Every assessment we build is part of a development experience, never a standalone report. Measurement without a plan is the most common reason feedback changes nothing — so our assessments arrive attached to the program that acts on them, benchmarked against 2 million leader assessments.
A research-backed view of leadership effectiveness, combining anonymous feedback from managers, peers, direct reports and others with global benchmarks. Empirically derived competencies and statistically validated questions help leaders identify their signature strengths and compare their effectiveness with the 75th and 90th percentile of global leaders. Certification is available for coaches who want to debrief the assessment.
Included with the following program:
The same instrument, run again after development. This is the only honest proof that a program worked — percentile movement against the same global benchmark, rather than a satisfaction score collected on the day.
Included with the following program:
Sustainment tool for:
The multi-rater instrument calibrated for front-line and mid-level contributors rather than managers — results compare against the 75th and 90th percentile of contributors, which is what makes the feedback usable for someone who doesn’t lead a team. Also yields aggregate insight into the talent pool.
Included with the following program:
A two-way instrument: the participant and their direct manager each complete it, and the report shows where self-perception and manager perspective diverge. Light enough to deploy to an entire population, structured enough to produce a real development plan.
Included with the following program:
Focused tools that reveal preferences, tendencies, and effectiveness in a specific skill—such as coaching, feedback, coachability, or trust. Designed for targeted self-awareness rather than a full multi-rater view.
Included with the following program:
Measures the team as a unit rather than averaging individuals — overall effectiveness, collective strengths and gaps, and member commitment, benchmarked against top-performing teams in our global database. The Team Trust version additionally measures employee engagement alongside trust, which makes the cost of low trust visible.
Included with the following program:
A short, participant-initiated check-in that measures progress against the specific development goals a leader set for themselves — not a generic engagement survey. It’s what keeps a development plan alive in the months after the program, when most plans quietly stop.
Sustainment tool for the following:
Organizations often expend significant resources to create custom competency models that address highly specific organizational needs. The development of the model; however, is just the beginning of the organization’s change journey.
Partner with us to create assessment tools that accurately measure your employees’ proficiency in competency behaviors.
▸Definition
A leadership assessment measures how effective a leader is at the behaviors that predict results, using ratings from the people who work with them rather than self-perception alone. The useful ones are benchmarked against a large comparison group and paired with a development process that turns the data into action.
Assessment is the step most organizations get half-right. They measure — then hand a leader a report and hope. Our research is blunt about the outcome: feedback without a development process attached changes almost nothing, and self-ratings alone are the least reliable data you can act on.
That’s why none of our assessments are sold on their own. Each one is built into a specific program, so the data arrives with a debrief, a framework, and a plan. Below: what each assessment measures, and exactly which programs it belongs to.
Start from the outcome you need — better leaders, better coaches, a functioning team, developed contributors. The right assessment comes attached to it.
Self-ratings alone are unreliable, and leaders consistently rate themselves above what others report. Multi-rater input is what makes the result arguable-proof.
A score means nothing in isolation. Ours compare to the 75th and 90th percentile of global leaders — or of contributors, or of top-performing teams, depending on the instrument.
A report read alone gets defended against. A debrief — with a coach, a facilitator, or in the case of teams with the leader first — is where the data becomes something a person will act on.
Leaders reach the top decile through three to five profound strengths, not by eliminating every weakness. The plan targets companion behaviors around a strength already present.
A Pulse Check for progress against personal goals; a full 360 reassessment for movement against the global benchmark. Without this step, nobody can honestly say whether it worked.
No — and that’s deliberate. Every Zenger Folkman assessment is delivered as part of a development experience, because our research is clear that feedback without a process attached rarely changes behavior. You choose the program that fits the outcome you need, and the appropriate assessment is included. If you have an existing competency model you want instrumented, Custom Assessments is the closest equivalent.
360-degree feedback gathers anonymous ratings on a leader from the people around them — manager, peers, direct reports and others — rather than from the leader alone or their boss alone. The value is in the comparison: what a leader believes about their own effectiveness versus what the people who work with them report, benchmarked against a large global sample.
The number describes how many directions the feedback comes from.
A short, self-initiated check-in that measures progress against the specific development goals a participant set for themselves. It’s not an engagement survey and it isn’t benchmarked against anyone else — the only comparison is to the participant’s own plan. It exists to keep development alive in the months after a program ends.
Three things. The competencies are empirically derived rather than assembled from opinion, the benchmark is the 75th and 90th percentile of a global database rather than an internal average, and the output is strengths-based — it identifies which strengths to elevate and which companion behaviors will do it, instead of producing a list of gaps to fix.
Yes. 360 Assessment Certification equips experienced coaches to use the 360 and development guide with the people they coach, and facilitator certifications exist for the major programs. Most large clients start with our facilitators and shift to their own once the program is established.
You don’t have to be. Tell us who you’re developing and what needs to change — we’ll point you at the program, and the right instrument comes with it.
