believe our success in building these adaptive leaders will result in organizational performance improvements.”
| Date Taken: | 03.02.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 03.02.2016 07:50 |
| Story ID: | 190797 |
| Location: | DETROIT, MI, US |
| Web Views: | 77 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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