What Is the Leadership Assessment Test?
Leadership Assessments are psychometric tests that measure candidates’ fundamental character traits and competencies as leaders. These attributes include one’s motives, goals, feelings, attitudes, behavioral tendencies, and emotional intelligence.
Most Leadership Assessments Tests are divided into two main types –
- Situational Judgement Test (SJT) – in this test, you will be presented with workplace scenarios followed by a series of optional responses. You will be asked to rank or rate the responses according to their desirability and outcome effectiveness.
- Personality test – in this test, you will need to answer a questionnaire that covers various aspects of your character and traits.
However, many tests can serve as leadership assessment tools; each test has a different way of examining the diverse aspects of leadership competencies and potential. Some assess leadership strengths and weaknesses, while others focus on self-awareness and creative leadership. Therefore, it is crucial that you know which test you are about to take and prepare specifically for it.
Familiarize yourself with both SJT and personality tests with our full PrepPack Leadership Assessment Test Practice.
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Leadership Assessment tools
Below you may find a list of the most common leadership assessments used as pre-employment tests.
If your test is not on the list, or you want to learn more about it, feel free to contact us at: info@jobtestprep.com.
Jump to: Hogan, Korn Ferry, Leadership Practices Inventory, Caliper, DDI, HSL OPQ, Mercer | Mettl, Select Assessment for Leader Development, Leadership Temperament Index, Leadership Alliance Assessment, Indeed Management and Leadership Skills, M2D, MDA, John Maxwell, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DISC, Birkman, Gallup Strengthsfinder, Amazon
The Hogan Assessment is a series of personality and thinking ability tests; each predicts different aspects of your working potential based on your strengths, weaknesses, working style, problem-solving skills, values, and attitudes.
Your Hogan test will likely include one or more of the following assessments:
- Hogan Personality Inventory – the HPI contains 220 work-style statements presented on a 4-point scale (From strongly disagree to strongly agree.) There is no time limit; it usually takes 15-20 minutes to complete.
- Hogan Development Survey – the HDS contains 170 behavioral tendencies statements presented on a 4-point scale (From strongly disagree to strongly agree). There is no time limit; it usually takes 15-20 minutes to complete.
- Hogan Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory – the MVPI contains 200 personal preferences statements that you need to determine if you agree with. There is no time limit; it usually takes 15-20 minutes to complete.
- Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory – the HBRI contains 24 multiple-choice questions divided into 3 sections: Verbal & logical reasoning, numerical reasoning, and abstract thinking. The test has a time limit of 30 minutes.
Read more about the Hogan Leadership Assessment
The Korn Ferry leadership assessment is a series of pre-employment tests that evaluate your characteristics and personality traits.
- Korn Ferry Assessment of Leadership Potential – the KFALP contains 240-280 responses regarding your Drivers, Awareness, Experience, Capacity, Learning agility, Derailment risks, and Leadership traits. It takes about 35–40 minutes to complete.
- Korn Ferry Four-Dimensional Executive Assessment – the KF4D is a Psychometric-based assessment that covers the topics of mathematical calculations, strategic thinking, problem-solving, decision-making, business comprehension, interpersonal communication abilities, and worldview. The test has a time limit of 55 minutes.
- Korn Ferry viaEdge –the Korn Ferry viaEdge is a self-administered personality assessment that focuses on your learning agility with questions that covers the topics of Mental, people, change, and results. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.
Read more about the Korn Ferry assessment
The LPI is a questionnaire that assesses your strengths and areas for improvement based on the Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership: Model the Way, Inspire a Shared Vision, Challenge the Process, Enable Others to Act, and Encourage the Heart.
The assessment contains 30 statements presented on a 10-point scale. It takes about 10-20 minutes to complete.
The Caliper Assessment is a mixed cognitive-personality test designed by Talogy. It is used by employers nationwide to evaluate candidates on such traits as leadership capabilities, interpersonal communication, decision-making, problem-solving, time management, and organizational skills.
After completing the assessment, your results will be processed and arranged into a comprehensive personality profile. This document will then be transferred directly to your prospective employer, who will then be able to make an informed decision based on your ranking on 21 distinct personality traits.
Read more about the Caliper Assessment.
DDI Leadership Assessment is a series of tests that evaluate your leadership characteristics and personality traits.
