2.2.7 Leadership Skills Profile (LSP) 

Purpose 

The Leadership Skills Profile (LSP) is designed to assess a leader’s effectiveness in cognitive, interpersonal, personal, and senior leadership areas. This 360-degree assessment tool aims to identify individuals with strong leadership potential and provide insights into their leadership capabilities and areas for development. It measures a leader’s effectiveness in 50 competencies.

Description 

The Leadership Skills Profile (LSP) was developed by Douglas N. Jackson at Sigma Assessment Systems in 1994. The LSP draws upon three established personality assessments (the Jackson Personality Inventory-Revised, the Personality Research Form, and Survey of Work Styles) to predict leadership potential. While research shows these underlying instruments have validity, there is a lack of data to support reliability for the LSP as a whole. Correlations between the LSP’s personality scale and job performance scores range from 0.31 to 0.51, suggesting some predictive power, but more data is needed to definitively establish the LSP’s overall reliability and validity. Additionally, the 360-degree feedback component of the LSP has not been evaluated for validity or reliability.

Access 

The tool can be purchased from Sigma Assessment Systems at https://www.sigmaassessmentsystems.com/.

Reference 

Ashour, A. S., & England, G. (1972). Subordinate’s assigned level of discretion as a function of leader’s personality and situational variables. Journal of Applied Psychology, 56(2), 120–123.

Brenner, O. C., & Greenhaus, J. H. (1979). Managerial status, sex, and selected personality characteristics. Journal of Management, 5(1), 107–113.

Goffin, R. D., Rothstein, M. G., & Johnston, N. G. (1996). Personality testing and the assessment center: Incremental validity for managerial selection. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(6), 746–756.

Johnson, A. M., Vernon, P.A., Harris, J.A., & Jang, K.L. (2004). A Behavior Genetic Investigation of the Relationship Between Leadership and Personality. Twin Research, 7(1), 27–32.

Pratch, L. & Jacobowitz, J. (1996). Gender, motivation, and coping in the evaluation of leadership effectiveness. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 48(4), 203–220.

Richardsen, A. M, & Piper, W. E. (1986). Leader style, leader consistency, and participant personality effects learning in small groups. Human Relations, 39(9), 817–836.

Smither, J. W., London, M., & Richmond, K. R. (2005). The Relationship between leaders’ personality and their reactions to and use of multisource feedback: A longitudinal study. Group & Organization Management, 30(2),181–210. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601103254912

Sigma Assessment Systems. (2018). Leadership Skills Profile: Technical manual.

Sigma Assessment Systems. (2019). Leadership Skills Profile: Predictive validity study.