The Leadership Style Assessment^©

You are a born leader!

The Leadership Style Assessment^© by AssessME.org is designed to help facilitate effective leadership team formation. to that end, every person in your church was created by God to have influence. Helping your people learn how to use their influence is what transforms them from passive participants into realizing their role as a born leader.

We do not believe in point-person leadership. We believe the Bible teaches that a “cord of three strands is not easily broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12). But our leadership philosophy goes much deeper than this. Take a look at the three-strand-cord image below…

Looking at the Strands

As you can see, the specific mix of profiles will vary, depending upon the purpose of the team. Where do these leadership types come from? Well, if you turn the three-strand chord so that you look straight at the strands, this is what you see…

The oldest Christian temperament theory model is based upon how you and I, although different, each reflect the image of God. This is because God exists as one God expressed in three distinct personalities…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each member of the godhead has specific functions and relates to His creation (mankind) in distinct ways.

God the Father – The Administrative Manager

Jesus taught us in the Lord’s Prayer to address our needs to God the Father, our Provider. When humanity displays administrative functions, they do so because they emulate God the Father’s nature. This is by design, not accident.

In our Leadership Style Assessment^©, we call this category “MANAGERS”. Managers may assess as either Administrative Leaders (focus on tasks, programs, or systems) or Team Leaders (focus on people mobilization and management).

God the Son – The Creator of All Things & Founder of Our Kingdom Mission

God the Son demonstrates both Creative and Missional qualities. He is both creative and missional. The Bible teaches that all things were made through Him. He is missional in that He came to earth to teach us, die for us, and ultimately resurrect us from mortal to immortal. But while we live on earth, He has given us a mission to make more disciples of Jesus Christ. And He has told us that He will forever be with us as we seek to carry out His mission.

In our Leadership Style Assessment^©, we categorize entrepreneurs, missional people, and creatives, as “BUILDERS”. Builders may be divided into two broad categories: Pioneering Leaders, and Strategic Planners.

God the Holy Spirit – The Comforter, Encourager, Teacher & Guide

The Holy Spirit has been called, our ‘Paraclete’. Theologically, this term has come to be understood also as the One who comes along side of us, our Comforter, our Nurturer, and our Guide. Highly social and empathic people emulate the third person of the godhead, the Holy Spirit.

Within the Leadership Style Assessment^©, we categorize such people as “NURTURERS”. Nurturers fall into two distinct types: Persons who like to care for groups of other people (i.e., Pastoral Leaders), or persons who prefer to care for other individuals (i.e., Encouraging Leaders).

Sample Member & Admin Report

Profile Blends

In our image of the Trinity, the three circles overlap, representing areas where trait blends exist between members of the godhead. These trait-blends also exist within humanity.

Natural Blends

Our assessment highlights these blends when a dominant score, like in our example of the Pioneering Leader below, aligns closely with a secondary score from a near-related profile-type within the continuum. We refer to these as ‘Natural Blends‘. As our assessment plots each person’s scores across the leadership style continuum, someone scoring high as a Pioneer, and yet secondarily assessed as a Strategic, would be considered a natural Pioneer/Strategic blend. Refer to the graphic below for a visual representation…

Unnatural Blends

A common Unnatural blend: Although the Pioneering Leader in this example scores high in “Encouraging”, it doesn’t mean they possess true Encouraging Leader traits. The combination of “Pioneering” and “Encouraging” is termed an ‘Unnatural Blend’ because these leadership styles are not closely related on the Leadership Style continuum.

Pioneering Leaders excel in articulating a grand vision, and often can identify the many types of people needed to execute it. This ability makes them adept recruiters, thereby scoring well in the “Encouraging” category due to their skill in placing people in suitable roles.

In contrast, true Encouraging Leaders possess strong relational and empathic abilities. Whereas Pioneering Leaders are task-driven with the singular goal of making their vision a reality. Learn more about implementing the Leadership Style Assessment^© by reading Made for a Mission, by our systems designer, David A Posthuma.

Succession Planning

How your church leaders formulate leadership teams is determined by asking: “Will this leadership team create new programs, systems, or churches? Or, will they manage existing programs/churches?”. In each case, the team construct will look like one of the following…

Planned Succession

Succession planning should be intentional, ideally occurring about three to five years after establishing a new ministry program or church. Pioneering Leaders typically thrive in large projects but often grow frustrated when daily management overshadows their initial vision and momentum. They often desire to move on to new entrepreneurial projects at this stage. Healthy church leaders foresee this transition and communicate it early to everyone involved in the ministry or program, emphasizing that the change in leadership will ultimately benefit all participants. Succession planning should follow this approach…

• Pioneering Leaders are succeeded by a trained Team Leader who is better at working with people and managing the ministry’s growth on a slower pace so it may stabilize.
• Strategic Planners are succeeded by a trained Administrative Leader who can take the ministry’s blueprint and better manage its daily tasks and obligations. Strategic Planners are architects who like to help create the vision-plan, but once it’s designed, they would prefer to not address its daily task obligations of management.
• In most cases, Pastoral Leaders will remain serving as a team leader, helping to smooth over concerns regarding the leadership transition. (NOTE: In most cases, Encouraging Leaders lead others one-on-one through their personal influence rather than nurture groups of people).