Leadership Insight Inventory – the DDI LII assesses your personal disposition, competencies, and attributes such as time management and abstract thinking.
Leadership Readiness Assessment – the DDI LRA focuses on development needs and assesses your behavior and how it affects your job skills.
Leader3 Ready – the DDI L3R assesses Mid-Level leaders who want to take the next step on the managerial ladder. The test also creates your development plan and can be used to improve your skills and performance.
Manager Ready Assessment – the DDI Manager Ready Assessment is a Situational Judgement Test in which you need to rate and rank responses for real-life work-related situations to assess your decision-making process and leadership skills.
Health Care Leader Career Battery – the Health Care Leader Career Battery is an assessment tailored to managers and leaders in the healthcare industry. This includes an evaluation of your behavioral skills in high-stress environments.
Read more about the DDI Leadership Assessment Test
Provided by SHL Assessments, this common recruitment tool uses a unique evaluation technique wherein the candidate selects a statement that describes them best, rather than simply ranking themselves on various statements.
This tool is also commonly referred to as the OPQ32, because of the 32 traits on which candidates are rated.
Read more about the SHL Occupational Personality Questionnaire.
The Mercer | Mettl Leadership Assessment is a psychometric test focused on current business and managerial requirements. It assesses cognitive and behavioral abilities like Learning Orientation, Strategic Thinking, Leadership Styles, and Fostering Innovation.
The test contains 235 questions to be answered within 115 minutes.
SALD is an assessment test that measures 18 leadership success competencies, including Social Awareness, Negotiation, Accountability, and Delegating.
The Leadership Temperament Index Assessment (LTI) by ExecuSmart is a leadership assessment focusing on 12 cognitive preferences that are predictors of one’s leadership style. These are divided into 4 categories, namely Coach, Director, Strategist, and Counselor.
The Leadership alliance assessment is a test aimed at executive and senior-level roles. The test measures ten management competencies, such as leadership style, critical thinking, and problem-solving.
The Indeed management and leadership skills test assess your unique leadership skills and abilities related to the workplace. The scores will appear on your indeed resume page.
The M2D Leadership Test is a psychometric assessment of your strengths and the areas requiring improvement. The test measures 4 groups of competencies: Personal, project management, strategic competencies, and people management.
The MDA leadership assessment measures your readiness to execute strategies in four sections: Leading a Business, Leading a Function, Leading Leaders, and Leading Others. The test contains various scenarios that you will need to respond. The test is taken in the MDA Leadership offices, where you also meet with a consultant.
John Maxwell Leadership Assessment is a self-administered personality questionnaire that measures your current level of influence, leadership skills, and potential for leadership growth through the five Levels of Leadership methodology: Position, Permission, Production, Pinnacle, and People Development.
The MBTI evaluates 4 factors related to your psychology and how you act, feel, and think:
- Extroverted vs. Introverted
- Sensing vs. Intuition
- Thinking vs. Feeling
- Judging vs. Perceiving
It contains 93 items, each comprised of two different sentences you need to choose which fits you best. The assessment has no time limit.
Read more about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The DISC profile assessment, also known as DISC Personality Inventory, evaluates your dominant traits based on four personality types: Dominance (task-oriented and active), Influence (people-oriented and active), Steadiness (people-oriented and reserved), and Conscientiousness (task-oriented and active).
The test contains between 12 and 30 paired statements, and you need to choose which ones best describe you. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to complete.
Read more about the DISC personality test.
The Birkman exam is a personality assessment designed to measure psychological characteristics and behavior.
Companies use the test when hiring employees and as a career assessment for college students in order to identify motivational, behavioral, communication, and teamwork strengths and weaknesses.
Formerly called the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, the Gallup StrengthsFinder evaluates what you do right and identifies strengths instead of weaknesses. Your traits are divided into 4 themes: Strategic Thinking, Relationship Building, Influencing, and Executing.
The assessment contains 177 paired statements, and you need to choose which ones best describe you. The test has a time limit of 30 minutes.
Read more about Gallup's StrengthsFinder Personality Test
Amazon is a major player in the global industry, most known for its massive online retail enterprise. Despite its claim to fame being in e-commerce, it has also established a significant presence in fields such as media streaming, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing.
