Executive Job Analysis and Leadership Assessment Challenges
Assessment of executive leadership capacity and aptitude is not a straightforward practice. An enormous array of assessment instrumentation has been developed over the past several decades. It is big business and a strong pantheon of supporters—consisting primarily of human resources managers—fends off attacks on the practice of assessing executives and quantifying complex and senior jobs. The Leadership Practice Inventory, for just one example, has mixed reviews. Zagorsek, et al. (2006) describe the LPI as being a moderately reliable instrument, which is more precise for individuals with low to moderate leadership ability, but not as reliable for high performers, and "better suited for leader development than for leader identification, selection or promotion purposes" (p. 190). Assuming other assessment tools will not fare much better, it is worth exploring the idea of reliably assessing executive talent and matching candidates with jobs that have also been precisely, if not accurately, analyzed.