Good leaders aren’t born—they are developed. Most great leaders have purposefully worked to hone their leadership skills and capabilities. In particular, great leaders have worked to develop keen self-awareness: understanding their strengths and opportunity areas and understanding and managing potentially limiting or derailing traits and behaviors. Vulnerability is a key component in this development process. Being vulnerable doesn’t just mean buckling in the face of pressure. It means intentionally choosing to open up, ask for advice and feedback, admit mistakes/weaknesses, and commit to owning and improving upon feedback. While genuine vulnerability and honest conversations can be difficult at first, they enable individuals and teams to see new possibilities, evolve and grow.
The Intelligent Leadership Executive Coaching Program created by John Mattone (the world’s top authority on Intelligent Leadership) focuses on helping leaders unlock and unleash their full potential. The first step in this transformative process is learning to be vulnerable and proactively seeking self-awareness. This program utilizes an assessment tool called the MLEI (Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory) to help build self-awareness.
The MLEI is based on the age-old enneagram and is specifically designed to address current and emerging leadership development, growth, and maturity. The MLEI assesses the strength of a leader’s “inner core” (composed of self-concept, values, character, emotional intelligence, thinking patterns). By examining and understanding one’s “inner core,” leaders gain insight into their core character and values and understand why they think/act the way they do. Understanding the why behind their thoughts and actions unlocks the ability to break through limiting beliefs or behaviors to drive excellence in their “outer core” leadership competencies and skills (skills such as communication, strategic thinking, critical thinking, and drive for results). As a result, leaders are able to make lasting changes and improvements on their road to leadership greatness.
The MLEI focuses on the leader as a whole and identifies the strength, vibrancy and maturity in the “inner-core” traits. The MLEI is less a measure of a leader’s personality and more a measure of a leader’s potential to respond to stress and disruption in a positive (mature) or negative (immature) way. Therefore, it is not a measure of “who a leader is” but more of a leading indicator measure that predicts what a leader “can do” and “will do.” The MLEI assessment highlights both a leader’s gifts that should be leveraged– and potential red flags that need to be understood and addressed.
The power of a tool like the MLEI assessment doesn’t stop at getting the results and understanding strengths and opportunity areas. Real results are driven by using the insights from the MLEI to draft a powerful action plan to address strengths and potential problem areas to ultimately propel leadership development and impact.
The MLEI is an incredibly powerful assessment that has ignited the leadership development of over 6,000 global leaders, including the late Steve Jobs. Blue Skies Strategy Coaching offers the MLEI assessment to our clients. We work with them to interpret the results, understand their strengths and potential derailers, and to develop action plans to develop their ability to effectively lead and drive organizational results.
We welcome the opportunity to work with your organization to help leaders achieve their potential and lead with greater impact.
