Validated Connection Between Leader Versatility and Business Outcomes

Leadership Versatility Index®

Expert Commentary: "This versatility index yields very substantial correlations
with ratings of managerial effectiveness."
Robert Hogan, Ph.D., author of the Hogan Personality Inventory

"Beyond state-of-the art. The LVI is built on an elegant simplicity that can take you into complex places."
Gene Boccialetti, Ph.D.
Senior Director of Programs
Cornell University ILR, New York City

Have you ever wondered if there's anything new under the 360-degree feedback sun? In fact, there is. The Leadership Versatility Index® (LVI) is a next-generation assessment tool with a radically new rating scale and fresh competency model. Not just cosmetic, these features are true innovations—that's why they were awarded a U.S. patent and hailed as revolutionary by MIT's Sloan Management Review.

Picture this: “Rich Spire” is a sharp strategist, quick to identify or anticipate opportunities for the future. He makes bold moves, but knows the difference between being bold and being rash. He excites people with his vision and ideas. He exudes power and energy. And, finally, Rich knows how to turn ideas into action.

Yet Rich’s bold moves sometimes overwhelm the capabilities of his company. And his power and charisma overwhelm attempts by his staff to influence him or contribute in meetings.

Welcome to lopsided leadership, where too much of a good thing can be counterproductive, say leadership development experts Bob Kaplan and Rob Kaiser. Over the past decade, they demonstrated a reliable connection between leader versatility and business effectiveness – and an equally strong connection between a lack of versatility and stalled or derailed careers. Read an article by the authors from MIT Sloan Management Review.

Their research instrument, the Leadership Versatility Index, is now a validated 360 feedback survey online. Performance Programs had the privilege of working with them in this development.

Current thinking on leadership generally acknowledges the need for qualities and skills that are seemingly in opposition. Sometimes leadership calls for forcefulness, sometimes for enabling others. In their research, Kaplan and Kaiser assessed scores of senior managers. Most managers, they found, when presented with two opposing approaches, lean strongly toward one and are biased against the other -- and their bias is counterproductive. For instance, people who are skilled at forcefulness may call upon it too quickly, and reject as "soft" the equally useful skill of enabling others to lead themselves in productive ways. The challenge for the versatile leader, they say, is to hold contradictory directions in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function at a high level.