Leadership: Using Assessments as a Discovery Tool

“In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” Max De Pree, American businessman and writer.

Being a dynamic and successful leader relies deeply on discovering and understanding your full potential, along with continuous growth. Knowing who you are and understanding who you are sound like the same idea, but are actually two completely different concepts. Knowing yourself is simple. Taking that knowledge of who you are, breaking it apart and learning from it is much more complex.

Continuous learning helps you and your team understand yourselves and each other. Furthermore, it helps you, your managers and your team grow into more successful leaders. Leadership and management assessments, like Profiles Performance Indicator (PPI) and ProfileXT, can help you discover strengths and weaknesses, identify and highlight personality characteristics, development opportunities, and ultimately solve any issues that could lead to low employee output or decreased job fulfillment.

Through assessment tools, effective leadership and a more prosperous business become achievable. Not only do they strengthen current leadership, but also help cultivate new leaders from within your organization. PPI measures individuals potential for growth and development through behavior characteristics, such as productivity, quality of work, how one works on a team, initiative, problem solving, adaptation to change, motivators, and how one responds to stress or frustration. ProfileXT measures how well individuals fit specific jobs in your organization based on similar characteristics. While the ProfileXT assesses an individual’s qualities based on a specific job, PPI evaluates an individual’s overall potential in the company. Let’s review the four aspects of behavior the PPI tool defines.

• Measuring behaviors in critical job-related components allows an individual to make full use of their strengths and manage areas that may be limiting effectiveness. The job-related components that the PPI measures include:
  • Productivity
  • Quality of work
  • Initiative
  • Teamwork
  • Problem solving
  • Adapting to change
• Stress, frustration, and conflict often come packaged with a job. How an individual responds to the job-related stress can give insight into their potential for leadership and what improvements they can make to get there.
• What motivates people to be more proficient in what they do? PPI helps and individual get a better understanding for the reasoning behind his or her own motivations and gives managers a better understanding of how they can better motivate their team.
• Motivational intensity, or the passion that is exhibited as one approaches a situation, can be a great indicator of a successful leader. If someone shows high motivational intensity for each and every task they complete, no matter the circumstances, they could be an excellent choice for a leadership role.

Discovering and understanding yourself and your team are extremely effective in improving leadership skills across the board. Once behavior characteristics are uncovered and proficiency is highlighted in distinct job categories, knowledge can be applied, and refined through time and practice in all aspects of the company. These profile assessments not only help you boost team morale and productivity, but can also be used as a discovery tool to potential leadership opportunities.

For more information on growing as a leader using the Profiles Performance Indicator and ProfileXT assessment tools, contact us today.