Personality assessments are now a standard feature of leadership development. That’s progress. The field has matured. Leadership scholars, such as David V. Day and Lisa Dragoni, have noted that leadership development has evolved from proving that leaders can be developed to examining how development actually happens. Self-awareness is widely recognised as foundational. Psychometric standards are stronger. Practice is more evidence-informed.
And yet, there’s a quiet question we don’t ask often enough: Are our psychometric reports doing enough work in support of leadership development?
Leadership capability is tightly linked to strategy, culture, and performance; the stakes are high. And high-stakes development deserves more than generic outputs. Let’s be clear at the outset, off-the-shelf personality reports absolutely have a place. They are efficient, scalable and often psychometrically robust. If the goal is broad awareness-building they can be entirely fit for purpose. There is nothing inherently wrong with them. The issue arises when we expect them to deliver something they were never designed to do.
Most personality reports do an excellent job of answering the “What?”
Some go further and align results to a general leadership framework. But leadership in most organisations is not general. It is shaped by your strategy, your culture, your risk appetite, your market pressures and your expectations of leaders at different levels. The development challenge is not simply helping leaders understand themselves, it is helping them understand how who they are interacts with what the organisation most needs from them. And that is where translation becomes critical.
Leaders are typically developing within a 70:20:10 paradigm. Most development is expected to occur through experience; the “70%.” In practice, that means development must happen in already full roles. There is little surplus bandwidth for complex reflection. When a report provides descriptive insight but leaves the leader to translate it into role-specific, culture-specific action, we are increasing cognitive load at precisely the point where capacity is lowest. In lower-stakes contexts, that may be acceptable. In high-stakes contexts, it is risky.
If leadership capability directly influences strategic execution, culture shaping, succession strength, and organisational resilience, then misalignment carries real consequences. Generic framing can unintentionally introduce a language and reinforce behaviours that don’t fit the culture. It can diffuse attention across too many development areas and further complicate the leader’s world as they navigate multiple frameworks, models and descriptions of leadership. It can leave leaders unsure where to focus limited energy and diminish the motivation needed to lean-in to development.
Beyond risk, there is also opportunity. People join your organisation because they believe in its mission. They want to contribute meaningfully. They want to know that their effort matters. A development report that clearly connects personality to your specific leadership expectations does more than raise awareness, it sharpens contribution.
Imagine a leader reading their report and seeing, in clear language:
That is not just self-awareness. That is alignment. And alignment is motivational.
Even where coaching or facilitated feedback is available, the conversation is temporary. The report is enduring. Three months later, when the leader finally finds headspace, what are they returning to? A descriptive mirror or a context-rich guide that continues to connect personality to strategy and role?
If the enduring resource is not doing the heavy lifting, we remain dependent on managed services to bridge the gap. But when reports are intentionally aligned to your leadership framework and culture, much of that translation work is already embedded. The report itself carries more developmental weight. Facilitation becomes amplification, not interpretation.
This is not an argument to discard off-the-shelf tools. It is an invitation to be more precise about their purpose. Use them when broad awareness is the goal. But when leadership capability is strategic — when execution, culture and succession genuinely matter — apply more scrutiny.
Ask different questions:
If the answer is no, then it may be raising awareness but not fully serving development.
Leadership development as a field is still evolving. That’s a strength. It means we can continue raising the bar. Psychometric rigour is essential. Self-awareness is foundational. But when the stakes are high, alignment matters just as much. So don’t just commission assessments. Don’t just deliver reports. Ask your reports to do the work - customised to meet your organisation’s leadership needs and culture.
Get in touch about developing a Custom Leadership Development Report that better serves your leadership development needs.
Need more information? Contact the Winsborough Team:
winsborough.co.nz | 0800 222 061 | support@winsborough.co.nz
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