Cheryl Miller, President of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives (SOLACE), talks about testing the Leadership Diagnostic Tool.

“We’ve spent several years looking at how to develop leadership rather than simply improving management skills. In the past, politicians were seen as leaders and Chief Executives as ‘just’ managers but Chief Executives’ jobs have become a lot more complex. There’s a lot of evidence to show that extra skills are needed so that we can inspire people to transform organisations as well as simply run effective organisations - which is a challenge in itself.

When I was asked to test this tool, which is a combination of questionnaire and follow-up coaching sessions, I was a bit sceptical about what it was trying to do, and the subjectivity of some of the questions turned me off a bit. However, when I saw the analysis and understood what it was trying to achieve it was very interesting.

It wasn’t just a broad personality analysis - it said things such as ‘this is an area where you are strong, and this is what you can do to get even stronger’.

The suggestions I was given were not necessarily things that I would have thought to try, but when I did they made a real difference. For example, it advised me to bring more of my personal life in when I make presentations, and although I was a bit uncomfortable with the idea, it did help people empathise with me.

There are still autocratic leaders around who get what they want and do what they want, and they might find this particular tool quite uncomfortable, because it deals with ‘softer’ issues. But provided that they’re professionally supported and there’s backup to talk them through, it would be useful to them.”

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