Chapter 29: Assessments and Instruments

In building and enhancing leader capacity, educators, trainers, human resource managers, and instructional designers often turn to self-assessments and other instruments to support this endeavor. These tools continue to evolve, much like our understanding of leadership and leader development, and the marketplace consists of various options to help support leader training, education, and development. This chapter examines using self-assessments and instruments designed to support leadership reflection, learning, and effectiveness. We also summarize key research findings to help bolster the use of self-assessments and instruments as a leader development strategy.

At the outset of the formal study of leadership, definitions of leadership focused primarily on the traits and characteristics of an individual. The thinking was that if one could identify the traits and characteristics most closely associated with effective leadership, one could predictably differentiate by testing whether someone possesses these attributes recognized as most desirable. Methods for formally assessing leadership traits and characteristics first emerged in the military. For instance, tests measuring the intelligence of the young adult population emerged from the development and use of the Army General Classification Test (AGCT). This emphasis on testing grew out of the need to screen soldiers, and the AGCT allowed the U.S. Army to classify more than 12,000,000 soldiers and marines for specialty and officer training in the lead-up to World War I (Harrell, 1992). Based on the successful use of intelligence tests to differentiate recruits within the U.S. Army, psychologists recommended testing civilians in a similar manner (Cronbach, 1975). As such, the modern testing and assessment movement was born.