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 result 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 result bands, section scores and development guidance.
How this interactive diagnostic works
Read what it covers here first. Nothing is saved or sent until you continue. Your result is calculated once every required item is answered.
If it asks for your first name and work email, you enter them in the diagnostic itself. This page sends nothing.
Statements in this diagnostic
Statements are grouped by section. Answer each one for the situation named in the instructions, using the scale shown.
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).
- 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
- I can articulate how my day-to-day work connects to something meaningful, to my organisation's purpose or to my own values
- When priorities conflict, I have a clear framework for deciding what matters most
- I regularly review whether what I am spending my time on is genuinely aligned with my most important goals
- 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).
- I protect time for deep, focused work that requires my full attention, and I guard it from interruption
- I know when in the day I am most cognitively sharp and I schedule my most important work for that time
- I have deliberate routines that maintain my physical and mental energy across the working week
- I can recognise when my attention is fragmented and have strategies to restore focus
- 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).
- I regularly say no to requests, meetings, and tasks that are not aligned with my highest-value work
- My to-do list reflects genuine priorities, not just whatever arrived most recently in my inbox
- I complete important work before urgent but less important requests take over my time
- I proactively manage expectations when I cannot take something on, rather than over-committing and under-delivering
- 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.
- I invest in the relationships that matter for my work, I don't wait until I need something from someone
- I regularly share knowledge, expertise, and resources generously with colleagues
- I ask for feedback on my performance and genuinely use it to develop
- I contribute to others' success, not just my own objectives
- I have at least one trusted person at work with whom I can discuss challenges, ideas, and development honestly
How the result is read
Your answers are totalled for each section and overall. Each total falls into one of the bands below.
- 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 CoachingFrequently 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 totalled within each section and across the diagnostic, and each total falls into a result band.
What happens after I complete the Personal Effectiveness Profile?
Once the required items are answered, you enter your first name and email to see your results: an overall interpretation, section scores and development guidance.