Organizations pay a high price for ineffective leadership and dysfunctional teams. Low productivity, high staff turnover, and poor customer service can cripple profits and productivity. Focusing on improving leadership skills and building effective teams are high-ROI areas for organizational improvement. Towson University’s leadership development programs use scientifically grounded behavior assessments to create a foundation of self-awareness upon which to build and improve new skills, abilities, and knowledge.

Top Five Leadership Personality Tests

  • The Dominance Influence Steadiness Conscientiousness (DiSC®) Assessment tool provides self-assessment of the four-different personality types and how one’s natural tendencies impact the way information is processed and delivered. DiSC® also provides a framework to quickly understand others. This is a widely used tool because it is a simple assessment, relatively inexpensive, easy to understand, and quickly adapts to a wide range of circumstances.
  • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) assessment measures psychological preferences in how people perceive the world, take in information and make decisions. It identifies a person’s personality types and can help one understand normal differences in the way people think, communicate, and interact. Myers-Briggs is a bit more complex to administer but provides a great deal of personal insight.
  • The StrengthFinders helps individuals identify, understand, and maximize their unique combination of talents, knowledge, and skills—strengths—to do their work, achieve their goals, and interact with others.
  • Multi source assessment (360 degree feedback) is a process to acquire information from various workplace sources (employees, colleagues and supervisors) on one’s work-related behavior and/or performance. There are a number of 360 assessments.
  • The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI assessment) helps professionals conduct one-on-one and group discussions about conflict. It is a tool for managing and building teamwork.

It’s important to understand assessments are not tests; there are no correct answers. And, employment is not dependent upon the results. They are used to help team members to better understand their unique traits that may help or hinder workplace performance. Although they can be used alone, we use them as a supplement to what they learn in other exercises of our leadership development programs.