Questions for Self-Study

It is important for all of us to periodically take time to evaluate our performance and success so that we can make positive changes. On this page you will find self-study items in specific areas of work and life. You can print, complete, and review these inventories. Please choose from the following:

Psychological Care of Employees: Study Questions for Managers, Executives, Human Resources Professionals

Twenty Questions for Positive Relationships

Psychological Care of Employees: Study Questions for Managers, Executives, Human Resources Professionals

In today’s business world, the increasing complexity and flux of business activities and decisions means that the human element is of critical importance in keeping your business and career strong and vital. How you relate to yourself and your people affects your personal satisfaction as well as effectiveness in reaching your goals. Your values and how you fulfill them in your work makes you a leader and a “role model” for others.

The following questionnaire provides you with a beginning in self-evaluating your own performance in terms of how well you meet the emotional and mental health needs of your peers and personnel.

View and print the self-study questions here

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Twenty Questions for Positive Relationships

Most guides to relationships focus on how good a match there is between partners, in a word, compatibility. While there can be no doubt that a good match is important for a satisfying relationship, mutual and consistent self-awareness and work to improve and renew the relationship is critically important for long-term success.

As a result of my personal and professional experience, I have identified Seven Skills and Attitudes of Successful Relationships. Practicing them doesn’t guarantee success, but does increase the chances. All things being equal, practicing the Seven Skills and Attitudes is a good prescription for sustaining and improving relationships.

In what follows, I briefly describe each of the Seven Skills and Attitudes. Then, I provide “Twenty Questions” whereby you can assess your own skill sets. I hope you find the questionnaire interesting, challenging, and helpful.

The self-study questions are meant specifically for love relationships that involve a serious one-on-one commitment, as well as marriage and life partnerships. It is intended for both gay and straight folks. Similar attitudes and skills are probably helpful in almost any kind of interpersonal relationship, such as dating, parenting, and business relations. But this inventory does not specifically address them.

Seven Skills and Attitudes of Successful Relationships:

A. Communication Skills
The higher the stakes, the more important it becomes to communicate effectively. Business deals and relationships have broken down because the parties involved failed to correctly communicate and perceive each others’ points of view.

Communication occurs at the levels of feelings, facts, logic, and power/empowerment. Body language and tone of voice communicate a multitude of things that are unspoken. Miscommunications can lead to hurt feelings and unrealistic expectations, which can escalate into crises. Learning how to communicate is one of the most important things couples can do for each other.

B. Negotiating Independence and Interdependence
Couples counselors have found that exclusive, totally merged relationships don’t work well. Part of loving someone is giving him or her space to develop his or her own potential. Yet couples must find deep satisfaction in being with one another. Negotiating these waters is crucial to sustaining a healthy relationship.

C. Mutual Support
In the best relationships, the partners feel that they are supported by each other, that they are each other’s greatest and best friends. If you and your partner don’t feel that you are “rocks of Gibraltar” for each other in good times and bad, then you’d better do some re-thinking.

D. Trust and Integrity
There is false encouragement given today to “acting out” for pleasure instead of living a life of trust and integrity. A TV ad for visiting Las Vegas shows people keeping secrets from their partners, and states “What Happens Here, Stays Here.” Secrecy is an invitation to disaster! The greatest bond for an enduring relationship is trust with integrity. Of course, if one partner abuses the other’s trust, it will not work. The trust must be mutual and merited.

E. Genuineness and Authenticity
Relationships can degenerate into mechanical routine that looks good on the surface, but where a “disconnect” develops. The best antidote to this is to cultivate a simple “down home” feeling of “what you see is what you get.” Each partner should feel that (s)he and the other are both able to be entirely “themselves” with one another most of the time. There should be little or no need for artifice or guile in a healthy relationship.

F. Patience and Tolerance
All spiritual teachings emphasize patience and tolerance as qualities which bring “the still, small voice of God” to everything. Romantic relationships always start out as narcissistic and self-centered: “You are my ‘everything,’ my bliss, all that I’ve ever wanted.” Then there is a period of frustration and disillusionment: “You are so difficult and not what I expected.” To get back to bliss, partners must develop great patience with each other. Patience allows for genuine healing. “Quick fixes” seldom work.

G. Goal Synergy
Steven Covey , in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, points out that differences can be transformed into mutual solutions that are better than either person alone had originally considered. Highly successful couples are able to come up with creative problem solutions that honor mutual intentions, needs, and desires, even when partners initially appear to be in serious conflict with one another. For example, an extramarital affair can put a relationship into complete disarray, even leading to a divorce. However, such an event, especially with the help of a counselor, can lead to finding new solutions to the marital difficulties and a complete positive turnaround to a troubled marriage. Open-minded, imaginative, creative “out of the box” problem-solving is the best ally any couple can have.

View and print the self-study questions here

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