Articles / Where Is Your Leadership? Finding and Assessing Your Leadership
Development, Training & CoachingDiscover where your leadership is. Learn how to assess your leadership through self-reflection, feedback, and formal assessment to understand your capabilities.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Sat 10th January 2026
Your leadership is found in your daily actions, decisions, and influence on others—revealed through honest self-assessment using tools like 360-degree feedback, emotional intelligence inventories, and reflective practice that examine how you communicate, make decisions, develop others, and respond to challenges, with research showing that companies with self-aware leaders demonstrate higher financial returns and that 90 percent of top performers possess high emotional intelligence developed through systematic self-reflection. Finding your leadership requires looking inward before leading outward.
Where does your leadership actually reside? This question challenges leaders to move beyond assumptions about their capabilities and examine their actual impact. Effective leadership begins with self-awareness—understanding your strengths, blind spots, values, and effects on others. Without this foundation, leadership development becomes directionless.
This guide examines how to find and assess your leadership through reflection, feedback, and formal assessment, providing a framework for understanding where your leadership currently is and where it could grow.
Why knowing yourself matters for leadership.
"Companies with higher rates of financial return tend to employ professionals with high degrees of self-awareness, according to an analysis by Korn/Ferry International."
Self-awareness benefits: - Better decision-making - Improved relationships - Enhanced credibility - Greater adaptability - Stronger influence
"By taking assessments, leaders can recognize behavioral patterns and gain insight into how they manage themselves and their colleagues. This self-awareness is critical to effective leadership because it develops emotional intelligence—an ability that's possessed by 90 percent of top performers in the workplace."
Emotional intelligence elements:
| Component | Self-Awareness Aspect |
|---|---|
| Self-awareness | Knowing your emotions |
| Self-regulation | Managing your responses |
| Motivation | Understanding your drivers |
| Empathy | Sensing others' feelings |
| Social skills | Managing relationships |
"One of the key traits of an effective leader is self-awareness and understanding your current leadership is the first step in becoming a better leader."
Development foundation: 1. Know where you are 2. Identify where you want to be 3. Understand the gaps 4. Create development plan 5. Monitor progress
Self-examination practices.
"A good leader is self-aware and engages in ongoing practice of self-reflection. Ask questions to understand yourself and it will help you be better prepared for challenging situations."
Reflection questions: - What did I do well today as a leader? - Where did I fall short of my values? - How did my actions affect others? - What would I do differently? - What triggered my reactions?
Document your leadership journey:
Journaling practices: - Daily leadership reflections - Decision analysis recordings - Interaction observations - Emotional response tracking - Progress documentation
"Be self-aware, and notice your effect on others. Strive for consistency between your words and actions."
Observation areas: - Team energy after interactions - Response patterns from colleagues - Feedback received informally - Relationship quality indicators - Trust signals from others
Structured approaches to understanding.
"The LPI Self is a self-assessment that enables leaders to assess their leadership competencies and act on their discoveries. This powerful assessment and detailed report will help leaders take a powerful step toward achieving the extraordinary."
LPI framework: - Model the Way - Inspire a Shared Vision - Challenge the Process - Enable Others to Act - Encourage the Heart
"This leadership assessment tool analyzes the 29 key dimensions of leadership and aggregates these findings to help you understand whether you are considered a reactive leader or a creative leader."
Assessment dimensions: - Creative leadership competencies - Reactive leadership tendencies - Relationship patterns - Task accomplishment - Self-development orientation
Harvard Business School uses this assessment:
ESCI components: - Self-awareness assessment - Self-management evaluation - Social awareness measurement - Relationship management analysis
Understanding your leadership values:
Values assessment areas: - Personal values clarification - Organisational values alignment - Decision-making principles - Ethical foundations - Priority hierarchies
Gathering multiple perspectives.
Comprehensive leadership perspective:
Feedback sources:
| Source | Perspective |
|---|---|
| Self | Your own perception |
| Superior | Performance and potential |
| Peers | Collaboration effectiveness |
| Direct reports | Leadership impact |
| Others | External relationships |
Why multiple views matter:
360 benefits: 1. Reduces blind spots 2. Validates self-perception 3. Identifies discrepancies 4. Provides specific examples 5. Creates development focus
How to use feedback effectively:
Processing approach: - Receive with openness - Look for patterns - Avoid defensiveness - Seek clarification - Create action plans
Domains of leadership expression.
