What if assessments could grow leadership cultures, not just individual strengths? 

After 15+ years designing and delivering leadership assessments across all sectors and levels, from high-potential managers to CEOs, I’ve noticed a pattern: leadership is nearly always treated like a solo pursuit. 

A report lands. A 1:1 debrief follows. Maybe a few development goals get added to the appraisal cycle. But even in the best-run programmes, leaders are left to figure out what to do with the insight, on their own. 

So they grow in isolation, rather than in a community, which is at odds with what leadership actually is: a team sport. Leadership doesn’t happen in a silo – or at least, the best kind doesn’t. It happens in boardrooms, in crisis meetings, in moments of tension and transition. Leadership is a collective capability, and it’s time our assessment strategies caught up with that reality.

At Hanover Leadership Solutions, we believe it’s time to move from insight to impact, from individual development to collective capability.

We designed The Leadership Code to meet that need. This framework isn’t just used to assess individuals, but to spark shared conversations, to give leadership teams a common language, and to align people around what leadership looks like together in their unique context.

One framework, applied collectively

We introduced The Leadership Code as a way to define the six archetypes driving effective leadership today. Its real strength lies in understanding how these styles interact, so that we can treat leadership as an ecosystem, not a fragmented set of standalone profiles.

• A visionary leader may set an ambitious direction, but without a growth-oriented peer who fosters experimentation and learning, that vision risks stalling.
• A transformative leader might push bold change, but without an empathetic counterpart who can sense the temperature of the team, momentum could fracture under the weight of resistance.
• An inclusive leader ensures diverse perspectives are surfaced and heard. Without them, decisions become narrow and critical insight from across the business gets lost in the noise.
• In moments of uncertainty, it’s the quiet presence of a resilient leader that anchors progress, absorbing pressure while others focus on strategy, innovation or stakeholder alignment.

It’s not about everyone being great at everything. The value comes from building combinations that create adaptive strength. That’s where the power of cognitive diversity lives, and where the framework starts to move from personal insight to collective impact.

The key is assessing not just who you have, but how they work together. Instead of focusing on “what’s missing” in an individual, you should be asking: what strengths already exist across our leadership bench? Where are the gaps, the blind spots, the complementary dynamics?

This becomes especially powerful at board level, where stakes are highest and the risks of groupthink are real. As part of our board services, we’ve begun applying The Leadership Code as a diagnostic tool for mapping the behavioural make-up of the board, such as by identifying which voices are missing or which archetypes are overrepresented.

The goal is to build consciously, not just appoint reactively.

From insight to alignment

What makes The Leadership Code so effective isn’t the archetypes themselves, but the shared language they create. Once leadership teams have that common framework, the conversation changes.

Suddenly, “he’s not strategic enough” becomes “we’re missing visionary capability in this role.” “We’ve got resilience and operational strength” leads to “we need inclusive leadership to protect psychological safety and avoid centralised decision-making.” 

It’s all about understanding how leaders complement each other, how they collaborate, and how they collectively lead the organisation forward. Because today’s challenges demand more than high-performing individuals. They require leadership cultures built on:

• Shared purpose
• Inclusion and psychological safety
• Empathy, agility and resilience
• A commitment to learning together, not alone

The real opportunity isn’t just to help leaders know themselves better. It’s to help them lead better, together. Assessments can do that, but only if we design them with collective impact in mind.

Why how we assess leadership must change, now

In volatile times, there’s a tendency to focus on individual heroics. To search for the “next big leader.” But from what I’ve seen, the most resilient organisations aren’t built around star performers. They’re built around leadership systems that are self-aware, self-correcting and collectively intelligent.

The Leadership Code helps your leadership bench function like organisational connective tissue. Misalignments become easier to spot, and development becomes a joint conversation rather than a solo journey.

You begin to invest differently. You plan leadership transitions with greater foresight. You bake capability not just into individuals, but into the system. That’s when leadership starts to feel less like a collection of people and more like an aligned, adaptive force within the business.

So stop asking “Who’s the best leader?” and start asking, “What does this team need to lead well, together?” That’s the future of leadership development. And it starts with how we assess.

If this is something you’d like to hear more about, I’d love to have a conversation.