Now I'd like to examine locus of control in a little more detail. You recall from the course self-evaluation that locus of control is one of those elements that correlates to happiness and success. But it is the attitude that people develop regarding themselves in feeling whether they're in control of their circumstances and their surrounding. As we look at the components, it's worth knowing or recognizing that where you are on the spectrum of internal to external locus of control is situationally dependent. It could vary based on your experience about the role that you're in, or the particular problems that you're faced. So, understand that as you do the self-assessment, and as you look at this area, that it could vary quite a bit over time. As I say, it is situation specific. Don't be surprised if there are circumstances in which you find yourself more in control than other circumstances where you feel less in control. That might be particularly relevant as you approach a new job, a new role. That would be a circumstance where you might likely feel a more external locus of control. Once you've gain experience, confidence in your role, that locus of control will shift more towards internal. Different people have different locus of control, depending on their experiences and the extent to which they feel in control of their lives. Recognize that locus of control will change with time. And, as I said before, with the circumstances in which you find yourself. I'd like now to look at a model of how you might want to build an internal locust of control. Within the North American culture, having an internal locus of control correlates more highly with success in a leadership role. So, I will encourage you, as you develop your plans, to look at ways that you can build your internal locus of control. Let's look at a model of locus of control in which these are the factors that might contribute to your success. First are those items that are within your control, that you know that you can control. Outside of this are those things that you can influence, they're not directly within your control, but you can influence those to ensure success. Then there's a realm of factors that are of interest, are of concern, but you do not either directly control them or influence those. There's even an area outside of that, of factors that you may not even be aware of. Things that you don't know. There could be elements with each of these four areas that contribute to your success. Within our model here, what we would like to do, is expand the circle of control and the circle of influence, those things that you feel confident about influencing, to ensure your success. If you had an external locus of control, the pressures that you feel will tend to shrink your circle of influence over time. And that in turn will reduce your effectiveness. You'll feel less in control, less able to influence the outcomes of those things that are going on around you. Now let's take a look at developing an internal locus of control. As I mentioned before, in the North American culture, internal locus of control correlates most highly with successful leadership outcome. Our focus here is to grow the circle of influence. The broader that you can grow that, the more likely you'll be able to expand not just your circle of concern, but also the circle of control as well. So we’ll be looking at things to grow that circle of influence, how much you do that. Experience, continued learning, taking on challenging assignments, all are things that might help you grow that circle of influence and thereby expand all of those areas that are going to help you be successful in leadership. Now let's examine the self-awareness assessment that you did on the locus of control area. You will find that the results fall along a scale of 0 to 10, with the median being about 5. Thus, if your score Is above 5, that suggests that you have an external locus of control. So we would like to be moving down this scale as we expand that area of influence, that circle of influence to a more internal locus of control near the bottom of this scale. As I did before in cognitive style, and in the core self-assessment, I'll share my results with you. At the time I took this particular assessment, my result was a 3, suggesting that I have a fairly strong internal locus of control.
