Leadership skills assesment

What is the Leadeship Skills Assesment?

The culture of an organisation is fundamentally determined by the everyday behaviour, (co-)functioning and communication of its leaders, the quality of their Leadership. In order to tailor leadership and leadership development activities as effectively as possible, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the leadership skills of the key people in the organisation.

What problem does it answer?

If you ask a CEO or HR leader what their managers need to improve, they typically "know" the answer: delegation, feedback, business acumen, collaboration, organisational communication - to name just the most popular ones. But there are several problems with these answers:

• They are often based on momentary impressions, inaccurate observations and, of course, the respondent's personal perspective, preferences and attitudes, so their reliability is highly questionable.
• They may be broadly correct for 'leaders' as a whole, but may not be an accurate picture of specific individuals - due to the perceptual biases described above.
• Since they reflect the personal opinions of one or two decision-makers, they necessarily appear to be poorly grounded in the data themselves, lacking accurate data.

The effectiveness and return on investment of any leadership development programme is fundamentally determined by the extent to which it is based on accurate data on the skills of leaders. This not only ensures accurate design, but also has a major impact on the receptiveness and attitude of the managers who participate in the programme. It provides answers to often unspoken questions that start with "Why do I need to come to training?" or "Why did HR choose this programme for me?"

The Leadership Skills Assessment and subsequent feedback is in itself a powerful developmental tool. The reason is simple: if we get accurate, concrete feedback on our skills and performance, we can more easily understand how our behaviour affects others and when change is needed.

What are the main steps?

We use a variety of tools to assess leadership skills, so the first step is always to choose the methodology that best fits the specific situation - in collaboration with the client. We work with standard skills tests, tailored 360-degree assessments, behavioural structured in-depth interviews, assessment and development centres (AC/DC). Our expertise lies in knowing exactly how to best apply these tools and how to "deploy" them in specific situations.

In the spirit of the above, the specific implementation steps will depend, as appropriate, on the tool used. Whichever tool is used, we work with the client's experts in the design and implementation of the process and pay attention to the client-side workload.

Whatever tool is used for the assessment, the common point is that the results are used to create an individual - and in the case of larger teams, a group - improvement plan. This will identify the key focus areas, skills, attitudes and behaviours to be developed, and also suggest development tools and timing.