Filling a vacant leadership position on your executive team can be a scary proposition. If you hire from the outside, how do you know a candidate has the behavioral characteristics, value system, and natural talents to succeed AND that they will fit into your company culture?
Promoting from within might ease your mind a little bit since you already know how they handle themselves at work, what they value, and that they’re a culture fit, but how can you be sure they have the personal talents and attributes to step up into that leadership role?
Bet you’d like a crystal ball that would give you some advanced insights into their personality, values, and talents, wouldn’t you?
We’ve got just the thing! It’s not a crystal ball but when effectively interpreted it can predict leadership success and provide ideas for executive coaching and development.
It’s a comprehensive executive assessment called ADVanced Insights.
What Is ADVanced Insights?
To assess optimal leadership performance you must understand WHAT natural talents someone possesses, HOW they prefer to use them, and WHY they are motivated to use those talents.
We’ve combined 3 world-class assessments or Indexes that measure all 3 of those critical drivers of leadership success.
- The Attribute Index looks at the WHAT portion of the WHAT, HOW, and WHY trilogy. By understanding WHAT natural talents someone has, it becomes possible to leverage that knowledge to make better decisions, maximize strengths, minimize weaknesses, and achieve greater success.
- The DISC Index looks at the HOW portion of the trilogy. By understanding HOW humans prefer to behave, they are able to identify the work that ensures more meaning and success for them and produces less stress.
- The Values Index looks at the WHY portion of the trilogy. By understanding WHY individuals are motivated to do things, they are able to better align their environment with what creates the most passion in them.
When you can gauge how an individual measures up in all 3 of these factors, you’re peering into that crystal ball and able to predict how naturally aligned they may be with an executive leadership role.
Let’s examine each category to see what that crystal ball can tell us.
What Is The Attribute Index?
Did you ever have that one class in school where no matter how hard you tried you just never seemed to get it? No matter how hard you studied, no matter how hard you worked, results just never seemed to come easily, if they came at all.
Then there was that other class where the exact opposite was true and things just ‘clicked’ almost effortlessly. The whole concept just made sense, and you achieved greater success more naturally with less effort.
This dynamic occurs because we all possess certain innate talents for thinking and making decisions. These natural talents allow us to see some things clearly while filtering out others almost completely.
These thinking talents and decision making styles make up the very core of who we are. The Attribute Index brings to light those innate talents and uncovers masters and blind spots in our decision-making process.
This in-depth evaluation sheds light on 78 unique applications of our natural thinking patterns like:
- Balanced decision making
- Developing others
- Emotional control
- Evaluating others
- Handling stress
- Leading others
- Long-range planning
- Personal drive
- Problem solving
- Project and goal focus
- Self confidence
- Systems judgment
Some come naturally. Some have to be worked on. Imagine having an inside view to 78 talents that an executive leadership candidate needs to exhibit to succeed in their role!
The Attribute Index alone could give you everything you need to make the decision to hire or promote your next executive leader.
But wait… there’s more.
How does someone act based on their natural talents and attributes? The DISC Index can tell you.
What Is The DISC Index?
The DISC Index is a personality assessment that gets to the heart of someone’s personality in just 4 words. DISC is an acronym that describes a behavior model created by psychologist Dr. William Marston from Harvard back in the 1920’s. He studied how individuals behaved in 4 distinct areas. Specifically how they typically handled: challenges (Dominant), relationships (Influencing), pace (Submissive), and rules (Compliant).
The terms Marson used: Dominant, Influencing, Submissive, Compliant were words congruent with language used back in the 1920’s. Times have changed and we prefer to apply words that don’t feel quite so negative. We settled on the following:
- Decisive: how people tend to address new problems and make new decisions.
- Interactive: how humans tend to interact with people they do not already know.
- Stabilizing: how people prefer to pace things in their environment.
- Cautious: people’s preference for rules and procedures.
One part of what makes each person the individual they are is their unique combination of these 4 dimensions of behavior. Since each of us develop varying levels of preference or tendencies for each of the 4 dimensions, we are a composite of all these tendencies. The DISC model helps to understand that complicated mix of tendencies.
When evaluating candidates for an executive leadership position, it’s essential to understand each person’s unique behavioral preferences, habits, and patterns. Predicting how they may act in their natural state and while under stress can provide valuable insights into the type of leader they may be.
Now that you know WHAT natural talents they possess, and HOW they prefer to behave, let’s look at how the Values Index helps to determine WHY they may be motivated to use those talents and act the way that they do.
What Is The Values Index?
The Values Index is a study of human values, drivers, and motivation. By employing a Values Index assessment, you can better understand an individual’s unique value belief system when it comes to what motivates them, what they are most drawn to, and where their passions lie.
The Values Index evaluates an individual’s preferences in 7 distinct categories:
- Aesthetic – form and harmony
- Economic – what is useful
- Individualistic – independence and uniqueness
- Political – power and control
- Altruistic – love of people
- Regulatory – order and structure
- Theoretical – discovery of truth
This information is crucial when it comes to inspiring employees, determining appropriate hires, addressing performance concerns, or any situation that demands insight into what motivates and drives an individual.
Understanding the WHY behind an individual’s actions is the key to ensuring they are aligned with their work and in a setting that creates the greatest level of satisfaction. Who wants to work for a leader who’s not passionate about leading?
Put All 3 Assessments Together And…
Now you’ve got the ADVanced Insights you were looking for in deciding who should be your next executive leader!
By using all three of these reports with a single individual you get an incredibly rich and comprehensive insight into who that person is. This level of insight is a significant advantage for you. For example, someone may have all the right talents to succeed as a leader, and be motivated in the proper way, but their natural behavioral style might cause conflict with those with whom they work.
The more completely you know someone’s talents, preferred behavioral style, and motivations, and the more true that individual is in applying them to WHAT they do, HOW they do it, and WHY they do it, the greater the odds they will succeed in a leadership position.
By using all three of these profiles you will develop a level of awareness for WHAT, HOW, and WHY someone prefers to be. Then, by working with them to connect these truths to their lives, you can help them determine how effective a leader they may naturally be, or if there are changes that may need to be made to help them grow into the type of leader your team needs.
Don’t depend on your gut to make such a critical decision, and put that crystal ball away. ADVanced Insights is all you need to increase the odds that you’re hiring or promoting the right leader.
