The 9 Assessments Every Organization Should Know
Because nothing says “culture change” like discovering Greg from Finance is a “High C.”
Summary (TLDR)
The most widely used leadership and team assessments in my experience include DiSC, MBTI, Enneagram, EQ-i, Hogan, Leadership Circle, StrengthsFinder, Predictive Index, and Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Each assessment answers a different leadership question – from communication style to emotional intelligence to role fit – making them valuable for team development, hiring, and leadership growth. The context of the situation is what determines the best assessment needed. Sorry, no shortcuts there.
There comes a moment in every organization’s evolution when we are forced to ask and answer a deceptively simple question:
Why do smart, well-intentioned adults struggle to work together?
The good news: there are excellent team assessment tools for the workplace to help. The bad news: there are many excellent tools to help. So here is a guided tour of nine types of leadership assessments and team assessments, what they actually do, and when you should use each one.
DiSC Assessment
If your organization is new to behavioral assessments, DiSC is often the place to start.
It breaks workplace behavior into four styles:
Dominance (fast, direct)
Influence (enthusiastic, people-oriented)
Steadiness (patient, supportive)
Conscientiousness (precise, analytical)
What DiSC does brilliantly is make communication differences visible.
Through the lens of this assessment, we can learn fairly quickly that the person pushing for quick decisions isn’t reckless, they’re just wired for speed. And the person asking 114 follow-up questions isn’t difficult, they’re optimizing for accuracy. This assessment is best used for early-stage team development when relationships are new and still surface, or with cross-functional friction to better understand differences, or when you have managers who need practical, immediate tools to deploy right away.
DiSC gives us a shared language for behavior that reduces unnecessary conflict, provides the opportunity to slightly shift our own behavior to accommodate the preferences of others, and hopefully produces fewer passive-aggressive Slack messages or meeting eye-rolls.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Behavioral style (Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, Conscientiousness
Best for: Communication, conflict reduction, early-stage team development
Key benefit: Creates a shared language for workplace behavior
MBTI Assessment: Understanding How People Think and Make Decisions
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the grandparent of leadership personality assessments, and like most grandparents, it’s both beloved and can be found to be outdated or debated.
It sorts people into 16 personality types based on how they:
Focus attention (Introvert/Extrovert)
Process information (Sensing/Intuition)
Make decisions (Thinking/Feeling
Approach structure (Judging/Perceiving)
MBTI is less about behavior and more about cognitive preferences. It explains why some people want data before making a decision, why some people want possibilities before moving forward, or why some of us would like to revisit the decision again sometime next quarter. It’s a good tool to use for simple, quick team building, improving decision-making dynamics, or helping people understand the different thinking styles that exist on the team.
MBTI provides insight into how people process the world, and why meetings produce organizational jargon like the need to circle back, the desire to move the needle, an invitation to take this offline, an opportunity to pivot, why we are hell bent on boiling the ocean, and where we can find that low hanging fruit we’re all hungry for.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Cognitive preferences (Introversion/Extraversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving)
Best for: Decision-making, understanding thinking styles, early-stage team development
Key benefit: Helps teams understand how different people process information
Enneagram Assessment
If DiSC is about behavior and MBTI is about thinking, the Enneagram is about motivation.
It identifies nine personality types (numbers 1-9), each driven by different fears, needs, motivations, and patterns, when we’re at our best and when we’re at our worst.
The strict perfectionist
The considerate helper
The competitive achiever
The intense creative
The quiet specialist
The loyal skeptic
The enthusiastic visionary
The active controller
The adaptive peacemaker
The Enneagram makes leadership development personal and deeply introspective. Instead of asking, “Why did that meeting go sideways?” we are asking, “What underlying motivation caused me to react that way?” The Enneagram is best used for leadership development, personal growth, individual coaching, and with teams who are ready for deeper connection and reflection. It gives us a nuanced understanding of what drives people, and an opportunity to increase empathy and compassion for our teammates.
The most robust and comprehensive of all the reports, the Enneagram is not for the faint of heart. It’s for the people serious about improving their ability to positively impact others, it’s for those devoted to continuous improvement, and it’s for teams who actually care about their colleagues. No phoning it in with this one!
Key takeaways
What it measures: Core motivations, fears, and needs
Best for: Leadership development, coaching, self-awareness, meaningful team development
Key benefit: Provides deep insight into why people behave the way they do
Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Not all leadership assessments are about individuals. Patrick Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team focuses on team behavior, specifically. It incorporates the five things he has identified as being inherent on every team:
Trust
Conflict
Commitment
Accountability
Results
This assessment is not about individual personality, it’s about group dynamics. And it often reveals something surprising: Most teams don’t struggle because of talent, they struggle because of how they interact. It’s best used with leadership teams that feel stuck, organizations with alignment issues, or any group where meetings often end with “So… what did we decide?” With this assessment, you get clarity on where your team is breaking down, and a roadmap to fix it.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Team dynamics (trust, conflict, commitment, accountability, results)
Best for: Leadership teams, alignment issues, team dysfunction
Key benefit: Identifies breakdowns in team effectiveness and provides a roadmap for improvement
EQ-i (Emotional Intelligence)
The EQ-i measures emotional intelligence, which is a polite way of asking “How well do you handle being a human who interacts with other humans?” It assesses things like:
Self-awareness
Empathy
Stress management
Decision-making
Relationship management
While technical skills get people into leadership roles, emotional intelligence often determines whether they succeed once they’re there. A better predictor of success than IQ, emotional intelligence determines how well you navigate organizational dynamics, direct reports, colleagues, politics, and generally getting along with others. It’s great to use as part of leadership development programs, as a way to [partly] assess high-potential talent, and with people whose technical brilliance is occasionally overshadowed by their interpersonal style.
