Is The Most Effective Leadership Style Within Your Reach?
When you stretch out your arm, how far can you reach? Most of us have a pretty good idea of how far we can physically reach. Our ability to judge the length of our reach comes from experience and self awareness. Can you reach the pen across the table without having to get up? We have good judgement about our physical reach, but what if I asked you how far you can mentally reach? That is a completely different concept. We can stretch our physical reach and have a good sense of the range of motion, but when asked the same question about our mental capacities, the answer is not so clear.
The ability to stretch ones’ mind and ones approach to a given situation is a critical leadership skill. Imagine if it were possible to measure your mental reach much like your physical reach. Well you can. There is a specific leadership assessment that has been built to measure ones’ ability to reach. The tool is called the REACH Quotient assessment and it is an amazing tool for building self-awareness and helping leaders to understand their mental range of motion.
Effective leaders have the ability and the agility to flex their approach to meet different situations. Learning to flex one’s style is a leadership competency that is honed through experience. While some possess natural leadership talents, it is through experience that we learn to make adjustments. There are a number of assessments that are used to measure leadership style, effectiveness and personality type. These tools are super helpful in that they help build greater self-awareness. I have always believed self-awareness to be the number one differentiator between great leaders and everyone else. Those that are fully self-aware can play to their strengths and compensate for their deficiencies. I refer this as finding one’s groove.
When building out Groove Management I was very interested in finding a tool that I could use to help leaders build greater self-awareness. Having been certified in MBTI, Birkman, TKI, FIRO and other assessments, I was in search of something different. I wanted a robust online assessment that could both measure individuals and teams. A tool that would provide a unique set of insights, yet one that would also provide validated data similar to the more widely used tools. Earlier in my career, I worked with Craft Systems to utilize their CPQ sales success predictive tool. Dr. Doug Waldo was an associate of Dr. Craft’s and after the sale of Craft Systems, Dr. Waldo went on to create his own assessment, the Leading Dimensions Profile. Through years of validation and research the LDP was honed into a robust leadership assessment. Dr. Waldo had found that measuring leadership capability along two dimension achievement drive and relationship drive would yield a very informative data set that could be used in a number of ways. I began utilizing the LDP in 2014 for executive coaching and leadership development programs. The LDP offered significant insights to leaders about their styles, their strengths and their deficiencies. Dr. Waldo continued to work on refining the LDP assessment and made a significant breakthrough. Dr. Waldo continued to study the growing set of LDP data and found that in addition to measuring an individuals plot along the leading dimensions, an agility score could be calculated. This agility score is a measurement of an individuals ability to flex their style and to reach. This additional measurement became none as the REACH Quotient. The LDP tool was rebranded to REACH and the insights provided have been dramatically improved.
At Groove Management, we rely upon the REACH Quotient for our coaching clients, leadership development programs and for team workshops. Helping leaders to understand their style markers is extremely helpful. Coupling those insights with the REACH Quotient as a measure of flexibility and agility is extremely powerful. This has allowed us to make significant breakthroughs with leaders. This maps extremely well with the concept of having a growth mindset and being a lifelong learner. In a rapidly evolving world with so much disruption, flexibility is a key leadership competency. The REACH assessment has become a very valuable tool in our quiver.
The REACH Quotient is especially helpful when working with teams. In addition to generating individual profiles, the team reports offer great insights for the team. Team members are mapped across the ten different dimensions and there is a view to see all individuals styles and abilities to flex.
The plotting of all team members, highlights the diversity of style that can exist within a team and the level of style flexibility of each team member. In our work building high performing teams, this tool has helped several teams make significant breakthroughs. We have proven this to be effective with a world class list of clients including:
The REACH Quotient assessment is a valuable tool for Groove Management’s executive coaching practice. We help CEOs and other senior leaders to build their self-awareness and to recognize gaps in their styles. This helps them to round out their leadership teams with individuals that possess complimentary skills. Helping executives to visualize strengths and gaps is usually quite difficult. The REACH Quotient has made this work easier and the feedback that we receive has been excellent.
We believe exercising ones’ leadership reach is a form of yoga for the brain. It requires focus and attention, but with practice it is possible to improve balance, agility and impact.
If your organization is interested in learning more about the REACH Quotient set of tools CLICK HERE or contact us.
