Leadership Test: The Touchstone of An Effective Leadership Assessment

Effective leadership has shifted in these past few months to stress the human side of things, rather than technical expertise and executive decision-making. Earlier, a leader meant being the ultimate decision-maker. Yet, in these turbulent times, employees do not require more mechanized systems or top-down directions. They need to know leaders care about them, beyond the work output and are attending to cultivating emotional support, connection and motivation. Since the pandemic, the focus of leadership has shifted from merely increasing the revenue to people. Leadership has been tested in unprecedented ways on a global scale.

Leading remotely, as opposed to the office, has its challenges. Facial expressions on Zoom or Microsoft Teams are challenging to read, and the tone of the voice is often muddled. Recruiting people online requires consideration of new tasks, such as online group interviews to assess the candidates’ ability to relate to a work situation. Leaders are required to accept this new normal and become adept at dealing with these ways of work.

Leaders test the waters, subsequently leading their teams to follow suit. Great leadership enables individual team members to recognize their potential and pushes them toward excellence even in unfavorable circumstances. Great leaders possess unique qualities that set them apart, allowing them to perform efficiently in any business environment. Leadership evaluation helps differentiate a great from a good leader.

Team efforts are vital in driving results and favorable outcomes for the team. Nevertheless, for the efforts to fructify, leaders need to balance individual strengths and weaknesses, for they hold the team together. Furthermore, brainstorming ideas and harnessing individual skill sets facilitates better decision-making. What Works Consultants President Diane Dye Hansen emphasizes the importance of understanding team dynamics. She says, “Someone may be a marketing manager, but their strength might lay in strategy, ideation, and creativity and not in metrics.” Thus, a marketing analyst on the team would enable zeroing in on the necessary strategic and creative approaches and insights on effectiveness, she adds.

Ketchum Leadership Communication Monitor identified communication as the top-ranking attribute for effective leadership, with 74% of the respondents considering it very important to great leadership. However, only 29% of respondents admitted practicing it. To achieve professional success, managers must be effective and convincing communicators. Trust is the deciding factor for individuals to follow someone to get an assurance that their leader is truthful and ethical (James Kouzes and Barry Posner, 1993). To develop this trust, a leader needs to create a culture of openness where the team can communicate effectively. Hence, honing the communication skills of leaders by implementing leadership skills assessment is critical.

As per the Work and Well-being Survey, 91% of employees feel motivated to do their best when supported by good leadership. Leaders’ actions, support and direction, inspire employees to work on their shortcomings and improve continually. In his TED Talk ‘How Great Leaders Inspire Action,’ Simon Senek emphasizes that people follow others to seek inspiration. When employees feel demotivated, they need encouragement from their leaders. Great leaders not only plan and execute strategies but also appeal to the team’s mind and spirit.

Even a minor appreciation can push employees to put in greater efforts at work. The feeling of being appreciated encourages them to work harder, consequently contributing to the overall growth and productivity. Great leaders do not refrain from acknowledging employees’ contributions. This brings out the best in them, allowing them to think out-of-the-box. Recognition and appreciation of the team is a core leadership behavior. The most important element of recognition is genuine appreciation and specifically communicating the reason you recognize that individual. Leadership skills assessment helps organizations to identify these crucial leadership traits.

In a complex and continually transforming world, empathy has emerged as a critical leadership competency. Being able to empathize with others’ situations and understanding their perspectives are critical leadership skills. Great leaders are concerned about their team’s well-being, monitor whether anything is hampering their performance and are easily approachable. Managers who empathize with their teams are considered good performers by the senior management. Therefore, leadership evaluation gains more value.

A standardized leadership personality test helps assess the leaders and evenly set benchmarks, to which other leaders can aspire. Leadership assessments are used to identify the strengths and areas of development of leaders. The reports are used to help leaders in becoming self-aware and assists them in honing their leadership skills. For highly rated leaders, exhibiting great team engagement and performance, companies must assess what they’re doing well, and their personalities. Some of those elements can then be replicated across the company.