With the EQ-i you get insight into the emotional side of leadership, which as it turns out, is most of it. While we may not like to admit that emotions are at play in organizations, they are the biggest driver of our behavior and determine how we get along with others. So, watch out logic, emotions are the real drivers here.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Emotional intelligence (self-awareness, empathy, stress management, relationships)
Best for: Leadership development, high-potential employees, interpersonal effectiveness
Key benefit: Predicts leadership success beyond technical skills
Hogan Assessment
Hogan is one of the most respected executive leadership assessment tools, especially for senior leaders. It provides a detailed report filled with nuance and specifics that help leaders truly understands what is contributing to their success and what is prohibiting it. It measures:
Everyday strengths
Personal and professional values
Derailers (how you behave under stress)
That last one is key. Because many leadership challenges don’t show up in calm environments, but rather when things are hard, fast, and at high stakes. Hogan is best used as part of executive hiring, succession planning, senior leadership development, and to kick off a coaching engagement. With the Hogan, you get a predictive view of how someone will lead not only when things are going well, but when they’re not.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Personality, values, and derailers (behavior under stress)
Best for: Executive hiring, succession planning, senior leadership development
Key benefit: Reveals how leaders behave in high-stakes situations
Leadership Circle Profile
Leadership Circle blends leadership competency assessments with 360-degree feedback. It evaluates:
Creative leadership (vision, authenticity, collaboration)
Reactive tendencies (control, avoidance, defensiveness)
It visualizes all of this in a single integrated profile. It’s comprehensive. It’s data-rich. And it’s occasionally humbling. It’s great to use with executive teams to get a fuller picture of each leader on the team, as part of a senior leadership development program to create vigorous and specific plans for improvement, and with leaders ready to take feedback seriously and act on it. With the Leadership Circle, you get a clear picture of how your leadership is experienced by others and where growth will have the biggest impact.
Leadership Circle is a keen way to prepare people for movement into the next leadership level and opportunity. Imagine knowing ahead of time what will be expected with your promotion, and beginning to work on those things before you get into the new role. Novel, right? This tool is a great preparer for what’s next.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Leadership effectiveness and reactive tendencies via 360 feedback
Best for: Senior leaders, executive teams, leadership transformation
Key benefit: Combines competency and behavioral feedback into one profile
StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths)
StrengthsFinder (CliftonStrengths) flips the traditional development model. Instead of asking “What should you fix?” it asks “What should you build on?” It identifies your top strengths from 34 themes, helping individuals and teams understand where they naturally excel. It’s great to use as part of broader employee engagement initiatives, to increase team collaboration, and as part of any strength-based leadership development programs you may have. With StrengthsFinder, you get a more energizing approach to growth: it focuses on amplifying strengths instead of correcting weaknesses.
Someone once said “if you only focus on your weaknesses, you’ll die a perfectly mediocre person” (I’m paraphrasing), and StrengthsFinder seems to encapsulate that well. It provides an upbeat, positive way to discuss what each person on a team brings to the table, and gives an opportunity to explore how we can leverage the unique gifts of each team member for the betterment of the group.
It’s a great way to find out that you’ve been assigning the wrong tasks to the wrong people, but also that the right tasks are right there for the right person.
Key takeaways
What it measures: Individual strengths across 34 talent themes
Best for: Employee engagement, team collaboration, strengths-based development
Key benefit: Focuses on amplifying strengths instead of fixing weaknesses
Predictive Index
Predictive Index is a behavioral assessment designed to align people with roles. It measures key workplace drivers like:
Dominance
Sociability
Patience
Formality
Predictive Index connects those traits directly to job requirements, giving us a great sense of who will be successful in what types of jobs, because even the most capable person will struggle if their natural style doesn’t match the role. It’s a great tool to help with hiring and selection, team design, workforce planning, and general capability orientation. With the PI, you get better alignment between people and roles, and fewer situations where someone is quietly thinking, “This job is not built for how my brain works.”
Key takeaways
What it measures: Workplace drivers (dominance, extraversion, patience, formality)
Best for: Hiring, workforce planning, role alignment
Key benefit: Matches people to roles where they are most likely to succeed
So… How Do You Choose the Best Leadership Assessment for Organizations?
Here’s the magic answer: it depends.
There is no single “best” assessment. Though I do wish there was.Each tool answers a different question:
DiSC → How do we communicate?
MBTI → How do we think?
Enneagram → What motivates our behavior?
Five Dysfunctions → How do we function as a team?
EQ-i → How do we manage emotions?
Hogan → What happens under pressure?
Leadership Circle → How are we perceived as leaders?
StrengthsFinder → What are our natural talents?
Predictive Index → Are we in the right roles?
The real power isn’t in choosing one, it’s in understanding that leadership is multi-dimensional, and different tools illuminate different parts of it. Organizations don’t use assessments because they love labels, they use them because leadership is complicated. People are complicated. Team dynamics are complicated. So rarely (read: never) in organizations are our problems as simple as: Dave doesn’t have the technical capabilities for this job. It’s more often (read: almost always) that Dave is not in the right role, or Dave isn’t getting along with his teammates, or Dave hasn’t properly aligned his team, or Dave hasn’t learned how to manage his emotions, or Dave needs to grow his ability to lead the division, etc. etc. etc.
Assessments can provide us with a structured way to understand the nuance of our leadership styles, the intricacies of our team dynamics, and the ways we can be even more effective at navigating our complicated organizations. Which, in most companies, would be considered a breakthrough.