Are Executive Assessments the Missing Link to Unlock Your True Potential?
The last thing an executive needs in today's demanding workplace is someone or something telling them what they already know. The higher you move within any organization, the less objective the feedback you tend to receive; however, it becomes more critical personally and professionally. The better the quality of the feedback you receive, the better the decisions you can make. Evidence suggests that executive coaching combined with assessment provides deep insights into areas that, with attention, lead to improved personal and organizational outcomes. Are you getting the feedback you really need?
The medical model can be a helpful analogy for understanding why executive assessments are important. Consider your last visit to the doctor. You weren't going to the doctor to be told what you already knew, but you needed answers or help with something you couldn't answer alone. You were likely going to the doctor as a reaction to something not being right or proactively to uncover something before it became a problem (or possibly because someone you care about told you to go).
At the doctor's visit, the assessments likely started with subjective questions, then progressed to more objective measures to pinpoint where additional review or attention might be helpful. Potentially, the doctor then ordered the use of advanced targeted assessments that required a specialist's technical interpretation.
As in the medical analogy, executive assessments come in various formats and provide subjective and objective feedback. They have different degrees of sophistication and require other qualifications, certifications, or degrees of interpretation, like the difference between a thermometer and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Also, many assessments combined can take longer to complete and reveal more insightful information than any single assessment alone.
When Is The Best Time To Use Executive Assessments?
The best time to use an executive assessment is typically around transition points in your career or at any time when you are looking for additional objective feedback. You should avoid using an evaluation if you don't want input that may contradict your perspective, don't have the time to do anything with the feedback, or feel confident you already know everything you need.
As for how frequently you should use an assessment, each instrument tends to have different periods when it is helpful to repeat. The rationale is that some attributes that are measured are more fixed. Think about the difference between our shoe size and weight. While our shoe size tends not to change frequently once we become adults, our weight will fluctuate throughout our lifetime. Some items measured, such as stress, tend to change frequently because most stress drivers are situational.
Types of Executive Assessments
Not all executive assessments are created equal.
What is essential to understand when considering different types of assessments is the following:
degree of reliability (i.e., consistency)
validity (i.e., the accuracy of interpretation)
fairness (i.e., equivalence across different populations)
type of feedback (group norms or self-reported)
education requirements to interpret the results
No one categorization system exists for executive assessments. I developed the following framework to help categorize the different types of assessments:
Type 1 Assessments: 360 Surveys
As the name implies, 360 surveys are tools for collecting feedback from multiple directions relative to the executive's position about an executive's leadership performance, skills, and contributions. To learn more about 360 evaluation, check out this article on "1 Leadership Tool You Need to Try" or join an upcoming complimentary leadership development webinar.
Type 2 Assessments: Diagnostics
These tools typically have less reliability, validity, or fairness and do not require specialized interpretation training. They may or may not provide norm comparisons versus self-reporting. Normally, you only need to read a book or whitepaper to make sense of the evaluation.
Type 3 Assessments: Assessments
These assessments have normed feedback and may or may not be validated. Typically, assessments require some formal training to interpret.
Type 4 Assessments: Clinical Assessments
These assessments or tests have proven to meet reliability, validity, and fairness standards. Interpretation of these types of assessments requires advanced education in clinical psychology.
Note: If a provider of any of these tools claims their assessment achieves perfect reliability, I tend to walk away. Either they don't know their research studies, their research is not extensive enough, or they are overselling.
What do Executive Assessments Measure?
There are numerous executive assessments, and more are constantly added. If you have ever wondered about answers to any of the following questions, there are assessments that can help reveal answers:
What are my leadership habits?
How can I better connect with others?
What are my strengths, and how can I better leverage them?
How can I reduce my stress?
Does my approach to leadership match my preferred leadership style?
How do I approach conflict, and how can I make conflict work better?
Does my approach bring out the best in others?
What are my blind spots?
How can I make better decisions?
How do I bring out the best in people?
