In Vyla’s professional experience, personality and preferences play a significant role in understanding intrinsic attributes, values, motivations, work-style and learning preferences. More critically these factors can contribute to personal effectiveness and impact in organisational settings.

Given the changes over the past 30 years in the way organisations need to operate, the reduction in levels of management, and the growing need for leaders to be able to lead in complex environments, it’s even more important to have an understanding of how personality and preference can influence leadership effectiveness.

Given this, Vyla often uses a number of tools in her individual, team and organisational work, and her C-Suite Executive Assessment interventions. She is Level A & B certified in the area of administration and use of psychometric questionnaires, ability testing, and behavioural based profiling. The instruments Vyla often uses and/or is licensed/accredited to use include:

Customised 360° Instruments

The CIPD in the UK describes 360 degree (or 360⁰) feedback – sometimes simply called 360 feedback – as a performance appraisal method that gathers feedback on an individual from a number of sources. Its supporters claim that this gives managers and individuals better information about skills and performance, as well as working relationships, compared with more traditional appraisal arrangements based on line managers’ assessments.

The rationale for gathering 360 degree feedback is that, in complex organisations, managers will not fully understand the contribution of the people they manage, as they may be part of many different teams and engage in autonomous or semi-autonomous relationships with customers or colleagues.  There is therefore a strong argument for obtaining wide-ranging information to form an accurate picture of performance.

As part of a 360 degree feedback activity, typically a number of individuals complete questionnaires or give structured feedback describing the performance of the individual under review. The reviewers represent different types of work relationships with the individual: they could be peers, direct reports, more senior colleagues, or customers – hence the term ’360 degree’ feedback.

Vyla has in-depth experience in facilitating the development customised 360 questionnaires based on existing competency models within organisations, as well as developing “Leadership Attribute” frameworks, informed by the behaviours and competences required to effectively execute an organisation’s strategy. Vyla also has unique access to global normative databases and competency frameworks that can help in assessing the leadership and development strengths and development areas of individuals at all stages of the “Leadership Pipeline”.

Behavioural & Psychometric Tools

Hogan Core Assessments: Hogan Personality Inventory, Hogan Development Survey, Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory, and Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory measure normal personality characteristics, career derailment risks, core value drivers, and cognitive style, respectively. This multi-dimensional approach to personality assessment provides incredible insight that can serve as a powerful tool to support leadership development and performance coaching interventions

The NEO PI-R Questionnaire: the gold-standard questionnaire measure of personality assessment based on the Five Factor Model (FFM), provides a detailed personality description that can be a valuable resource for a variety of professionals. The NEO PI-R is a concise measure of the five major domains of personality, as well as the six traits or facets that define each domain. The total amount of recent data from high level academic journals concerning the NEO PI-R underpins its quality.

Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation (FIRO-B) Instrument: To achieve high performance, teams need to operate on trust and a solid foundation of good working relationships. The FIRO instrument targets this need, identifying the drivers underlying the behaviours that shape relationships for individuals and teams within an organisation. 

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator^®: The MBTI provides a constructive, flexible and liberating framework for understanding individual differences and strengths. When you understand your type preferences, you can approach your own work in a manner that best suits your style, including: how you manage your time, problem solving, best approaches for decision making, and dealing with stress. Knowledge of type can help you better understand the culture of the organisation you work in, develop new skills, understand your participation in teams, and cope with change in the workplace

Human Synergistics Development Tools: The notion of ‘reflexivity’—the capacity to become aware of self in relation to others and to the organisation—underpins the Human Synergistics’ Life Style Inventory (LSI 1 & 2), Group Styles Inventory (GSI) and Organisational Culture Inventory (GSI) development tools. Building self-awareness through feedback, creating a reality check through appreciating others’ viewpoints, and monitoring progress towards a preferred state help individuals, groups, and organisations build successful development programs.

16 Personality Factors (16PF) Questionnaire: The 16PF Questionnaire measures 16 different primary personality characteristics structured around the “Big Five” global factors of personality. The questionnaire delivers objective, empirical measurement of the personality traits that enable you to select and develop the people who will help your organisation thrive and succeed. It increases self-awareness by measuring an individual’s strengths as well as areas for development. Generating multiple datasets from one administration, 16PF is useful for screening, selection, identification of high potentials, leadership development, and coaching. It also facilitates global implementation via online availability in 20+ languages.

Vyla is also a Strategic Adviser and Preferred Partner with Talent Sage, a global executive assessment and consulting organisation. Talent Sage‘s assessment solutions are rooted in more than 20 years of academic research & consultation with global clients executing strategic organisational, learning and development, and talent management initiatives. Learn more about Talent Sage here.

Effective development at the individual, group, and organisational levels requires learning new ways of thinking and behaving. The focus is on learning, feedback, reflection, awareness, acceptance, and action.