Working With Leadership Assessments
Leadership assessments like the Developing The Leader Within You 20 Assessment are designed to measure your management capabilities across multiple dimensions. Most people approach these expecting a simple pass-or-fail outcome, but they actually reveal gaps you didn't know existed in how you handle conflict, delegation, or strategic thinking. I remember taking a similar assessment five years ago and scoring surprisingly low on emotional intelligence. I was managing a team of twelve people at the time, so I didn't expect to get flagged for that. The feedback session was uncomfortable, but it turned out to be the most useful career conversation I had that year.
What the Developing The Leader Within You 20 Assessment Actually Measures
The assessment typically evaluates ten core competencies, each scored on a scale that gets normalized against industry benchmarks. The Developing The Leader Within You 20 Assessment breaks down into areas like communication, decision-making, adaptability, and influencing skills. Some versions also include situational judgment questions where you pick the best response to a workplace scenario. One thing beginners miss is that the scoring isn't just about what you choose, but how consistent you are across similar questions. If you pick the "right" answer to three conflict questions but then pick the "wrong" answer to a fourth one that's nearly identical, the algorithm flags inconsistency rather than treating each question independently.
How to Prepare for the Assessment
You don't need to study for this in the traditional sense. What helps is reflecting on recent work situations before you start. Think about a project you managed last quarter, a conflict you resolved, and a time you had to make a decision with incomplete information. When those memories are fresh in your mind, your responses tend to align better with what the assessment is actually looking for. I usually recommend taking the assessment in one sitting, ideally when you're not exhausted. People who split it across multiple sessions tend to give inconsistent answers because their frame of mind shifts between parts. The whole thing typically takes about forty-five minutes to an hour, depending on how carefully you read each scenario. There's also a practical workaround for the timing issue. If your organization requires you to complete it during work hours and you've got back-to-back meetings, block out sixty minutes on your calendar and treat it like any other important task. Skipping this buffer is how people end up rushing through the final section and second-guessing themselves on questions they would have answered differently with more time.
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Common Pitfalls to Avoid
The biggest mistake I see is people trying to game the assessment by picking what they think the test wants to hear. These assessments have built-in consistency checks, so that approach usually backfires. You'll catch yourself agreeing with contradictory statements in different sections, and the inconsistency score drops faster than a low raw score would. Another issue is overthinking the situational judgment questions. Each scenario has a clearly best answer based on established management frameworks. The second-best answer is often tempting because it sounds pragmatic, but it's usually the wrong choice. Trust your initial instinct unless you genuinely notice a detail that changes the situation. I ran into a specific edge case last year where the assessment presented a scenario that seemed impossible to resolve well. A team member was missing deadlines, another was complaining about workload distribution, and the project was already behind schedule. The "right" answer according to the scoring rubric was to have a private conversation with the underperforming member first, but in practice that's not always realistic when you're already in crisis mode. What I did was note my real preference in the assessment and then discuss the gap with my manager afterward, which led to a more useful follow-up conversation than the assessment alone would have provided.
Understanding Your Results
When you get your report back, focus on the competency areas where you scored lowest, not the ones where you did well. The high scores confirm what you already know about your strengths. The low scores point to development opportunities that might explain friction you've been experiencing with your team. Scores are typically reported as percentiles relative to a norm group. If you score in the 75th percentile for strategic thinking, that means you performed better than seventy-five percent of people in the reference group, which usually includes other managers at similar career levels. Some reports also show your score compared to peers in your specific industry or organization size, which can be more relevant depending on your situation. The assessment company usually provides a debrief session as part of the package. I've found these to be genuinely useful when your manager attends with you, because they can translate the abstract competency scores into concrete behavior changes you can start implementing the following week. Skipping the debrief means you get a report full of numbers without a clear action plan.
What to Do After the Assessment
Pick one or two development areas to focus on, not all of them. Trying to improve everything at once leads to burnout and minimal progress. Choose the competency that would have the biggest impact on your day-to-day work if you got better at it. Most organizations offer coaching or training programs tied to these assessments. I generally recommend starting with coaching rather than classroom training because coaching addresses your specific situation instead of giving you generic management theory. That said, if your company only has access to formal courses, those can still be valuable when combined with a practical application plan. Reassess after six to eight months if possible. Leadership development isn't linear, but you should see some movement in the competencies you've been working on. If your scores haven't changed at all, that might indicate the development activities you chose aren't addressing the root cause of the gap.
Some people find that taking the assessment again produces different results simply because they've become more comfortable with the format. Make sure you're comparing scores from similar assessment versions and the same norm group, otherwise the comparison isn't meaningful. The assessment itself is a snapshot, not a permanent label. How you use the results matters more than where you landed on any particular competency. A detailed development plan built around your lowest scores will get you further than trying to polish your existing strengths.
