The Problem Is Not the Assessment

I recently read an article arguing that personality assessments have become too dominant in leadership development.

The article started strong. It pointed out that self-awareness alone does not create behavior change. A leader can understand their tendencies, strengths, and blind spots and still not become more effective. Development requires action, practice, feedback, and new behaviors.

I agree with that.

Where the article lost me was when it shifted from discussing the limitations of assessments to questioning the motives of the people who use them. I think the answer is much simpler. Personality assessments remain popular because they solve a real problem.

People want to understand themselves. Teams want to understand each other. That has value. The problem is that awareness alone does not create behavior change. Assessments can start that conversation. They cannot finish it, and if all you do is hand it to someone and say read it, you are not doing any development work.

Years ago, I used Myers-Briggs with many of my teams. Not because I thought it would magically develop leaders. Not because I thought it revealed some hidden truth about who people really were.

I used it because it helped people understand differences.

Someone would discover that a coworker processed information differently than they did. Another person would realize why a teammate needed time to think before responding. Conversations became easier. Misunderstandings decreased. People became more curious and less judgmental.

That is a real outcome.

The strongest use of assessments is often creating common language and connection within a group. They help people discuss differences without making those differences personal. That can be extremely valuable.

The problem begins when organizations confuse awareness with development.

An assessment might tell me that I tend to be direct. Now what? Do I need to listen longer? Ask more questions? Slow down decisions? Adapt my communication?

The assessment does not answer those questions. It simply gives me a place to start looking.

That is why I have never viewed personality assessments as leadership development tools by themselves.

They are windows, not grades.

A window helps me see something I may not have noticed before. A grade tells me how good I am doing. Those are very different things.

What assessments cannot do is tell me how someone will actually perform when the pressure is on. Some assessments offer tendencies under pressure based on how you scored. That is still awareness. It tells you how someone might respond. It does not tell you how they actually will.

When promotion discussions happen, I am not looking at a personality assessment. I am looking at work history. I am looking at results. I am looking at feedback from others. I am looking at how the person handled difficult situations. I am looking at what happened when deadlines were tight, resources were limited, and there was something meaningful at stake.

Assessments tell me what someone says about themselves. Observation tells me what they actually do. People change. Experience changes them. Circumstances change them. Pressure changes them. That is one reason observation over time tells me things an assessment never can.

That distinction matters when decisions about trust, promotion, and leadership responsibility are on the table.

None of this means assessments are bad. In HR development they serve a real purpose. Organizations use them in onboarding, team building, and leadership programs to create common language and shared understanding. That is legitimate work. Some teams and individuals find real value in assessment-based development, and there are practitioners who specialize in exactly that work. That is a legitimate path.

One use of assessments I have seen work well is measuring change over time. An assessment at the beginning of a development journey and another at the end can provide a useful before and after picture. The development does not come from the assessment itself. It comes from the work done between those two points. In that case, the assessment serves as a measurement tool rather than a development tool.

Like any tool, assessments have strengths and limitations.

An assessment can show you the window. It cannot tell you what to do about what you see. It is simply a starting point from where you are right now. Awareness without action changes nothing. The awareness has to bring about a change. That is where the real work starts.