LEADERSHIP ENERGIES PROFILE™
LEADERSHIP ENERGIES PROFILE™ is an assessment designed based on an adaptation of the DISC profile from a purposefulness perspective to help individuals understand the leadership energies that come most naturally to them. By understanding these energies, individuals can contribute more effectively, work in ways that are naturally energising, and collaborate with others whose energies complement their own. The profile also helps teams leverage diverse leadership energies to enhance effectiveness, engagement, and organisational flourishing.
The Concept
Leadership is not limited to position or authority. Every individual contributes to leadership through the way they approach challenges, engage with people, build trust, and develop growth. The Leadership Energies Profile identifies four leadership energies: Driving, Inspiring, Stabilising, and Cultivating. While all four energies are available to us, some are expressed more naturally than others. Understanding these preferences helps us appreciate our strengths, recognise the differing strengths of others, and contribute more purposefully to the teams and organisations we serve.
Optimal Leadership Energies
When we are able to contribute through the leadership energies that come most naturally to us, leadership becomes more effective, sustainable, and energising. The Leadership Energies Profile helps individuals identify where they naturally create value and where they are most likely to thrive. It also helps teams understand how different leadership energies complement one another, enabling responsibilities to be allocated more effectively and reducing the tendency for people to operate outside their natural preferences for extended periods.
The Four Leadership Energies
The profile identifies four distinct ways in which purpose may be expressed:
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Driving – Moving self, people, and organisations towards a better future.
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Inspiring – Helping self, people, and organisations commit to a better future.
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Stabilising – Creating trust, resilience, and sustainable flourishing.
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Cultivating – Growing, developing, and enabling self, people, and organisations.
Each energy plays a valuable role in purposeful leadership.
How is the Leadership Energies Profile Distinct?
Distinct from Traditional DISC
The Leadership Energies Profile™ builds on the foundations of traditional DISC while reframing each dimension through the lens of purposeful leadership contribution.
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Dominance → Driving: Traditional DISC associates Dominance with being assertive, competitive, decisive and results-oriented. The Leadership Energies Profile™ reframes this as Driving: the energy to move self, people and organisations purposefully towards a better future through initiative, momentum and achievement.
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Influence → Inspiring: Traditional DISC associates Influence with enthusiasm, sociability, persuasion and optimism. The Leadership Energies Profile™ reframes this as Inspiring: the energy to generate belief, commitment and engagement around meaningful goals, possibilities and aspirations.
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Steadiness → Stabilising: Traditional DISC associates Steadiness with patience, dependability, consistency and supportiveness. The Leadership Energies Profile™ reframes this as Stabilising: the energy to create trust, resilience, harmony and sustainable flourishing for individuals, teams and organisations.
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Conscientiousness → Cultivating: Traditional DISC associates Conscientiousness with accuracy, analysis, quality and attention to detail. The Leadership Energies Profile™ reframes this as Cultivating: the energy to develop people, capability, learning and long-term growth through continuous improvement, high standards, thoughtful refinement and attention to detail.
Rather than focusing primarily on behavioural preferences, the Leadership Energies Profile™ examines the positive leadership contributions naturally expressed through each energy when individuals live and lead purposefully.
A More Comprehensive Leadership Perspective
Traditional DISC typically provides a single perspective on behavioural preferences. The Leadership Energies Profile™ extends this by examining leadership energies across three distinct domains:
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Self Leadership
How you lead yourself through your thoughts, decisions, actions and personal growth. -
People Leadership
How you contribute to the growth, development and flourishing of the people around you. -
Organisational Leadership
How you contribute to the values, culture, effectiveness, growth and future of teams, organisations and communities.
The complimentary report provides an overview of your overall leadership energy pattern. The comprehensive report provides a detailed analysis of each of these three leadership domains, offering deeper insights into your leadership strengths, preferences and development opportunities
The Four ‘’Leadership Energies"
Unlike personality traits or learned leadership competencies, leadership energies reflect the natural ways in which individuals contribute when leading themselves, influencing others and shaping organisations. Each energy represents a distinct form of leadership contribution. While every person can access all four energies, most people will naturally express one or two more strongly than the others. Understanding your leadership energies helps you contribute more effectively, appreciate the strengths of others and lead in ways that are both authentic and sustainable.