Leadership in how you communicate:
Communication indicators: - Clarity of messaging - Listening quality - Feedback delivery - Difficult conversation navigation - Vision articulation
Leadership in choices:
Decision indicators: - Speed of decisions - Quality of analysis - Values consistency - Stakeholder consideration - Accountability acceptance
Leadership in connections:
Relationship indicators: - Trust development - Conflict resolution - Collaboration quality - Support provision - Boundary maintenance
Leadership in growing people:
Development indicators: - Coaching frequency - Feedback quality - Opportunity provision - Challenge assignment - Growth acknowledgement
Leadership during challenge:
Pressure indicators: - Composure maintenance - Decision quality - Communication clarity - Support continuation - Recovery speed
Finding areas for growth.
Areas leaders often miss:
Typical blind spots: - Impact of behaviour on others - Communication clarity gaps - Delegation effectiveness - Emotional response patterns - Consistency between values and actions
Comparing perspectives:
Gap analysis:
| Area | Self-Rating | Others' Rating | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Communication | How you see it | How others see it | Difference |
| Decision-making | Your perception | Others' perception | Discrepancy |
| Relationships | Your view | Others' experience | Variance |
Focus where it matters most:
Prioritisation criteria: 1. Impact on effectiveness 2. Frequency of application 3. Development feasibility 4. Strategic importance 5. Personal motivation
From assessment to action.
Set meaningful objectives:
Goal characteristics: - Specific and measurable - Connected to assessment findings - Aligned with career aspirations - Achievable with stretch - Time-bound for accountability
Actions for growth:
Development approaches: - Formal training programmes - Coaching relationships - Stretch assignments - Mentoring connections - Reading and study - Practice and reflection
Track leadership development:
Progress indicators: - Feedback changes over time - Behaviour pattern shifts - Outcome improvements - Relationship quality gains - Confidence development
Ongoing self-examination.
Regular reflection prompts:
Daily questions: 1. How did I lead today? 2. What impact did I have? 3. Where did I demonstrate my values? 4. What would I improve? 5. Who did I develop?
Broader perspective examination:
Weekly questions: - What patterns emerged this week? - Where was I most effective? - What situations challenged me? - How did I manage my energy? - What did I learn about my leadership?
Long-term leadership examination:
Strategic questions: - Where is my leadership heading? - What legacy am I building? - How am I developing others? - What values am I demonstrating? - Where do I need to grow most?
Your leadership is found in your daily actions, decisions, and influence on others. It manifests in how you communicate, make decisions, build relationships, develop people, and respond to challenges. Understanding where your leadership currently resides requires honest self-assessment through reflection, feedback, and formal assessment tools.
Self-awareness is important because companies with self-aware leaders demonstrate higher financial returns, and 90 percent of top performers possess high emotional intelligence developed through self-reflection. Self-awareness enables better decision-making, improved relationships, enhanced credibility, and more effective leadership development.
A leadership self-assessment is a structured evaluation of your leadership capabilities, behaviours, and impact. Tools include the Leadership Practices Inventory (LPI), Leadership Circle Assessment, Emotional and Social Competency Inventory, and 360-degree feedback processes that help leaders understand strengths and development areas.
Find leadership blind spots through 360-degree feedback comparing self-perception with others' observations, reflective journaling noting patterns and reactions, coaching relationships providing external perspective, and formal assessments highlighting discrepancies between self-rating and external feedback.
Key leadership self-reflection questions include: How did I lead today? What impact did I have on others? Where did I demonstrate my values? What would I do differently? Who did I develop? What patterns am I noticing? Where do I need to grow most? Regular reflection builds leadership self-awareness.
Develop leadership after self-assessment by creating specific goals based on findings, engaging in formal training programmes, establishing coaching relationships, seeking stretch assignments, building mentoring connections, practising new behaviours, and regularly measuring progress through follow-up assessment and feedback.
360-degree feedback for leadership gathers perspectives from multiple sources—self-assessment, superior evaluation, peer observations, and direct report feedback—to create comprehensive understanding of leadership effectiveness. It reduces blind spots, validates self-perception, and identifies specific development priorities.