completing an online Leadership assessment

1. completing an online Leadership assessment Phil Holmes Cohort IV – Ed.D. in Leadership – VCU School of Education June 8, 2013

2. Finding a leadership assessment • The phrase “Leadership Assessment” was keyed in an internet search engine (www.google.com) and the search results were scanned for likely targets (assessments that can be taken online at no cost) • I selected the assessment at www.yourleadershiplegacy.com/assessment.html (30 items on a 5-point Likert scale) • The site asks participants to imagine how they will be perceived by their colleagues/direct reports after they have left their current leadership position, and to change/leverage their natural behaviors to improve that imagined legacy: • “The way that people think, behave, approach work and life as a result of having worked with you – is your leadership legacy…. your goal should be to align your intended legacies as closely with your natural style as possible.” • The site presupposes that all leaders are concerned about their legacies, or, at least, it speaks only to those who are • To some extent, the presentation of the site is a self-selection tool (we can predict only those who are concerned about their legacies will get past the introductory information on the front end of the site and complete the assessment)

7. General Conclusions • There are a LOT of leadership assessments available online • Most of them do not include any documentation of reliability or validity • Most of them are essentially entry points for consumers to be drawn further into the system or process of the owner of the assessment (take this class… buy this book… enter into this multi-stage program)

8. Particular conclusions • The “Your Leadership Legacy” assessment presented scores on six scales (my actual scores below): • Ambassador (19 of 25) • Advocate (19 of 25) • People Mover (18 of 25) • Truth Seeker (17 of 25) • Creative Builder (18 of 25) • Experienced Guide (23 of 25) • The site did not explain whether the above scales reflected all possible leadership legacies (others can be imagined) • The descriptions of each scale were not detailed, and the site did not present tactics for understanding the impact of a score for any one scale, or a method for understanding the relationship between any of these scales and their scores; however, it did recommend reviewing one’s results and possibly retaking the assessment through a different lens • There was a pitch at the end to buy a book written by the authors of the assessment, and this book might have addressed the concerns stated here; however, the excerpt did not address those concerns, and I chose not to purchase the book