Most leaders believe they know how they come across. The Leadership Circle Profile tells them how they actually do. It’s the 360 assessment I use with every executive I coach, and this post explains what it measures, how it works, and why it changes leaders in a way most feedback doesn’t.
What Is the Leadership Circle Profile?
The Leadership Circle Profile (LCP) is a 360-degree leadership assessment developed by Bob Anderson and described in the book Mastering Leadership, which he wrote with William Adams. You rate yourself, and the people who work with you rate you too: your boss, peers, direct reports and others. Their answers are combined into a single circular graphic that shows how your leadership is experienced.
What sets it apart from other 360s is that it measures two things at once. It shows the strengths that make leaders effective, and it shows the reactive habits that get in the way. More importantly, it connects those habits to the beliefs that drive them.
The Five Creative Dimensions
The top half of the circle shows Creative Competencies, the behaviors of leaders who lead from purpose, vision and genuine connection. There are 18 competencies grouped into five dimensions:
Relating: how well you build relationships, foster teamwork, collaborate and develop others
Self-Awareness: your capacity for self-reflection, balance, composure and continued learning
Authenticity: your integrity and your courage to say what needs to be said
Systems Awareness: how well you think about the whole system, its long-term health and the community it serves
Achieving: your strategic focus, vision, decisiveness and track record of results
The Three Reactive Tendencies
The bottom half of the circle shows Reactive Tendencies, 11 patterns grouped into three dimensions. These are the habits that once helped a leader succeed and now limit them:
Complying: seeking safety by pleasing others, fitting in and avoiding conflict. From the outside it can look like passivity.
Protecting: seeking safety by staying distant, critical or the smartest person in the room. Teams often experience it as arrogance.
Controlling: seeking worth through results, perfection and control. It shows up as driving too hard, micromanaging and impatience.
Most leaders have some of each. The question isn’t whether you have reactive tendencies. It’s how much they’re running the show, and what they cost your team.
Why It Works When Other Feedback Doesn’t
Most feedback tells you what to change: be more decisive, delegate more, listen better. Leaders hear it, agree, and then nothing changes, because the behavior is held in place by something underneath it.
The Leadership Circle Profile goes a level deeper. A leader who can’t delegate often believes, without quite knowing it, that their worth depends on their own output. A leader who avoids conflict may believe that being liked is what keeps them safe. The LCP makes those patterns visible, and once you can see the belief, you can choose something different.
As a therapist for more than two decades and the leader of a company for 12 years, I find this is where real change happens. My clients don’t get “therapized,” but they do get someone who understands both the person and the system they lead.
What the Process Looks Like
Choose your raters. You select the colleagues who will give feedback, usually your boss, peers and direct reports.
Complete the survey. You and your raters each answer the online assessment. Rater responses are grouped, so no one’s individual answers are identified, apart from your boss’s, which are shown separately.
Debrief your results. We go through your profile together. This is where the circle turns into insight about what’s working, what’s in the way, and why.
Build a development plan. We pick one or two shifts that would make the biggest difference, and work on them in real situations over the following months.
Who It’s For
The Leadership Circle Profile works best for leaders who already have a track record of success and want to understand why they’ve hit a ceiling, or why the way they’ve always led no longer works. That includes:
Founders and CEOs whose companies have outgrown how they lead
Executives preparing for a bigger role
New leaders moving from individual contributor to leading people
Leadership teams that want to work together more effectively
HR leaders and boards investing in a leader’s development
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the Leadership Circle Profile different from other 360 assessments?
Most 360s measure competencies. The LCP also measures the reactive tendencies that undermine them, and connects both to the beliefs that drive behavior. That’s what makes the change stick.
Is the feedback anonymous?
Rater feedback is combined by group, so individual responses aren’t identified. Your boss’s ratings are usually shown on their own.
Do I need a coach to use it?
The Leadership Circle Profile is delivered through certified practitioners, and the debrief is where most of the value lies. The circle shows you the pattern. The conversation helps you understand it and decide what to do.
Let’s Talk
If you’re a leader who’s ready to see how your leadership actually lands, and what’s driving it, let’s talk . You can also learn more about the 360 assessment process here.