Leadership Energy #1: Driving
Driving leaders are catalysts for movement and results. They naturally identify opportunities, establish direction and create momentum towards a better future. They thrive when setting goals, overcoming obstacles, making decisions and turning aspirations into achievements. Their leadership contribution lies in helping people and organisations move forward with clarity, courage and purpose.
Leadership Energy #2:INSPIRING
Inspiring leaders create belief in what is possible. They naturally energise people, communicate compelling visions and build commitment around meaningful goals. They thrive when generating enthusiasm, strengthening relationships and encouraging others to contribute their best. Their leadership contribution lies in helping people and organisations see possibilities and believe they can achieve them.
Leadership Energy #3: stabilising
Stabilising leaders create confidence, consistency and trust. They naturally support people through change, strengthen relationships and foster environments where individuals and teams can flourish over time. They thrive when building collaboration, maintaining stability and ensuring that progress is sustainable. Their leadership contribution lies in creating the foundations upon which long-term success can be built.
Leadership Energy #4: Cultivating
Cultivating leaders focus on growth, improvement and capability building. They naturally develop people, systems and organisations through thoughtful refinement, high standards and continuous learning. They thrive when coaching others, improving quality, strengthening processes and helping individuals realise their potential. Their leadership contribution lies in nurturing the conditions that enable people and organisations to grow and flourish.
Benefits of Knowing
Our Leadership Energies
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Helps us contribute at our best
When people understand their natural leadership energies, they can focus on making their most valuable contributions. Rather than trying to lead like everyone else, they can build on their natural strengths and bring greater value to their teams and organisations. Driving leaders create momentum, Inspiring leaders generate commitment, Stabilising leaders build trust, and Cultivating leaders develop capability. Understanding these natural contributions enables people to lead with greater confidence, authenticity and effectiveness.
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Helps us work better with others
Every leadership energy brings unique strengths, perspectives and contributions. When people understand their own leadership energies and appreciate those of others, they are less likely to see differences as weaknesses or obstacles. Instead, they recognise how diverse leadership energies complement one another. This creates stronger collaboration, better communication, improved teamwork and greater collective effectiveness.
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Helps us lead at optimal energy
People are most engaged, productive and fulfilled when they spend more time operating through their natural leadership energies. Working against our preferred energies for prolonged periods can be draining, while working through our strengths often creates energy and momentum. Understanding our leadership energies helps us align responsibilities, roles and leadership opportunities in ways that maximise both performance and personal fulfilment.
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Helps us build balanced leadership teams
No single leadership energy is sufficient for long-term success. Organisations need people who can drive progress, inspire commitment, stabilise relationships and cultivate growth. Understanding leadership energies helps teams identify their collective strengths and potential gaps. This enables leaders to allocate responsibilities more effectively and build teams that balance execution, engagement, sustainability and continuous improvement.
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Helps us develop as leaders
Leadership development is most effective when it begins with self-awareness. Understanding our leadership energies helps us recognise our greatest strengths while identifying areas where we may benefit from the support and perspectives of others. Rather than trying to become someone else, we can develop our leadership in ways that build on our natural energies while broadening our ability to contribute across different situations and challenges.
These five benefits align closely with your core philosophy that leadership is contribution, not position, and that the profile helps people understand, value and apply their natural leadership contributions more purposefully.
Leadership Energies assessment
The Leadership Energies Assessment is one of the few ways of discovering an individual's most naturally preferred leadership energies. It is unique from any other mental measurement you may have taken, as it is a combination of affective and cognitive mental activity.
There truly are no right or wrong, good or bad answers or results, and there are no biases relating to expertise, gender, age, or race. It will help you understand your leadership energies and reflect on how best to employ them in relation to the leadership energies of your colleagues (once they have their reports in hand), thereby enhancing the collective purposefulness and impact of your leadership.
