IT IS OUR HOPE THAT THIS BOOK INSPIRES A NEW GENERATION OF LEADERS who see in themselves the Talents that really matter when it comes to deciding who could be an effective leader. Countless exceptional leaders are hidden in their own organizations. Our Executive Leadership Assessment has the unique ability to discover such individuals. It shines a bright light on Talents, the essence of a leader. Our hope is to continue finding the very best leaders and ensuring that they are put on the path that best suits them.
No leader possesses every Talent, disposition, or trait that captures the extent of high-performance leadership, and you certainly won’t be the first. Furthermore, there is no single path that leaders take to achieve their success and no single mold that shapes all great leaders. There is no common starting point, no consistent role or set of experiences. Your differences are what make you unique. But we can certainly learn from individuals leading teams and companies who do achieve world-class results, and their story has been told in these pages. Make no mistake, the performance of leaders is measurable, and it is by learning from the very best that we can begin to understand what really matters in leadership.
In previous chapters, we’ve illustrated a more effective selection process for leaders in companies that emphasizes the innate characteristics that drive the highest levels of executive performance. We focus on executive selection because the cost of getting these decisions wrong is so high. It’s not just the costs of recruitment, relocation, and induction that companies need to consider when appointing candidates to leadership positions. They must also consider how great the opportunity is to grow, and potentially transform, a business while positively impacting the lives of all those who inhabit its sphere of influence.
Companies will always be battling the reality that no leader is perfect. For as many areas that stand out as phenomenal strengths, there will be others where a candidate struggles. Those struggles can be limiting and are nearly always visible. Leadership is about making trade-offs regarding where to spend time and energy. When weighing these trade-offs, it’s important that we understand the limits of what can be developed and start to prioritize the unchanging characteristics that are often assumed, poorly measured, or altogether ignored when we’re evaluating who is the best leader for the job.
For individuals looking to develop and improve, it can be difficult to make an accurate determination of your own capabilities as a leader. Those lucky enough to have been given fair, direct, and accurate feedback still don’t know how those opinions rank against leaders outside their company and industry. The standard of comparison is always subjective and questionable. We have tried, in this book, to focus your self-awareness on the things that really matter in leadership, but we recognize that this will always be a difficult comparison for you to make with yourself. While we have provided a framework to help you consider your development, you have no initial measurement starting point and certainly no potential measurement of improvement over time.
The reality is that you don’t know how good you are now, and you don’t know how good you might be in the future. You certainly have potential—but for what?
A good psychometric assessment of the kinds of characteristics that we define in this book is the best starting point for evaluating yourself. There are few credible offerings for individuals, as most assessment providers require company-level contracts and have no flexibility to provide benefits for individuals. You might work in an organization that deploys a personality inventory as part of their development offering, but the results, which come in vaguely illustrated archetypes and styles, fail to provide the kind of insight that gives you a language for understanding what makes you unique and how to apply the right focus to your development as a leader. We aim to address that problem.
We’re offering you the chance to take our powerful Executive Leadership Assessment. This assessment isn’t for everyone—it isn’t a measure of sweetness and light; it’s a measure of potential leadership effectiveness. Here are some considerations to determine whether this is the right assessment for you:
• Are you currently in a role where you have a legitimate “line of sight” to a top executive leadership position? Remember, this assessment is making a prediction regarding success in executive leadership roles that are no more than three levels away from the company’s CEO. If you are below that level, this assessment isn’t for you… but it might be one day.
• Are you above the age of thirty-two? We see greater variability in the results for the few people below that age who have taken this assessment.
• Do you actively seek feedback about yourself and your performance, and do you receive this feedback positively? If you find it hard to listen to feedback about yourself (and many people do), then you should pause and consider this carefully before going ahead.
• Do you tend to have a more positive view of yourself than other people do when they evaluate your capabilities? Again, consider carefully whether you want to go through this process. This assessment can be humbling and won’t calibrate its results to the fragility of your ego.
• Are you actively seeking a new job opportunity and want an objective evaluation of your leadership capabilities? This assessment could be of great help to you.
• Are you currently in a top leadership position and want some insights to inform your future development? This assessment could be of great help to you.
You can access all the information you need to complete the assessment and discover your unique leadership Talents on our website. We hope you enjoy answering our questions, and we’re excited to engage with those who desire more direct feedback:
www.conchie.com