Since 2016, the Healthcare Center of Excellence, through its leadership training arm, the Professional Leadership Academy, has been using the Leadership IMPACT Assessment to evaluate the potential and practice of leadership as well as monitor leadership improvement over time. This proprietary tool was developed by incorporating multiple disciplines to evaluate leadership behavior. Its measurable results have successfully been utilized in onsite and online Professional Leadership Training classes and it was the subject of a 2019 case study.
Participants take the Leadership IMPACT Assessment before starting the Professional Leadership Training course to establish a baseline for their leadership behavior. They are then reassessed at 3-month, 6-month and 12-month increments after completing the training to monitor their leadership growth. The analysis below is based on the pre-course assessments.
As part of the assessment, participants’ industry was also collected as well as their titles/position to enable the performance of deeper analyses. To date, participants have come from a variety of industries, including corporate, healthcare, entrepreneurs and military. Titles have ranged from C-Level executives to Supervisor.
For analysis purposes, the titles were grouped into 2 categories, ‘Executives Only,’ which included titles Vice President and above representing 23% of the assessment population and ‘All Others,’ representing 77% of the population.
Overall, the results were what was expected with the ‘Executives Only’ group exhibiting slightly or significantly higher scores than the ‘All Others’ across most dimensions. Executives have more work experience and should be in the habit of some form of leadership practice. This is especially demonstrated in the significant variation in the ‘Vision’ attribute, ‘Risk-Taking’ and [Act of] ‘Visioning’ dimensions.
Areas of concern, where the Executives did not score as well as the Others include ‘Assessing,’ ‘Living’ and ‘Coaching’ dimensions. The ‘Assessing’ difference is likely due to the fact that many Executives probably haven’t performed a personality assessment, such as StrengthsFinder, DiSC or Meyers-Briggs for several years, which is why it’s included in the training program.
The ‘Living’ dimension was only slightly lower for the Executives versus Others. Although the difference is not statistically different, the variation could be attributed to Executives’ familiarity with many of the tools for executing on their leadership vision. Conversely, many Executives may not be as savvy with social media leadership and storytelling, which we discuss in the training classes with the younger group readily embracing social media tools.
The lower ‘Coaching’ score for the Executives was not a surprise. Once most people reach the highest levels of the organization, they put less emphasis on having a coach and/or a mentor and they probably also experience difficulty finding someone with enough experience to fill those roles. This conclusion is supported by the interviews for the book, Prescribing Leadership in Healthcare, where it was determined that several senior leaders did not embrace the need for coaching and/or mentoring, when both are needed for continued leadership growth. On the other hand, the Others are aspiring to reach higher career levels and are actively seeking out coaches and mentors. It is also a lot easier to find someone who can add value to the career of someone at a lower level. This has been supported through the follow up coaching sessions with mid-level leaders as part of the training program.
Please let us know your thoughts on this analysis. We’ll continue to track and report this on a regular basis. Normally, the Leadership IMPACT Assessment is only available as part of our Professional Leadership Training courses, where additional assessments are used as a means to validate the results. Recently, the assessment was made available on a standalone basis which includes a 16-page personalized report. If you would like to see how you measure up, please sign up to take the Leadership IMPACT Assessment.