Being one of the world's largest employers, Amazon has developed an array of pre-employment tests unique to them. One such test is the Work Simulation Assessment which, as its name suggests, evaluates how you would perform in a variety of work-related situations and dilemmas. Amazon also has a personality test called the Work Style Assessment that aims to ascertain rather a candidate matches Amazon's unique business culture. Lastly, if you're interested in a warehouse job, Amazon has developed a Warehouse and Fulfillment Assessment.
Amazon's personality and leadership assessments are based on a set of 16 desired traits, dubbed Leadership Principles, which Amazon has published as a guideline to what they look for in their employees.
Want to learn more about your specific leadership test and how to best prepare? Contact us at info@jobtestprep.com.
Leadership Test Sample Questions and Answers
Are you expecting to take a Leadership Assessment Test in the near future? We hope you pass with flying colors! Here are a number of examples to demonstrate what kind of questions you may see while taking the test:
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Leadership Test Sample Question #1
You are doing a performance evaluation for Janet, one of your team supervisors. Which of the following should you avoid doing during the review?
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Leadership Test Sample Question #2
You manage a small department in a large company. A few weeks ago, your department was assigned to work on an important project. As the deadline approaches, it seems that the department is very far behind, and the pressure is rising. You announced that in the upcoming week you need everyone to put in extra effort and stay extra hours to close the gap. You begin to feel that employees' morale is dropping – you notice that employees take longer breaks, make more errors and you even overhear someone saying that staying extra hours for this mission is an overreaction as it’s not important enough.
Rank the effectiveness of the following responses to the situation on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least effective response and 5 being the most effective response. You can use the same rating more than once.
(a detailed explanation appears at the bottom of the question)
Have an encouraging talk with the department, say that you understand it’s a difficult time, and show appreciation for their efforts.
Ask your team leaders to reprimand employees who seem to lower team morale and to discipline those who make errors.
Ask your team leaders to talk directly with employees who seem to lower team morale. Ask them to explain the importance of the mission and ask for their cooperation.
Establish short-term goals and ask team leaders to schedule meetings with each employee to follow on their progress and hear how they feel.
Ask your team leaders to have their employees send them weekly reports on their progress. In addition, ask them to send every employee a reprimanding email when they make an error.
Core competencies: team building, effective communication
Secondary competencies: influencing others, discipline
The scenario here describes a stressful situation of a tight deadline, yet we are told that you have effective strategies to handle the deadline problem, and the issue that worries you here is your employees' motivation (and its effects on their performance). When dealing with morale issues, a positive and engaging approach is always better than negative, reprimanding approaches. Notice that this is a rating question, not ranking – you can give the same rating to more than one answer choice. This means that each answer choice should be considered individually.
An encouraging talk (response A) is likely to lift the department morale. An important part of this conversation is showing empathy and appreciation for your employees' difficulties. Letting them know that their efforts are appreciated can ease their feeling that their efforts are in vain and show them that you only ask this much because it’s essential (influencing others). This response is effective.
Asking team leaders to reprimand employees for lower morale (response B) is unlikely to elevate their feelings. In fact, the expected response is the reverse – they will probably think that their team leaders (and you) don’t care about their difficulties and only care about results. In addition, when under pressure, people are likely to make more mistakes, despite their best efforts. This does not mean that mistakes should be taken lightly or go without response, but discipline should be considered carefully in such circumstances. Overall, reprimands and discipline are more likely to create an atmosphere of fear and discomfort, instead of lifting team morale and engaging everyone in the effort. This is a highly ineffective response.
Asking team leaders to talk personally with employees who seem to lower morale (response C) is a direct approach (effective communication). Listening to them and explaining the importance of their cooperation could make them feel important, appreciated, and engage them in the effort. This is an effective response.
Response D tackles the problem on two fronts: first, establishing smaller goals can create more opportunities for the teams to feel accomplishment, which increases morale. These goals and the meetings with their team leaders can also help them gauge their progress, it breaks the long-term effort into smaller parts that are easier to handle. In addition, these meetings allow your team leaders more personal control over the progress. They also let your teams know that their team leaders are involved as much as they are and increase team bond and morale (team building). Second, giving your employees a chance to voice their feelings during this stressful time shows appreciation and care, which increases morale (influencing others). Addressing these two aspects makes this response highly effective.
Response E includes two parts. Asking for weekly reports allows your team leaders more awareness and control over their team’s progress. However, since the information only flows in one direction you are not addressing the team members' feelings, your employees are not likely to become more involved or feel more appreciated. In addition, reprimanding emails only make the atmosphere worse – not only does this response not address their difficulties, but you also have them reprimanded when the pressure gets to them, and they make errors. This response demonstrates ineffective communication and is somewhat ineffective.
