- IMD Business School
Leadership

4 benefits of a leadership assessment

Leadership assessment is key at any stage of your career

Regardless of where you are in your career, a leadership assessment can help you find your strengths and weaknesses as a business leader. It is important to know more about the leadership competencies because:

  • This will allow for utilizing one’s talents best
  • Understanding these skills also helps capitalize on opportunities in order not waste time or resources
  • A lack thereof could mean an inability of adaptiveness which would hurt company growth
  1. Leadership assessments can guide you in creating your career goals
  2. Leadership assessments can increase self-awareness
  3. Assessing your leadership can help you improve in all stages of your career
  4. Leadership assessments can help in improving the leadership development plan

1. Leadership assessments can guide you in creating your career goals

Leadership assessment can give you an objective idea of your abilities as a business leader no matter what stage you are in your career. An effective leadership assessment lets you — and your organization — know in a constructive way just what kind of leadership skills you have.

Guiding your career goals
While gauging your capacity to handle different roles and responsibilities, a good leadership assessment can help you to define where you want to go as an executive and how to get there. Different leadership assessment tools offered by top international business schools can assess your performance in a variety of areas and situations.

But whether the leadership evaluation is focused on personal leadership or business management, it can tell you what your strengths are and what you need to learn to tackle new challenges. A detailed assessment can guide you on the experience and the leadership and management training required to achieve your career goals.

2) Leadership assessments can increase self-awareness

A high-quality leadership assessment will inform you about what kind of person you are. This is a critical factor on the journey to becoming a better leader. Self-awareness of your personal qualities and leadership skills can improve exponentially the way you lead organizations and deal with others. It can also help you build on your leadership strengths and confront your weaknesses.

Learning more about yourself can increase your leadership effectiveness in the process. You will be able to gain the support and trust of your team members if you have an honest assessment of your leadership capabilities. This in turn will boost your credibility.

You should remember, however, that leadership evaluation should not be seen as a way to provide a definitive picture of an executive’s potential capabilities. Leadership skills are continually developed and honed through experience and corporate training, rather than being innately acquired.

Good business schools offer one-on-one leadership coaching with experts who can provide a frank but sensitive appraisal of your management skills. When you are a leader it is often difficult for others to you tell you candidly how you are doing.

3) Leadership assessments can help you improve in all stages of your career

A lifetime of learning in top management means that you should be standing back to reassess your leadership skills at regular intervals. Leadership assessment can typically help you decide what training courses are right for you at different stages of your career. Leadership assessments are vital to ensure upgrading of leadership skills and competencies by the following people:

Functional Managers

An ambitious functional manager seeking management training courses to advance his or her career must first undergo a leadership assessment to find an appropriate leadership development program.

Mid-career Business Leaders

A mid-career business leader considering an executive development program  to boost his or her value to the company needs a leadership assessment to find a training program that perfectly fits.

Senior Executives & CEOs

A senior executive or CEO at the top of an organization, seeking ways to move the organization forward while seeking out opportunities and leading with conviction and authority, must first submit to a leadership assessment.

People Seeking Development Of Leadership Skills

People looking to develop strategic leadership skills to tackle specific challenges, such as developing a  business strategy or sustainability through targeted business management training, must first take a leadership assessment. 

4) Leadership assessments can help in developing a leadership training

Leadership assessment can play another critical role for your organization as part of a leadership development plan. It allows a company to appraise the abilities of business managers at different levels to lead teams and projects.

Leadership evaluation helps human resources departments to identify gaps in the talent pool, while establishing who is prepared to take on senior general management positions when vacancies arise. With the baby-boom generation reaching retirement age, companies need a solid succession planning process to ensure continuity of leadership.

That involves identifying the executive education needed to ensure your company has the right people with the right training in place at the right time. The process can get a healthy head start with effective leadership assessment.

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