The Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), a 360-degree assessment instrument which participants take as part of their pre-work for The Leadership Challenge® Workshop, serves two purposes: It allows us continuously to test our initial findings that The Five Practices model is a valid view of the world of leadership, and it provides a tool that helps leaders assess the extent to which they actually use those practices so that they can make plans for improvement.
The LPI is a questionnaire with thirty behavioral statements—six for each of The Five Practices—that takes 10 to 20 minutes to complete. Leaders complete the LPI-Self, rating themselves on the frequency with which they think they engage in each of the thirty behaviors. Five to ten other people—typically selected by the leaders—complete the LPI-Observer questionnaire, rating the leaders on the frequency with which they think they engage in each behavior. Respondents can indicate their relationship to the leader—manager, co-worker or peer, direct report, or other observer—but, with the exception of the leader's manager, all the observers' feedback is anonymous.
The LPI can be completed online, or it can be completed in a paper-and-pencil version. Whether taken in a hard or soft format, the results are scored electronically and the system prints out a report that summarizes the results.
Our own and independent studies consistently confirm that the LPI has very strong reliability and validity. Today, it is one of the most widely used 360-degree leadership assessment instruments available. More than 250,000 leaders and nearly one million observers have completed it. Since the LPI was first used in 1985, we've analyzed surveys from more than 100,000 respondents to determine the relationship between The Five Practices and a variety of measurable outcomes. In addition, more than 250 doctoral dissertations and master's theses have used the LPI in their research. Ongoing analysis and refinements of the instrument continue.
NEW: Custom Data Reports
Fine Points Professionals Ltd. is an Authorized Service Center for administration of the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI) and The Leadership Challenge® Workshop. The organization has expertise in services pertinent to pre-work, assessment tools and leadership training workshop needs. In addition, Fine Points Professionals' offers six different customized reports specific to your organization and the principles of The Leadership Challenge®. One of these reports is the Group Leadership Behaviors Ranking Analysis—the custom data report identifies the ranking of the 30 behaviors based on the average Self Scores and Observers' scores in a group of any size. It may include all the individuals in a single workshop, or it may include all or selected individuals from multiple workshops across an organization.
"We have been able to use these reports as 'empirical' evidence of where we need to focus as a leadership team to shift to more of an 'enterprise' culture," says Fred Colon of St. Paul Travelers, who has used the Group Leadership Behaviors Ranking Analysis extensively. "For instance, behavior #16 asks for feedback on how his/her actions affect people’s performance . . . The observer average score is 6.0 and it comes in dead last when ranked from high to low. We have been able to map this to how trust is built in our organization and the fact that if you don’t ask others how your behavior impacts them, there is a potential adverse impact on the relationship and organization. Overall, the report helps us focus our senior team on leadership behavior with low frequency and the potential adverse impact of low frequency verses medium to high frequency."
