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    Interactive assessment

    Personal Effectiveness Profile

    Measure your effectiveness as an individual contributor across four dimensions: clarity and purpose, energy and attention, priorities and focus, and relationships and contribution.

    Individual effectiveness is not primarily about working harder, it is about working on the right things, in the right way, with the right people. Research from Cal Newport (2016), Greg McKeown (2014), and Stephen Covey (1989) converges on the same insight: high performers are distinguished not by effort but by clarity, focus, and intentional contribution. This profile helps you identify where your personal effectiveness is strongest and where deliberate development will have the greatest impact.

    Questions or items
    20 questions or items
    Completion time
    Around 10 minutes
    Dimensions
    Purpose & Clarity, Energy & Attention, Priority Management, Relationships & Contribution
    What you receive
    Personalised results with configured interpretation bands, section scores and development guidance.

    What it covers

    • Purpose & Clarity
    • Energy & Attention
    • Priority Management
    • Relationships & Contribution

    Rate each statement from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). Answer honestly based on how you actually work day-to-day, not on your intentions or aspirations.

    Results: Personalised results with configured interpretation bands, section scores and development guidance.

    How this interactive diagnostic works

    This page provides the documented overview before the interactive experience is loaded. It lets you read the purpose, the material covered and the way the result is presented without entering answers or sending a request. When you choose to continue, the interactive version uses the same material shown here. It records your selections while you work and only calculates its result when its required items are complete.

    Analytics consent is required before the interactive experience is mounted. Declining consent does not start the diagnostic or its tracking. If you continue, the existing experience remains responsible for its own input, score and lead-capture step. Where the route requests a first name and work email, its existing form handles validation and submission. This overview does not replace those steps or submit a lead.

    Statements in this diagnostic

    The interactive version groups the statements below by section. Read them in relation to the situation named in the instructions, then use the response scale shown by the diagnostic. The section descriptions are part of the existing configuration and explain the aspect each group is intended to examine.

    Purpose & Clarity

    Whether you have a clear sense of what you are trying to achieve and why it matters, the foundation of all effective action (Covey, 1989).

    1. I have a clear understanding of what success looks like in my role, not just the tasks, but the actual outcomes I am there to create
    2. I can articulate how my day-to-day work connects to something meaningful, to my organisation's purpose or to my own values
    3. When priorities conflict, I have a clear framework for deciding what matters most
    4. I regularly review whether what I am spending my time on is genuinely aligned with my most important goals
    5. I have a clear sense of what I want to develop and become, not just what I need to deliver

    Energy & Attention

    Your ability to manage your energy and protect your attention, the raw materials of high performance (Loehr & Schwartz, 2003; Newport, 2016).

    1. I protect time for deep, focused work that requires my full attention, and I guard it from interruption
    2. I know when in the day I am most cognitively sharp and I schedule my most important work for that time
    3. I have deliberate routines that maintain my physical and mental energy across the working week
    4. I can recognise when my attention is fragmented and have strategies to restore focus
    5. I recover from intense periods of work before my performance noticeably suffers

    Priority Management

    Your ability to say no to the non-essential and focus your time and effort on highest-value work (McKeown, 2014).

    1. I regularly say no to requests, meetings, and tasks that are not aligned with my highest-value work
    2. My to-do list reflects genuine priorities, not just whatever arrived most recently in my inbox
    3. I complete important work before urgent but less important requests take over my time
    4. I proactively manage expectations when I cannot take something on, rather than over-committing and under-delivering
    5. At the end of most working days, I feel I worked on what mattered most, not just what was loudest

    Relationships & Contribution

    The quality of your working relationships and your broader contribution to the people and organisation around you.

    1. I invest in the relationships that matter for my work, I don't wait until I need something from someone
    2. I regularly share knowledge, expertise, and resources generously with colleagues
    3. I ask for feedback on my performance and genuinely use it to develop
    4. I contribute to others' success, not just my own objectives
    5. I have at least one trusted person at work with whom I can discuss challenges, ideas, and development honestly

    How the result is read

    The interactive diagnostic totals the selected item scores by section and across the whole assessment. It then matches those totals to the configured interpretation bands and shows the section-level results alongside the overall result.

    • Developing, 20 to 44: Significant development opportunity across multiple dimensions of personal effectiveness. Start with Purpose & Clarity, without a clear sense of what matters most, improvements in the other dimensions will have limited impact.
    • Emerging, 45 to 64: You have some effectiveness foundations with clear development gaps. You likely work hard but may not always feel like your effort is producing the impact you want. Focus on your lowest-scoring dimension, it is likely the bottleneck.
    • Capable, 65 to 82: Strong personal effectiveness across most dimensions. The opportunity is to move from capable to excellent, deepening your discipline in your weakest area and building more consistency under pressure.
    • High Performer, 83 to 100: You demonstrate the habits and practices of a high-performing individual contributor. The opportunity now is to help others develop the same effectiveness and to take on challenges that require higher-order contribution.

    Sources named in this diagnostic

    • Covey, S.R. (1989) The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Free Press.
    • Loehr, J. and Schwartz, T. (2003) The Power of Full Engagement. New York: Free Press.
    • McKeown, G. (2014) Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. New York: Crown Business.
    • Newport, C. (2016) Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. New York: Grand Central Publishing.

    Where to take the next step

    Executive coaching creates space to build self-awareness, work through leadership challenges and sustain performance.

    Explore Executive Coaching

    Frequently asked questions

    What does the Personal Effectiveness Profile measure?

    Individual effectiveness is not primarily about working harder, it is about working on the right things, in the right way, with the right people. Research from Cal Newport (2016), Greg McKeown (2014), and Stephen Covey (1989) converges on the same insight: high performers are distinguished not by effort but by clarity, focus, and intentional contribution. This profile helps you identify where your personal effectiveness is strongest and where deliberate development will have the greatest impact.

    How many questions are in the Personal Effectiveness Profile?

    It contains 20 questions grouped into 4 dimensions: Purpose & Clarity, Energy & Attention, Priority Management, Relationships & Contribution.

    How is the Personal Effectiveness Profile scored?

    Responses are scored within each section and totalled across the diagnostic. The total is compared with the configured interpretation bands.

    What happens after I complete the Personal Effectiveness Profile?

    After the required items are answered, the existing first-name and email gate is shown before the results are displayed. The result includes an overall interpretation, section scores and development guidance.

    More to explore

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