ACUMEN® Leadership WorkStyles™
Research and development by The Acumen Development Team on the basis of research by Peter D. Gratzinger, Ph.D. and Robert A. Cooke, Ph.D.
Building on the Life Styles Inventory™ (LSI), ACUMEN Leadership WorkStyles (LWS) helps self-motivated leaders strengthen thinking and behavioural styles that promote their effectiveness and moderate styles that prevent them from realising their potential. LWS is a 360° feedback assessment and development tool for leaders that focuses on combinations of the 12 Circumplex styles and the way they interact to provide feedback on strengths and counterproductive tendencies. It provides the leader with a highly personalised narrative report on the implications of their styles for task accomplishment and teamwork, as well as suggestions for improving communication and project leadership.

How it works
LWS gathers feedback on each leader via two mechanisms:
- The LWS Self-Description Inventory is completed by each individual leader and measures his/her own perception of the thinking and behavioural styles that impact a manager’s ability to lead.
- The LWS Description-by-Others Inventory is completed by individuals with whom the leader works to provide insight into how others view the leader’s effectiveness.
LWS helps self-motivated leaders strengthen thinking and behavioural styles that promote their effectiveness by:
- collecting feedback from self and others to measure the thinking and behavioural styles that impact a manager’s ability to lead.
- providing a visual profile to graphically illustrate the leader’s behaviour along such styles as Self-Actualisation, Approval, and Competition.
- generating a detailed feedback report that draws from a large database of leaders' behaviours and describes the effectiveness of the leader’s own behavioural patterns.
An accredited practitioner then guides the leader through the findings and helps him/her to develop strategies and techniques to improve his/her long-term effectiveness and impact.
The LWS surveys are available online on almost any digital device as well as in hard copy format.
Complementary tools
LWS can be combined with Coach — Co-Achieving to teach leaders how to apply Achievement-oriented thinking to effectively coach others and improve performance.
The benefits for your organisation
LWS helps executives, managers, and leaders who would like to develop and grow to realise their full potential. It’s particularly useful for:
- providing leaders with insights into their personal styles
- showing leaders how their styles combine to shape their leadership performance
- developing leaders’ capacity to monitor and modify their behaviour
- offering leaders feedback to help them develop into positions of greater responsibilities
- improving teamwork and leadership abilities to enhance organisational effectiveness
Make LWS part of your drive for change
LWS needs to be applied by an accredited practitioner. We offer two options:
- One of our network of accredited and experienced consultants can help you use LWS and develop truly effective and influential leaders. Simply contact us to find a consultant who’s right for you.
- You can do it yourself by attending the Styles accreditation workshop where we will ensure you have the skills to administer LSI and LWS to implement meaningful leadership-development strategies. To get started, contact us to register for the accreditation workshop.
If you would like to know more about ACUMEN Leadership WorkStyles, or any of our wide range of assessments, please get in touch and we will be happy to assist you.
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