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Leadership Test Sample Question #3
Read the statement carefully and choose the most appropriate answer for you. You can mark only one answer.
I rarely make hasty decisions
In this question the measured trait is Deliberation.
The trait of deliberation reflects the ability to consider different options and courses of action before carefully deciding on the most effective way to go. The ability to exercise judgment is related to caution, thoroughness, and ability to examine various aspects of the problem.
Low scores may indicate impulsivity, impatience and inattentive decision making. However, sometimes it is needed to make quicker and more intuitive decisions. In such situations, a significantly higher tendency to consider every detail can be a double-edged sword. Most jobs require average to high scores in this trait.
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Leadership Test Sample Question #4
Read the statement carefully and choose the most appropriate answer for you. You can mark only one answer.
I'm known for my sound judgement
In this question the measured trait is Competence.
This trait reflects an inner experience of confidence in abilities, in a way that allows for adequate coping with challenges and difficulties. Low scores indicate a low sense of competence compared to actual abilities, which can lead to misjudgment of tasks as more difficult than they actually are and avoidance. At work, the employee's sense of security and ability are of great importance, so that they can be trusted to do their job and cope well with challenges and difficulties. Therefore, it is advisable to get high scores in this feature.
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Which Employers Use Leadership Assessment Tests?
Many companies and organizations use leadership evaluation tests, such as Walmart, Amazon, the Canada Revenue Agency, and the American College of Healthcare. The leadership aptitude tests are part of the hiring process for various management jobs, including directors, managers, executives, supervisors, CFOs, VPs, and CEOs.
10 Top Leadership Assessment Tips
Before taking the test, read about the requirements and nature of the job/organization you are applying to work in. This can help you discover more about your potential employers' desired and valued competencies. Companies may publish an agenda or highlight their views of the management, service, and sales in their publications.
If you have trouble with the phrase, “How would you act?”, mentally change this to “How should you act?” This simple change in how you approach each question can help you understand which replies are more positive and desirable to employers. Yet remember to give honest responses about how you should act so your results are authentic.
Read through the instructions, questions, and scenarios carefully. This can help you avoid answering impulsively and to better understand your dilemma while weighing out each potential response to decide which answer is the most fitting.
Since there will be questions addressing your personal and professional characteristics, make sure to differentiate between them before deciding how to answer. If you aren't sure which category they fall under, try to sum up the question in a single line (e.g., "this question is about working with difficult coworkers" or "this question is about my hobbies").
Consider responses that balance the needs of everyone in the scenario (including your own) and assume that any response suggested is plausible. Additionally, choose more active responses to demonstrate your positive qualities more strongly.
When faced with answer choices that include an action and a rationalization for it, rate the actions and rationalizations separately. Rationalizations have a strong influence on your decision, for good or for bad, and can be there to confuse you. For example, they can make a bad response sound good by attaching it to a good intention, and a good response can sound bad by showing its flawed reasoning.
Ranking questions provide scenarios with 2-6 response options, which you should approach by understanding what competencies are represented in each response. Afterward, assess how each one relates to the factors in the scenario, according to their effectiveness (without eliminating responses based on how likely they are to occur). Then, determine which are the extremely best and worst choices and consider the factors and competencies in the remaining responses.
Rating questions offer one scenario and several responses that you need to rate according to how positive you think the response in the answer is. First, ask yourself how you would rate each answer on its own and how effective they are. Next, try to understand which competencies are displayed in each response and relate them to factors in the scenario. Then, look for the best and worst extremes in the choices while comparing them against the other responses.
Identify the most important point within a question so as not to be confused by irrelevant details that can steer you away from giving the best answer. Taking note of the underlying point of the question can help you understand the subject, context, and competencies being assessed so you can avoid answering dogmatically. This allows you to express more than one important quality throughout the test.
Make sure you are prepared for the right test. Several companies and agencies provide many kinds of Leadership Assessment tests. Research beforehand which test you are going to take, if it's a personality questionnaire, Situational Judgement Test (SJT), or another sort of test, and practice the relevant sample questions.
Improve your leadership skills and ace your test with our full PrepPack Leadership Assessment Test Practice.
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