Choosing the Right Leadership Assessments for Your Priorities

In the world of talent development, there are hundreds of leadership assessments. Leadership assessments fall into categories such as behavioral assessments (DISC and Hogan), personality-based profiles (MBTI and Interaction Styles), 360-degree feedback, skills-based inventories, simulations and more. These assessments are designed to reveal leadership styles, perceptions, strengths, potential and capability across a variety of factors.

Knowing there are hundreds of useful and valid leadership assessments, how can HR and talent development professionals choose the best for their leadership priorities?

Questions to Help Choose Leadership Assessments

Here are a few questions to answer in order to narrow down your leadership assessment choices.

1. What do I want to uncover or reinforce through this assessment? Assessments can be useful in reinforcing and identifying developmental goals. They provide information that can help to justify or provide a starting point for conversations about performance and capabilities. The most important aspect of working with assessments is to match your goal to the assessment. The more clearly you know what you’d like to measure, the easier it is to select and implement an effective assessment. Be specific.
2. What data and information do I already have versus what I need? Performance reviews, evaluations, observations and discussions provide insights into capabilities and skills. Where data already exists, leverage it. If gaps or areas of contrasting information are present, consider those to be potential areas where assessments could provide clarity. Lean into the data available. Assessments can be intrusive and labor-intensive, so capitalizing on information that is already available is helpful in managing resources.
3. Do I need the leadership assessment to be tailored to the role or individual or is something off-the-shelf sufficient? Customized assessments, especially those that uncover fit for role or provide 360-feedback, are most valuable if they reflect the specific job or competencies and values that are expected of an individual. Generic assessments can be helpful if the skills and competencies you are measuring are fairly universal. 
4. Does my organization have preferences on what assessment I use? Many organizations have pre-selected, readily available leadership assessments. While it is possible that a non-organizationally approved assessment would be useful, there is a lot to be said about aligning with processes and assessments that are already in place. Often, company-approved assessments come with comparative data and built-in resources that match uncovered needs to available learning and developmental resources.

Working with Multiple Assessments

Even with clarity and access to leadership assessments, it can be difficult to achieve your goals with a single solution. Sometimes the best approach is to use a combination of assessments. For instance, a leader might benefit from understanding perceptions from direct reports and peers through a 360-feedback instrument, while also knowing how their preferences may be detrimental in a higher level role. High potential individual contributors may demonstrate formal leadership skills during a simulation, yet share career goals more readily in a structured interview. Using a variety of leadership assessments can be useful in development. A few keys to success in using multiple assessments, without creating “assessment overwhelm” is to:

• Take the time to be sure your leaders understand the purpose and features of each assessment before beginning the assessment process.
• Work with a single vendor to administer the assessments in order to streamline your backend operations.
• Have a plan to analyze and debrief the results of the assessments with a specific focus on culling information from all sources into a single summary with supporting resources.

These strategies help to ensure that your leadership assessments produce a high return on investment.

We administer thousands of assessments to leaders around the world, including facilitating one-on-one and group debriefing sessions. Reach out to learn more.

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