Organizations often struggle to promote people who are either not qualified to lead or do not wish to lead. Teams might be driven by leaders who are not people’s managers and cannot make critical decisions amid ambiguity. This indicates the inability of businesses to identify and hone the right persons for potential leadership roles. Herein, Lauren recommends that companies groom leaders before promoting them so that they have the tools needed to lead and communicate effectively. From under-performing teams and resentment to miscommunication and mismanagement, inefficient leadership can impose exorbitant costs on an organization, she adds. Developing a succession plan is often more than just finding a replacement or successor of an existing business leader.  It also helps build a high-level of engagement in the high-potentials who desire achievement and career advancement.

Read Succession Planning: How To Identify Your Next In Line With A HiPo Toolkit?

A leadership assessment test is particularly necessary to assess an individual’s personality traits and flag any areas that stand out. It may indicate that they are not yet prepared to assume leadership positions. Also, leaders, in general, need to be aware of their blind spots and weaknesses. This will help them grow to propel them from being average leaders to great leaders and influencers.

The leadership assessment tests in the market are not designed to effectively assess skills gaps in the existing workforce. The volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world underlines the need to continually evolve leadership tests and models to keep pace with the new business reality. Adhering to old models in such a complex world is a flawed approach to leadership evaluation. Talking about the most significant challenge faced by organizations in leadership assessment tests, PowerUp Leadership CEO Susan says, “A majority of companies fail to identify clear actions to bridge leadership effectiveness gaps.” Often assessments are performed, and then no corresponding development actions are identified, she adds.

Hence, scientifically developed and reliable leadership assessment tests or leadership personality tests provide detailed insights into work-relevant personality traits to predict behavioral tendencies, leading to organizational outcomes of interest. They help identify an individual’s dominant leadership style to determine the role fitment. They are a comprehensive and objective means of evaluation. Leadership personality tests are a potent tool for creating self-awareness in leaders, the first step in the leadership journey. Since development is an ongoing process, organizations need to continually provide means of development to their leaders.

Mercer | Mettl’s Leadership Assessment Test Measures

There have been considerable advancements in the HR tech in the past few years. Identifying and honing leaders using age-old practices no longer yield desirable results. Organizations need agile, reliable and effective methodologies to assess their existing leaders and prepare them for future challenges. We interviewed experts globally to understand the tools and technologies that had lent more efficiency to their leadership tests and assessment processes.

Leadership personality tests are the foremost tool used by organizations for leadership skills assessment. According to Choosing Therapy Contributing HR Professional Laura Handrick, these assessments play a crucial role in helping leaders understand themselves better (self-awareness) and improve their relationships, including peers, direct reports and bosses.

Organizations often employ a personality map or leadership personality test to fulfill their leadership development goals. It is designed to be used across the employee lifecycle, from personnel selection to training and development, and helps employers gain access to otherwise hidden information about employees. The information is critical in influencing their behavior at work. This tool was specially curated to be more in-depth than previous measures of personality. It includes contemporary work-relevant personality traits found useful by industry experts and practitioners to develop a more comprehensive understanding of personality at work, which is especially more relevant at the mid and senior-level.

This new tool is an amalgamation of rigorous and evidence-based psychological science and industry-relevant and client-focused application.

The most effective companies have 360 reviews because it uncovers their leaders’ blind spots, makes it an even playing field in terms of the performance, and gives everyone a voice for the collective good. According to our internal report, ‘The State of Workplace Learning and Development 2020,’ 360-degree feedback is being employed by 38% of the organizations to identify their workforce’s training needs. This leadership skills test assesses gaps in the behavioral traits of an employee as perceived by other stakeholders, such as the immediate supervisor, peers, subordinates, or clients. After the feedback is received and analyzed, it is shared with the leaders to further their development goals. Additionally, the report promotes self-awareness by suggesting individually customizable development programs.

