Diagnose capability · grounds Training
Manager Strength Index
Stop guessing. Start knowing.
The MSI surfaces the skills and capabilities of your managers, so we can pinpoint exactly where and how they need support.
The question it answers
What can our managers do today, and where are the gaps?
The MSI is evidence-based: it measures how managers actually respond in real situations, not how they rate themselves. It is especially powerful for early-career managers, and for people making a key transition, such as moving from managing people to managing managers, giving them a clear scan of their skills and capability and raising the blindspots before they bite. Every manager receives a unique report and a clear sense of where to focus next.
What it helps you do
Surface execution blockers
- Identify where management behaviour is causing problems
- Map performance constraints across departments and teams
- Focus investment where it will solve real problems
Discover and leverage strengths
- Discover hidden strengths and bright spots
- Identify high-performing patterns to replicate
- Leverage internal expertise for peer learning
Focus strategic action
- Focus action where it matters most
- Align effort with business objectives
- Maximise ROI on performance investment
Four ways to run it
Scored against the behaviours that matter to you.
The MSI is only as useful as the competency framework that sits underneath it that it is scoring your managers against. So you choose how that framework is built, from off-the-shelf to fully bespoke.
Use our general framework
Run the MSI on the 10X Management Competency Framework as it is: three objectives, twelve behaviours, built with our community. The fastest way to a cohort-wide baseline.
Use an industry variant
Run a version tuned to the realities of your sector, so managers are scored against what good looks like in your industry, not in the abstract.
Built on your own framework
Already have a competency or leadership framework? We power the MSI with it, so the scoring speaks your organisation's language from day one.
We build the framework, then the MSI
No framework yet? We use Team Voice to surface how your organisation actually leads, build a bespoke competency framework from it, then power a custom MSI on top.
Our General Competency Framework.
We worked with our community to define what great management and leadership looks like generally: three core objectives and twelve underlying behaviours. The MSI scores each manager against this framework to identify their strengths and surface the gaps.
How the assessment works
Importance ratings
Managers rate the importance of the 12 core competencies in their role, from 'not important' to 'critical'. It surfaces their priorities, and where personal focus may not align with what the organisation needs.
Situational assessment
Scenario-based questions reveal how a manager is most likely to respond to real challenges. No right or wrong answers, just genuine behavioural tendencies, measured rather than self-reported.
Optional 360
Add a 360 and colleagues, line managers and direct reports add their perspectives, returned as a quantifiable Manager Approval Score. A rounded, accurate view, and shared understanding between a manager and the people around them.
Every manager gets a personalised scorecard.
Competency scores
Rated on a 1 to 5 scale across all 12 core competencies.
Peer benchmarks
Company, industry and function comparisons.
Impact prioritisation
Where to focus effort for the greatest business impact.
Cohort-level insight
Aggregate every report into one cohort view.
Roll your managers' individual reports into a community aggregate report and read the whole cohort at once: relative strengths, opportunities, threats and risks across your managers and leaders. It pinpoints how to support each and every manager, and how to develop them as a collective.
- Relative strengths and opportunities across the cohort
- Threats and risks, surfaced before they bite
- How to help each manager, and the group as a whole
Prove it moved
Measure performance impact
Run the MSI at the start and end of a performance initiative to demonstrate measurable improvement and prove ROI to leadership. Show the business exactly how investment translates to problems solved.
Baseline assessment
Surface where problems exist and establish the starting point.
Focused execution
Solve real problems with targeted action based on MSI insights.
Impact measurement
Re-assess to demonstrate growth and business value.
Development impact cycle
Measurable improvement across key competencies, from baseline to re-assessment.
See our full range of discovery tools
We never solve a problem we have not surfaced. We deploy the diagnostic that fits the ground you want to work on.
Manager Strength Index
For when you have a group of managers and leaders you want to build skill and capability in.
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