Ever wish you could read your employees' minds to see what they're actually thinking, so you could better identify what they need from you, their leader?
Being an equitable leader requires knowing our people well enough to understand what they need, and how they need it, to succeed. Easier said than done.
What Is a Leadership Style Assessment?
A leadership style assessment is a tool that helps leaders identify how they approach decisions, communication, and managing people. Most focus on the leader's own habits and tendencies. That is a useful start, but it only answers half the question. Great leaders also need to know what the people they lead need from them.
Why Knowing Your Own Style Is Not Enough
To be an equitable leader, we must first establish clear communication on what we're asking for, then build trust and give our team the autonomy they crave to get the job done (no more micromanaging). That frees up time to develop relationships with our people and understand who they are and what they need from us.
Again, easier said than done. Each member of our team has a unique set of needs, and it isn't easy to identify what those needs are, or even where to start.
Truly mastering that level of insight into our team, enough to build a psychologically safe work environment, can take years. That means the benefits, increased productivity, effective innovative strategies, and better employee health, can take years to arrive too.
Do we really have time to wait?
The human brain also contains a vast variety of biases that get in the way of equitable leadership. Learning to overcome them in pursuit of clarity, autonomy, relationships, and equity is the crux of DX's program, CARE Anywhere. Our goal was to build a tool that helps leaders meet the needs of their people by tailoring their leadership approach to individual needs.
That tool is built on the new golden rule of leadership: "Treat others how they want to be treated."
Treating New Hires and Veterans Differently
This means not stealing autonomy from our teams, and instead letting them figure out how to execute their tasks, even if that means a mistake or two along the way. Anyone who has managed a newbie knows this is no simple feat. More guidance is often needed when an employee is in a developmental period, whether they're taking on new responsibilities, learning a new skill, or brand new to the team.
The way we treat a newbie versus someone who has been with us for 5+ years is night and day, especially when it comes to autonomy. If those are our extremes, how do we know where the rest of our team sits on that spectrum?
Meet CARE Aware: A Different Kind of Leadership Assessment
We identified 18 items across 9 spectrums of characteristics that we could measure in a brief survey, giving leaders a foundational understanding of where their people sit under the umbrella of CARE. Clarity, Autonomy, and Relationships have 3 spectrums each.
We use the survey scores to generate a profile for each team member, with a tailored recommendation on what they crave from leadership and how to treat them equitably.
When we built CARE Aware, we looked back at our experience with workplace personality and behavioral assessments and noted what we loved and what we hated. That shaped three design choices.
Short by Design
We hated the length. No one has time for a 120-item personality inventory, no matter how insightful it may be, so we kept CARE Aware brief.
Spectrums, Not Buckets
In most "type indicator" assessments, a line in the sand buckets everyone into one of two categories. Depending on where you sit on the spectrum, two points in either direction can categorize you differently.
For example, if introversion and extraversion are measured on a -30 (introvert) to +30 (extravert) scale with 0 as the dividing line, someone who is a +2 extravert has more in common with someone who is a -3 introvert than with a +25 extravert. These lines and buckets say little about ourselves or the people we lead, and they fail to name the nuances of an individual.
CARE Aware therefore has a moderate category in the center. Instead of sorting people into introverts and extraverts, we recognize introverts, extraverts, and ambiverts. This way, we see ourselves on a full spectrum.
Telling the Moderates Apart
Most people fall toward the center of each spectrum, so we wanted more insight into the people who land there. In most aggregate scoring, someone with a high preference in both directions looks the same as someone with a slight preference in both directions.
For example, CARE Aware examines preference for guidance versus choice (one of three spectrums in the Autonomy section). If someone scores high in both directions, we can assume they enjoy the freedom to choose how they execute a project while still wanting guidance that keeps them heading in the right direction. If someone scores low in both, we can assume they don't take kindly to high oversight but don't feel comfortable taking the reins on a project either.
As leaders, we would likely treat these two people very differently, but without the discernment of moderate scores, we wouldn't see how each one likes to be treated.
How CARE Aware Helps Leaders Adapt Their Style
CARE Aware helps leaders identify outliers on our team and learn how to use those extreme traits to our advantage. This is the power behind knowing our people. We see the nuances, and we can strategize around people's strengths while having empathy for their personal needs.
DX's CARE Aware Preference Indicator gives leaders better insight into their team's needs by pinpointing where each person sits on 9 spectrums relating to Clarity, Autonomy, and Relationships. Once we understand our team's preferences, we can give each person the equitable treatment they crave.
Welcome to DX's shortcut toward psychological safety: understanding the nuances of our people's needs through CARE Aware and treating our people how they want to be treated.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a leadership style assessment?
A leadership style assessment is a survey or tool that helps leaders understand how they approach decisions, communication, and managing people. The results highlight strengths and blind spots so leaders can adjust their approach. Some assessments focus on the leader, while others, like CARE Aware, focus on how each team member prefers to be led.
What is CARE Aware?
CARE Aware is DX Learning's preference indicator. It uses 18 items across 9 spectrums to show where each team member sits on Clarity, Autonomy, and Relationships. Leaders get a profile for each person with a tailored recommendation on what that person needs from their leader and how to treat them equitably.
How is CARE Aware different from other leadership assessments?
CARE Aware is short, at 18 items, rather than a lengthy inventory. It uses spectrums with a moderate category rather than strict buckets, so ambiverts are recognized. It also separates people who score high in both directions from those who score low in both, which reveals how they actually want to be treated.
Why should leaders treat people how they want to be treated?
Each team member has a unique set of needs, and a one-size-fits-all approach often misses them. Tailoring your leadership to individual needs builds trust and gives people the clarity and autonomy to do their best work. It also helps leaders counter the biases that get in the way of equitable leadership.
How does a leadership assessment support psychological safety?
Building psychological safety means understanding what each person needs, which can take years. An assessment like CARE Aware speeds this up by showing where each team member sits on Clarity, Autonomy, and Relationships, so leaders can respond to individual needs sooner and build trust faster.
Ready to learn how your team wants to be led? Explore the CARE framework behind CARE Aware, or get in touch to bring it to your leaders.
