My research questionnaire was in 4 parts – demographics, self-awareness, leader effectiveness and free text.

The self awareness section. was made up of 24 statements. Welsh public service employees had to rate their agreement to each statement, from 1 – strongly disagree to 5 – strongly agree. They had to do this for themselves and their manager.

The statement that people agreed with most for themselves was:

  • I learn from my mistakes

The statements that people agreed with most for their manager was:

  • My manager has good people skills

The statement that people disagreed with most for themselves and their manager was:

  • When I am sad, angry or unhappy I hide it from colleagues / When my manager is sad, angry or unhappy they hide it from colleagues

People seems to be more positive about themselves than they were their manager. When people scored the statements for their manager, they picked strongly disagree and disagree more often than they did for themselves.

I carried out my research on the public service in Wales. I’d absolutely love to do this study with a different group of people, maybe even a different sector. It would be interesting to know the similarities and differences!