Complete and rate yourself on the Collaborative Leader Profile (page 39 in Robinson and Rose (2007) Teams for a New Generation: A facilitator’s field guide, Authorhouse).
OR, you can use the following other assessment (some have difficulties reading the small print in this assessment in our text pages in DART).
A very good assessment based on the work by the Reina Company which is well known for their research on trust. https://www.ruralcenter.org/sites/default/files/3Cs%20Trust%20Self-Assessment.pdf
Whichever assessment you use, make sure your paper is written at the Synthesis Level with a good balance of your scholarly voice with your own leadership perspective with examples. Cite your sources!
Discuss your scores, reflecting on how they have affected your leadership capacity.
Create a plan for improvement in each area.
Length: 3 pages, not including title page reference pages
The completed assignment should address all the assignment requirements, exhibit evidence of concept knowledge, and demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the content presented in the course. The writing should integrate scholarly resources, reflect academic expectations and current APA standards, and include page numbers in each cite! Don’t use generic examples, but make sure there is a good balance of the scholarly content synthesized with your own specific real world organizational leadership examples.
This is a reflective, synthesis-level paper built around a leadership self-assessment (the Collaborative Leader Profile, or the Reina 3Cs Trust assessment). The grader wants more than a report of your scores — they want you to weave your scholarly reading together with honest reflection on your own leadership, backed by real examples, and finished with a concrete improvement plan. Here is how to build three strong pages.
Key takeaways
- Take the assessment honestly and record your score for each dimension before you start writing.
- Write at the synthesis level: blend cited scholarship with your own leadership voice and real examples.
- For every dimension, reflect on what the score reveals about your leadership capacity.
- Turn each weak area into a SMART improvement goal — specific, measurable, time-bound.
- Use APA formatting and cite your sources, including the assessment instrument itself.
Understand what ‘synthesis level’ means
At the synthesis level you are not summarizing a source and then separately describing yourself. You are integrating them — using a concept from your reading to interpret your own behavior, and using your experience to illustrate or complicate the theory. Aim for sentences that do both at once: “Robinson and Rose describe collaborative trust as reciprocal; my low ‘communication’ score showed up last year when I withheld project context from my team and lost their buy-in.”
A structure that works in three pages
- Introduction (short): name the assessment you used and why, and preview your main reflection.
- Your scores: briefly present your results by dimension (a small table is fine) so the reader has the map.
- Reflection by dimension: the core of the paper. Take each area in turn — discuss the score, connect it to a scholarly concept, and give a specific example from your work or life.
- Impact on leadership capacity: step back and discuss what the pattern across scores means for how you lead.
- Improvement plan: one concrete goal per area you want to grow.
- Conclusion: tie it back to the kind of collaborative leader you are becoming.
Make the improvement plan concrete
Vague plans (‘I will communicate better’) lose marks. Use SMART goals: “Over the next eight weeks I will open each team meeting by restating our shared goal and inviting one dissenting view, and ask a peer to rate the change.” Name the action, how you’ll measure it, and the timeframe.
Voice, sources, and polish
Keep a scholarly but personal tone — first person is appropriate in reflection. Cite Robinson and Rose (2007) or the Reina material, plus one or two leadership sources, in APA. Proofread for the synthesis balance: if a paragraph is all theory or all story, revise it. See our APA 7 formatting guide to get citations right.