My Personal  Experience with the Well-Being Q Assessment 

Hello, Verve Lead! For those who don’t know me, my name is Cecelia and I have been a content creator for Don’s blogs and book for the last two years. I’ve been along for the ride when it comes to the Well-Being Q since its conception; writing in detail about the five competencies and their behavioural expressions. Here’s what’s crazy though… I didn’t take the Well-Being Q Assessment until today. After finally doing so, I thought I would share my experience for those of you who, like me, have put off taking the full leap into the role of a healthy Christian Leader.

Want to Know More?

Let me begin by sharing the set-up of this assessment. After filling in some basic information (including the name of your mentor if you have one), you will be guided through the five essential competencies for a healthy Christian Leader: Vital Spirituality, Thriving Relationships, Emotional Intelligence, Sustainable Life and Reduced Risk. Each competency will have several examples of behavioural expressions and you will rate yourself on a scale of high to low depending on which expression you most resonate with. After you go through all five competencies, you can see your results. You can also choose to share this information your mentor. We highly recommend this—the most effective transformation requires outside perspective.

From the very first section (Vital Spirituality) I came face to face with some of my more substantial shortcomings. While I can say with confidence I have an intimate relationship with God and feel his presence frequently in my life, I know that I am pretty terrible about making intentional time for my spirituality. When asked about my prayer habits… I had to grimace to myself. It is not often I take more than a few minutes here or there to offer up some sort of plea or thanks to Jesus before moving on with my day. Oh dear. This is certainly something I can work on.

I was ratified slightly by the next section (Thriving Relationships). If there is one place in my life I feel safe, healthy and resilient, it is in my relationships. Everyone ranks higher or lower in certain competencies and I found it so valuable to be able to see these tangible results laid out clearly in front of me.

Coming to Terms with my Own Strengths and Weaknesses

For most of the sections, I resonated with the middling expression of the competency. Here’s an example of a behavioural expression that felt like it really hit the nail on the head when it came to highlighting my own strengths and weaknesses:

(M) Increases in understanding of emotional blind spots and their physical effect but without acting accordingly.

Wow. When I read this, I recognised that I often respond reactively instead of proactively too many things in my life. I am growing in my understanding of my weaknesses, but don’t often act to prevent future failures. Instead, I wait for disaster to strike before making positive changes. I think a lot of people who take this test will find this to be true; we can see progress and growth in our lives, and know we are not in the lowest subsection of the behaviour expression, but can also see room for improvement. For me, this sparked a lot of ideas and motivation for growth in my personal life.

Regardless of whether you are in a Christian leader position currently, there is a lot to gain from  exploring your strengths and weaknesses using this assessment. We all play a role in our community and we should be aware of what we do well, and the areas that might need some work. We don’t know where this knowledge may take us, but I can safely say it will be a healthier, happier place where you can give more of your best self to those around you.