How to Take the Leadership Energies Assessment
The Purposeful Leadership assessments are simple and easy to complete. Respondents are asked to select their most preferred and least preferred responses from four options presented for a range of leadership situations. The assessment consists of 24 situations and typically takes around 10 minutes to complete, although completion time may vary between individuals. We use adaptive testing to improve the practical relevance and accuracy of the insights generated.
A section of the questionnaire
THE Leadership Energies REPORTS
The Leadership Energies Brief Report – Complimentary
We are pleased to offer you the Leadership Energies Brief Report free of charge. Given below is a sample of the brief report.
How to Respond to Your Leadership Energies Results
Your Leadership Energies Profile™ reflects the leadership contributions that come most naturally to you. There are no good or bad profiles, and no leadership energy is inherently better than another. Each energy contributes differently to the flourishing of individuals, teams and organisations.
While we can develop skills and capabilities across all four leadership energies, our profile highlights the energies we are most likely to express naturally, consistently and sustainably. Rather than trying to become someone else, the greatest opportunity lies in understanding and leveraging your natural leadership strengths, whilst appreciating and partnering with those who bring complementary energies. The profile is intended to increase self-awareness, enhance contribution and support more purposeful leadership at every level.
How to use the report
For Individuals:
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To understand the leadership energies that come most naturally to you and how they influence the way you lead yourself, others and your organisation.
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To identify opportunities where your natural leadership energies can be applied most effectively and fulfilingly.
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To recognise leadership activities that energise you and those that may require support from others with complementary strengths.
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To develop greater self-awareness and intentionally expand your leadership effectiveness.
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To appreciate the value of different leadership energies and improve collaboration with others.
For Organizations:
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To build balanced teams by understanding the mix of leadership energies present within the group.
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To allocate responsibilities and leadership roles in ways that align with natural strengths and maximise contribution.
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To improve team effectiveness by recognising and valuing different approaches to leadership.
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To support recruitment, succession planning, talent development and leadership pipeline initiatives.
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To identify gaps or over-dependencies in leadership energy patterns and create more sustainable organisational capability.
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To foster a culture where leadership is understood as contribution rather than position.
The Leadership Energies Profile Comprehensive Report
The Complimentary Leadership Energies Report provides an overview of your overall leadership energy pattern across the four leadership energies.
The Comprehensive Leadership Energies Report provides deeper analysis across the three leadership domains:
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Self Leadership – how you lead yourself.
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People Leadership – how you contribute to the growth and flourishing of others.
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Organisational Leadership – how you contribute to the values, culture, effectiveness, growth and future of the organisation.
This deeper analysis offers richer insights into your natural leadership contribution, strengths, preferences and development opportunities across the full spectrum of leadership.
We are in the process of making the Comprehensive Leadership Energies Profiles Report available to you in Due Course. Please email us at info@purposefulleadershipco.com so that we can let you know when the platform is ready. You could get the Leadership Energies Profile comprehensive report at a nominal fee of US $ 10.
What Inspired the Creation of Purposeful Leadership Assessments?
Dr. Ranjan De Silva, Chief Catalyst of Purposeful Leadership (Pvt) Ltd., critically examined various assessment tools in response to the needs that arose during his leadership development work over the past 25 years and customised and/or developed tools to suit the practical realities of his clients. The development of these assessment tools were also informed and strengthened with the academic rigour developed during his doctorate. It helps clients understand conative, cognitive, and affective aspects of leadership to help them reflect and develop themselves and their teams to be be purposeful leaders.
Please click here, and fill out the request form, If you would like to;
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invest in the comprehensive report for a deeper exploration at a nominal fee of $ 10 per report, and/or,
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to receive a discounted rate, if you have more than 10 participants to take the assessments, and/or,
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if you would like to recommend this assessment to family, friends or colleagues - we will send them a link through email, and/or
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to discuss your personal, team, business issues to explore solutions (diagnostics, assessments, consulting, coaching, training and follow up support).
Further Engagement
Thank you for your interest in Purposeful Leadership Assessments.
We wish you all success!