Managing others is the most difficult part of management, which is why a psychometric assessment for can help.

A line manager has a huge range of responsibilities; from recruitment to delegation to motivation and everything else in between.

The most challenging element however is managing others. You can be excellent at managing resources and logistics and pretty much anything else however it will be your ability to manage others that will define you as a manager.

Psychometric assessment of you as a manager

Have you ever read your own psychometric assessment? Contrary to popular belief there is no single personality type that is ideal for line management.

The trick is to know your personality and manage in accordance with your style. Unfortunately many try and adopt a style that isn’t in harmony with their personality, leaving them largely ineffectual.

Rule No 1 – know your personal style and manage in accordance with your own personality type.

Don’t be afraid of your personality assessment. Read it and embrace it. Get familiar with it and explore what it means to you in your job. Let it guide you and help you manage others more effectively.

It will point out where you are strong and natural and it will point out where you are challenged. That’s OK, work with your strengths and be the best manager you can be in your own style.

Don’t imitate others. Many management programs encourage you to imitate a mentor or senior manager. This rarely works as you and your mentor probably have different personality types. So what works for them will not necessarily work for you.

Delegation

Your ability to delegate is a critical part of your role. Some micro manage and others abdicate. Few get it just right. The way you delegate is largely determined by your personality. You have a natural preferred way of delegating.

However if you know where you sit on this spectrum you can make adjustments. If your psychometric assessment tells you you have a tendency to micromanage, then you can do something about it. A good report will tell you what you need to do about it.

It is possibly to improve all the key elements of managing staff, including your ability to delegate more effectively. We can all improve in this key result area.

Psychometric assessment in recruitment

Another critical area is recruitment. If you hire the best staff then the chances of you being a successful boss increase significantly.

So while it’s true that a great boss will get exceptional results from all their staff, the job is a lot easier if you start with good staff.

Your success therefore is determined in part by your ability to hire the right people.

This is why you would use a psychometric assessment in your recruitment process. The alternative, of go with your gut feel, is an option but it is not the smart option.

Surely the smart move is to use tried and tested approaches that the most successful people in the world have been using for over fifty years. Surely having more information is better than not having any.

You should insist your recruitment agency provide your with a psychometric assessment on every candidate they present to you. You should have a clear understanding of the psychometric profile you are looking for too.