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Leadership assessments

Assessment is how a development plan stops being a guess. CLM uses structured instruments to establish where a leader actually stands, then debriefs the result with them, before deciding what training would help.

Ask about assessmentsSee the instruments

A Graduate School USA advisor debriefing an assessment with two federal employees
3instruments
360°the LEI, our own
5×3current ECQ structure
Debriefednever just scored

Why assess at all

Graduate School USA takes the view that every individual has their own style of learning, leading, communicating and working with other people, and that identifying those characteristics is what makes the rest of a development plan land. An assessment is not a verdict on someone. It is the starting position that makes the next twelve months worth running.

For an individual

A structured read of where you are strong and where the next role will expose a gap, with development suggestions attached to each finding rather than a score and a shrug.

For a work unit

Group reports show an organization’s overall strengths and its target areas. That is the basis for succession planning, and for deciding whether the problem is a training problem at all.

For a training office

Aggregate results identify where new curriculum is genuinely needed, which is a better basis for a training plan than last year’s catalog.

CLM assessment instruments, what each measures and who it is for.
InstrumentWhat it measuresWho it is for
Leadership Effectiveness Inventory360-degree feedbackIndividuals and intact work units
Myers-Briggs Type IndicatorPersonality typeIndividuals, teams and whole workgroups
ECQ readiness reviewQualification reviewSES candidates and their agencies

The instruments

Leadership Effectiveness Inventory LEI

The instrument every CLM program is built around.

Type
360-degree feedback
For
Individuals and intact work units

A 360-degree assessment developed by the Office of Personnel Management and revised by Graduate School USA, used to assess job strengths and development needs for individuals and for groups. Feedback is gathered from supervisors, peers and staff, which is what makes the picture of someone’s skills more useful than a self-report.

What comes back

A feedback report in graphic and narrative form, showing job strengths and development needs. Development suggestions and action planning are attached to the needs it identifies, so the report is the basis of a development plan rather than a verdict.

Individual reports

Become the basis of the individual development plan. In the ELP and EPP the report is what the Leadership Development Plan is written against, and a supervisor signs off on it.

Group reports

Present an organization’s overall strengths and target areas. The LEI can form the basis of a full organizational assessment, and Graduate School USA can then design and deliver a long-term development program for a specific work unit or agency.

Who uses it

Individuals planning their own leadership development; organizations doing succession planning; trainers identifying where new curriculum is needed.

Built into New Leader Program, Executive Leadership Program, Executive Potential Program

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator MBTI®

Five decades of use, and still the fastest way to give a cohort shared language.

Type
Personality type
For
Individuals, teams and whole workgroups

The MBTI instrument reveals characteristics that shape how a person communicates and interacts with co-workers, managers, direct reports and family. It is the key to both understanding the differences between personality types and improving communication at work and outside it.

What it measures

Based on Isabel Myers’ implementation of Carl Jung’s theory of psychological type, the instrument determines preferences on four dimensions: extroversion-introversion, sensing-intuition, thinking-feeling and judging-perceiving. The combinations produce 16 personality types.

Where it gets used

Team building, conflict resolution, leadership development, communication skills, problem solving, organizational development, stress management, career management and outplacement.

How it runs

You complete the assessment online, and a Graduate School USA facilitator certified in the MBTI interprets your results. For teams we arrange a group interpretation session on site.

Why a cohort benefits

The value is not the four letters. It is that afterwards a team has a shared, non-accusatory vocabulary for why a colleague works the way they do.

ECQ readiness review ECQ

How a package reads to a Qualifications Review Board, before it goes anywhere.

Type
Qualification review
For
SES candidates and their agencies

A read of a candidate’s written ECQ narratives against what a Qualifications Review Board looks for: whether each story is the right kind of story, whether it is written in the Challenge-Context-Action-Result structure, and whether it is strong, clear and focused enough to carry the qualification it claims.

What you get

Brief, clear comments on each story’s strength, appropriateness, writing style, clarity and focus.

How to get it

It is built into Writing ECQ Statements as required pre-work, and available on its own for an agency putting a cohort of candidates forward.

A caveat worth knowing

OPM revised the ECQs on October 1, 2025. A package written against the old five qualifications is now mapped to the wrong framework, which is the single most common problem we see in narratives drafted before that date.

Assessments are more than a score. They are debriefed and discussed because meaningful feedback, not just a number, is what drives behavioral change. To learn more about these assessments or a development program designed for an intact work unit, email clm@graduateschool.edu or call (202) 314-3580.

What the ECQs are now

OPM replaced the Executive Core Qualifications on October 1, 2025. There are still five, but each now carries exactly three competencies, fifteen in total, and the separate list of six Fundamental Competencies is gone entirely. A great deal of material still in circulation has not caught up.

ECQ 1

Commitment to the Rule of Law and the Principles of the American Founding

  • Knowledge of the American System of Government
  • Commitment to the Rule of Law
  • Civic-Mindedness
ECQ 2

Driving Efficiency

  • Fiscal Responsibility
  • Managing Resources
  • Leveraging Technology
ECQ 3

Merit and Competence

  • Technical Skill
  • Problem Solving
  • Agility and Resilience
ECQ 4

Leading People

  • Accountability
  • Developing Others
  • Executive Judgement
ECQ 5

Achieving Results

  • Operational Mindset
  • Innovation
  • Strategic Thinking

Retired on October 1, 2025: Leading Change, Leading People, Results Driven, Business Acumen, Building Coalitions, their 22 core competencies, and the six Fundamental Competencies (interpersonal skills, written communication, oral communication, integrity/honesty, continual learning, public service motivation). Only Leading People survives as a name, and its competencies changed. If you hold a development plan or a set of ECQ narratives written against the old framework, they now map to qualifications that no longer exist. The ECQ writing course works from the current one, and the wider Graduate School USA competency map lists training against each.

Assessing a cohort or an individual?

Tell us who you are developing and what decision the assessment has to support, whether that is selection, a development plan, or ECQ readiness before a package goes in.

Center for Leadership and Management
clm@graduateschool.edu
888-744-GRAD

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