Source: State of Workplace Learning and Development 2020

The graph mentioned-above points toward a fast-paced growth of Assessment and Development Centers (ADCs) for training needs identification (TNI), with 25% of organizations opting for this effective leadership skills assessment approach. An Assessment Center provides a detailed evaluation of individuals’ role fitment by assessing them extensively on various parameters needed to succeed on the job. Assessment centers assist organizations in identifying the potential of an employee as an effective senior manager. This creates a pool of managerial talent and multi-functional managers, available across a company’s organizational ecosystem. Assessment centers are one of the most effective scientific methods for conducting TNI. Organizations not using this leadership skills assessment technique have an unstructured process and cannot derive the ROI of training programs.

ADCs are of Three Kinds:

i) Blended Assessment Center: It is a mix of virtually simulated tools and traditional or offline exercises supervised by an external assessor. While the physical aspect of the assessment remains the same, the leaders’ total score is calculated based on their performance in both physical and virtual assessments. Ratings are compiled after the evaluations to provide a holistic view of the leaders. This is followed by a one-on-one feedback session by the assessors to further employee development goals.

ii) Virtual Assessment Center: A virtual assessment center is the online version of a traditional assessment center that provides a holistic understanding of a candidate without compromising on the quality and standard set by physical assessment centers. The tools are administered online, which is followed by automated reports.

iii) Traditional Assessment Centres: Herein, organizations selectively send employees to an offsite to disconnect from the day-to-day routine where employees undergo a number of activities under the observation of experienced assessors. Assessors collate their observations and discuss each participant’s performance and give one-on-one feedback towards the end. However, since this method comes with a lot of inconvenience of managing the logistics, it is not recommended to use this approach.

Click Here to Know More about Assessment and Development Centers

A critical outcome of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is the integration of technology to support agility and efficiency on both operational and people front. According to the Talent Assessment Practices Report 2020, nearly 84% of companies have highlighted learning agility as their key area of focus. Individuals with high learning agility are quick learners and, therefore, more suited to undertake complex roles. Nearly 73% of companies in the survey say leadership development is their key focus area. This indicates the degree of agility needed by future leaders to survive in this complex world, besides the criticality of adopting the leadership skills assessment approach.

Source: Talent Assessment Practices Report 2020

These uncertain times require organizations to hire transformative leaders using leadership skills tests. These leaders must be versatile, work with all generations in the workplace, provide directions, nurture leadership, and remain considerate toward all employees, ensuring accomplishing the organization’s vision while maintaining quality.

Leveraging over eight years of experience in providing state-of-the-art solutions for varied talent assessment needs to Indian and global organizations, we have pioneered a personality assessment tool, specifically catering to organizational needs. Mercer | Mettl’s Personality Map (MPM) has been designed to include new-age industry-relevant traits to help organizations to better navigate their employees’ workplace behavior. This leadership skills test identifies traits, such as risk propensity, taking charge, growth mindset, etc. to predict employee behavior with high relevance. Hence, Mercer | Mettl scientists employed decades of research to shortlist and introduce such new-age traits to MPM, making it more contemporary and relevant to the current times.

MPM Offers Unique Advantages to Its Users Through:

• New-age and industry-relevant traits
• In-depth and comprehensive assessment of personality
• Strong psychometric properties

Mercer | Mettl’s 360View provides a clear picture of the leader’s performance, skills, behavior, and organizational environment. The multi-rater feedback system assesses the leaders on their adaptiveness and flexibility to their workforce’s needs. It is an effective tool to identify managers’ training needs, enabling them to understand the traits for which their team, peers, or bosses appreciate them. It also helps them understand the areas for improvement.

Mercer | Mettl’s Assessment and Development Centers offer a detailed evaluation of leaders’ role fitment by assessing them on various aspects required to lead the team successfully. These virtual solutions are one of our USPs. They predict future behavior for decision-making, diagnose development needs and assess behavioral constructs of interest.

We Offer Blended and Online Solutions, Customized To Your Requirements Of Scale and Role