Leadership is the driving force behind the workings of every company. In an analogy, it can be called the lubricant that smoothens the functions of every cog in the machinery of an organisation. Leadership is the means to give the best output from every both human and non-human resource in a firm. After all, it brings in coherence, uniformity and coordination, vital for the optimal functioning of an establishment owing to its directional capabilities, with which it can also form good strategies for the short as well as the long run. It is this vital quality of leadership that needs to be assessed to bring about the best output for the firm. And this is what leadership assessment centres vow to hone.
Leadership is an important quality to channelise and assessing it has various benefits. It helps in understanding areas that need improvement, the potential to unlock, build leadership roadmaps and of course define and achieve various metrics of success. And this is what assessment and development centres are best at.
In this blog, we shall understand the criteria of leadership assessment and know why institutes meant for this purpose have become indispensable in the modern corporate world.
- The ability to inculcate one’s qualities
True leadership is one that brings about qualities in others. A true leader knows not only the values of his or her capabilities but also the right ways of inculcating them into those capable of becoming good leaders.
Hence, by building in qualities, a true leader manages to actuate the purposefulness of the organisation.
An institute designed to assess potential leadership qualities, here, plays an important role in highlighting qualities a potential leader brings along. Usually, a set of characteristics, namely a good track record, a proven ability to upskill, understanding the organisation’s working model, potential of influence beyond an organisation’s region of operation and so on, defined or stated by the respective organisation is used as a gauging scale for the assessment. Thus, the qualities are not only listed but also rated with the best measures of eliminating objectivity and bias.
- The ability to inculcate one’s leadership qualities
Bringing about measurable changes is what leadership is meant for. However, an important factor of true leadership is the ability to inculcate leadership itself. This approach of leadership is not only self-replicating but also adds a dimension of purposefulness to the service of an organisation.
Hence, being able to bring about leadership qualities is a sign of true leadership, a parameter for someone to be judged on, which can be done with the help of an assessment centre.
An assessment centre uses a multi-angled-input approach, with which all the qualities of a potential leader are highlighted and their abilities of replicating leadership are judged and objectively presented in results.
- Alignment with the business’s visions, core values, principles etc.
Every business has its own ways of working; the niche it acquires, the ethics it has ingrained into its ethos, the principles it lives by etc. define a business. These aspects trickle down in the respective business’s core essence, namely in the form of its visions and values, which are constrained by market and economic factors.
Leadership causes the smoothing effect by ensuring alignment and realignment of the business’s core essence, i.e. its visions and values. A leader always ensures meeting the business’s objectives while aiming at its vision and being mindful of its value.
Unquestionably, the alignment of a business ought to be judged, a task that can be served optimally by a centre of assessment. A series of evaluations on an assessee, usually in the form of a questionnaire or prometric test, at times coupled with a psychometric test, is the way an assessment is conducted.
- Having a holistic view
In terms of performing duties, understanding the implications of every task someone performs, thus aiming it at the short- or long-term results and being mindful about every judgement and any possible misjudgement, are some characteristic features of true leadership. In other words, understanding the complexities of a business from a multi-angled viewpoint is the trick of the trade.
A good leader, in their pursuit of making each of their contributions to a business fruitful, has a holistic approach, which is plausible through a vantage point offered by leadership.
Quite obviously, an organisation should ensure that having a holistic approach is a great quality in defining leadership. An institution meant for the leadership assessment, with its well-charted assessment and development plan, can help the organisation not only in obtaining a judgement in this regard but also in honing this integral quality in a potential leader. So be it understanding marketing tactics, sales performance assessment and being updated with trends with their implications to the business are well within its assessment purview.
- Understanding of concurrent leadership competencies
As pointed out several times, leadership is a pluralistic quality that not only adds value to an organisation but also is integral to it. However, apart from its multipurposeness, its dynamism is another factor, which unless kept up to the currency and trendiness of the market and industry, cannot yield benefits.
A good leader, therefore, should be up to date and relevant to the changing socio-economic, techo-political etc. landscapes in order to keep up their leadership edge.
A leadership assessment centre time and again evaluates aspects that define and design the corporate fabric and its individual components, i.e. industries, segments, markets, domains and sectors and weighs them against the latest and upcoming technological, social, geo-political etc. changes, in order to obtain a scale to judge someone’s leadership competence on. Owing to the constructive nature of the assessment process in an assessment and developmental centre, a candidate with potential leadership qualities and good scope for improvement is put through a development process, which is recursive in nature.
To conclude
A development and leadership assessment centre offers values indispensable to the process of leadership evaluation. The process yields constructive results owing to its multi-angled view, namely sales performance assessment and evaluations of other types and recursive nature. In other words, leadership is the force that drives productivity in a company with utmost efficiency.