How to Select an Executive Assessment
When considering which assessment to use and when to use it, there are many situational factors to consider in addition to what the assessment measures and its reliability, validity, and fairness, such as:
cost and budget
time and availability of the executive
the precision of feedback needed
the coach's qualifications
The following table provides a few popular executive assessments I use and what is measured:
Assessment / Diagnostic | What is Measured |
Choices | Measures of Learning Agility comprised four areas: mental agility, people agility (i.e., will people follow), change agility (i.e., ability to take the heat and lead change), and results agility (i.e., drive and presence). |
Conflict Modes | Measures a person's preferred approach to dealing with conflict and their tendency towards other alternatives when their dominant style(s) doesn't get the results they desire. |
Predictive Index | The Predictive Index (PI) measures a person's personality characteristics and cognitive ability to help predict how well they will fit into an organization or job. The PI Behavioral Assessment measures four behavioral drives: Dominance, the drive to influence people and events; extraversion, the drive to interact socially with others; patience, the drive for consistency and stability; and Formality, the drive to conform to rules and structure. The PI Cognitive Assessment measures reasoning and comprehension of words, constructive thinking, and logical reasoning ability. |
Hogan Challenge | Measures 11 common dysfunctional patterns of interpersonal behavior. To evaluate how a person will perform during times of stress and conditions of uncertainty. To aid personal development by identifying behavior patterns that may be derailing tendencies. To inform leaders preparing for or undergoing significant change, for individuals experiencing performance issues, and for leaders whose personality characteristics interfere with their performance. |
Interpersonal Measurement and Group Effectiveness | Measures core traits that transcend personality within an interpersonal and organizational context: cooperation, risk, nervous energy, mental toughness, perceived capability, perceived self-worth, work incentive, rule orientation, organizational compliance, skepticism, curiosity, creative mode, work approach, motivation, organizational dependency, relationship focus, interpersonal style, assertiveness. |
Management Set-Point Assessment | Measures where a person falls on a spectrum from a victim through Servant Leadership, identifying their preferred and recessive mode or styles of exerting leadership influence and how mature they are in these approaches. |
NEO-PI-R | A measure of the Five-Factor Model (FFM) provides a systematic assessment of emotional, interpersonal, experiential, attitudinal, and motivational styles—a detailed personality description that can be a valuable resource for various professionals. |
Strengths Finders | To identify a person’s top five strengths from a list of 32 strengths based on Gallup research. Also, it provides strategies for applying strengths. |
Watson-Glaser | Measures an individual’s ability to think critically. It helps assess an individual’s ability to reason, think analytically, and draw inferences. To determine the extent to which one can: Discriminate among degrees of truth or falsity of inferences drawn from given data; Recognize unstated assumptions or presuppositions in given statements or assertions; Determine whether certain conclusions necessarily follow from information in given statements or premises; Weigh the evidence and decide if generalizations or findings based on the provided data are warranted; Distinguish between solid and relevant arguments and those that are weak and irrelevant to a particular question at issue. |
Workplace Stress Profile | Measures a person's response to 10 different organizationally induced stressors: inter-role distance, role stagnation, role expectations conflict, role erosion, role overload, role isolation, personal inadequacy, self-role conflict, role ambiguity, and resource inadequacy. The patterns in the stress scores reveal precisely where to intervene to focus healthy stress for positive results. |
In addition to selecting the right assessment at the right time and for the right reason, selecting a qualified coach is equally important for understanding the results.
If feedback is not used appropriately, it can lead to incorrect conclusions and potentially do more harm than good. Typically, the more education and qualification you have, the better the interpretation you will receive, but education is not a replacement for experience. Be sure to get recommendations and learn about the coach's character before getting started.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy reading about “What is Executive Coaching?”
References:
Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2018). A systematic review of executive coaching outcomes: Is it the journey or the destination that matters the most? The Leadership Quarterly, 29(1), 70-88.
Athanasopoulou, A., & Dopson, S. (2015). Developing leaders by executive coaching: Practice and evidence (First ed.). Oxford University Press.
Goldstein, G., Allen, D. N., & Deluca, J. (2019). Handbook of psychological assessment. Elsevier Science & Technology.
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