Development History of the
The Essence of Leadership Diagnostic Tool & Leadership Energy Action Plan

The Essence of Leadership Diagnostic Tool and Leadership Energy Action Plan (LEAP) realises the opportunity to combine elements of our existing Leadership Profiles in a self driven/autonomous process for an individual. The individual will gain an introductory understanding about the factors of leadership through the Essence of Leadership Model. This will result in the generation of a rigorous action plan for personal development based on their energy and areas of interest. This tool offers a great first step to leadership development. Into the future interest may be piqued to delve further into completing a 360 leadership profile.

A roadmap of how the Essence of Leadership Model and tool has been developed on the back of historical product development by its author Paul Robinson is described below.

The Leadership Behaviours Profile

The Leadership Behaviours Model and Profile was originally created by Dr Paul Robinson and Team Management Services (TMS) and has assisted managers and organisations with their leadership development for more than two decades. Both the model and profile have been regularly updated and modernised and Version 8 was launched in 2023.

The LBP:

  • Utilises 360 degree survey/feedback methodology
  • Has a wide application across different types of management and organisations
  • Is based on up-to-date research and the author's study of senior managers, their context and coping behaviours
  • Utilises a questionnaire that has statistical internal consistency and reliability; collecting responses across 64 behavioural statements of positive leadership attributes
  • Currently has a sample size of 12000 completed profiles; based on submissions received from over 75000 individual respondents
  • Click here to see an extract of the LBP Research Manual
Leadership Behaviours Model

The Leadership Development Profile

The need for the LDP variant of the LBP model was originally inspired by client demand. Whereas the LBP is a multi-rater (360 degree) feedback instrument the LDP is a self-rated instrument. Occasionally on a leadership development programme a participant may have just moved organisations or the programme may be for 'new leaders', students of leadership or for some other practical reason would be unable to approach the required number of 'other' raters to complete the LBP 360 exercise. So rather than be without a leadership report on the course they would be given an option to self-score the LBP only and receive feedback which relied on their own responses alone. This option seemed to help some people since they could still complete the course and be able to develop action plans for improvement.

A natural consequence of this experience was to experiment with a programme where participants would receive LBP reports based only on self-report data. There certainly are occasions where the client organisation has neither the time nor inclination to become involved in a 360 degree feedback process but yet wants to have participants learn about their leadership potential.

The experiment was not a success since it was divorced from any 360 degree context and as with most inhouse programmes not all participants were development motivated. The result was that participants self-scored themselves significantly higher on the 64 item questionnaire than the LBP 'Self' database. Subsequently on the programme, participants had difficulty prioritising their insights and improvement options as a result of this scoring and low variability.

The author was faced with a similar dilemma when testing for stress management behaviour in some earlier research. Like with the stress research, self-reporting of leadership behaviour alone seems to lack accuracy since the rater's ego creates a 'halo' effect which manifests itself as a flat high score. Seeing themselves through rose tinted spectacles is the problem identified when raters are asked to self-score their 'frequency of behaviour' internalised often as "how good am I?" or "how bad will I look on this course?"

The remedy for this program in both the stress research and in creating a self-rating LBP variant (i.e. LDP) was to change the emphasis from 'behaviour' to 'development energy'. The questionnaire measurement scale for each question is still 0-10 but instead of being focussed on behaviour it taps the individual's self-knowledge of their leadership performance and also their wish to exert effort to develop themselves without the need to admit behavioural shortcomings. With a 360 situation subjects know they will be exposed by the ratings of 'other' team members and their supervisor so tend to be more realistic in assessing their leadership.

The challenge, therefore, became twofold. Design a measurement scale which removed the 'ego' component and then test the questionnaire. Also any resultant profile, like LBP, needs to retain the following features:

  • be something relatively simple and usable
  • has potential for wide use across different types of management and organisations

The LDP Questionnaire is similar to the LBP questionnaire except that the scale descriptors and instructions are different. It is still cast on an eleven-point likert scale unlike the LBP where a higher value represented greater use of a leadership behaviour the LDP scale is reversed.

Questionnaire respondents are then requested to rate themselves in terms of the extent to which they wish to exert effort to develop themselves in the area described by the questionnaire item.

The Leadership Behaviours Profile - PULSE

Traditionally, leadership development consultants have been challenged to provide interventions and tools that aid a manager's continuing professional development. Ideally any such tools ideally need to facilitate some form of practical follow-up.

Widely used as a concept is the idea that certain behaviours will stifle or enhance career advancement. Seeking to understand those elements of a leader's "DNA" that actually boost or enhance their chances of leadership career success, and given the extensive sample database now contained in the LBP, the search was on for those 'power' behaviours which lead to that career success. The question is 'are there certain behavioural questions which dominate in that they predict results of many other LBP questions?'

To aid this understanding an extensive correlation matrix of all 64 LBP behaviours was prepared using the LBP database.

Having produced a behaviours matrix from the questionnaire, a correlation analysis has revealed an interesting list of 16 'power' behaviours that seem to be at the heart of leadership career success.

What follows here is the result of this analysis grouped into four logical clusters: Emotional Intelligence; Inspire Direction; Instil the Values and, to Deliver Results.

Emotional Intelligence
  • I display self-knowledge
  • I focus effort on the critical success factors of the business
  • I create a climate of trust
  • I coach others to be successful in their jobs
Inspire Direction
  • I inspire others to follow my lead
  • I show others their place in the vision
  • I communicate important future goals and direction to others
  • I help others overcome their concerns about change
Instil the Values
  • I communicate the operating values to others
  • I explain to others how the operating values should be applied
  • I use the operating values to assist decision-making
  • I demonstrate understanding of what the operating values mean in practice
Instil the Values
  • I recognise the different talents people have to offer
  • I clarify roles, responsibilities, accountabilities and authorities
  • I link and co-ordinate the team in terms of the jobs to be done
  • I provide feedback which is even-handed and fair

The matrix analysis was used to develop the power behaviours (questionnaire items) measured in the PULSE.

Practical Implementation

This mid-term leadership 'check', using the 16 power behaviours, can now be directly compared back to the scores in the original LBP 360, thus providing a before and after comparison. Thus, the PULSE, provides a short sharp numeric progress tool. In addition subjects provide development goals from their learnings from the original LBP and these too are reported upon.

The PULSE itself is an outcome profile report that can now be administered mid-term say 6 months beyond the original LBP 360. Only the 'self' and 'supervisor' score this tool. The output data collected by the PULSE tool also has the ability of being 'rolled-up' into an Organisation Development report comparing progress over time for organisation leadership progress.

The Essence of Leadership

Due to the 'depth' to which all of the above profiles delve into an individual's leadership, they are produced with a requirement that is suitably trained facilitator be involved throughout to assist with understanding and resultant action planning.

The Essence of Leadership realises an opportunity to combine elements of:

  • The Leadership Development Profile's concept of an individual identifying their relative leadership development energy;
  • The distilled 'power' behaviours of the PULSE; and
  • An online, 'managed' action planning process

The combination of these element results in a self-driven/autonomous process for an individual to generate a rigorous action plan for developing their individual leadership skills

Power Behaviour Group Behaviour Statement
"I want to better..." 		Coeffficient Rank
(out of 64)
Emotional Intelligence
...display self-knowledge
...focus effort on the critical success factors of the business
...create a climate of trust
...coach others to be successful in their jobs
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