Leadership metric library
Every term used in the Leadership Readiness Index, defined once, in one place, with how it is measured. Leadership vocabulary is used loosely almost everywhere, which makes most leadership statistics impossible to compare. These are the definitions this index uses. They are stable, versioned with the methodology, and free to quote with attribution.
Leadership types
Four modes of leading, scored 0 to 100 each. They are not exclusive. Every respondent holds all four scores, and the dominant type is simply the highest. Used in Chapter 1.
| Term | Definition | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Coach | Leads through developing people. Defaults to questions over instructions, builds capability rather than output, and measures success partly by who grew. | Highest of four type dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Strategist | Leads through analysis and system design. Wants the logic of the business mapped before moving, and prefers a correct decision late to a fast decision wrong. | Highest of four type dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Executor | Leads through action and completion. Converts intent into tasks, owners and dates, and is uncomfortable with open loops. | Highest of four type dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Visionary | Leads through direction. Articulates a future state, sets the destination, and pulls the organisation toward it. | Highest of four type dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
Leadership styles
Four patterns of how authority is exercised, scored 0 to 100 each. Used in Chapter 2.
| Term | Definition | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Autocratic | Directive. The leader decides and the organisation executes. Fast, clear, and dependent on the leader being right. | Highest of four style dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Democratic | Consultative. Decisions are made with input and often by consensus. Slower, with higher buy in. | Highest of four style dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Servant | Team first. The leader removes obstacles and serves the people doing the work, treating their success as the job. | Highest of four style dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Transformational | Change driven. The leader raises people’s sights, connects work to meaning, and leads through inspiration rather than instruction. | Highest of four style dimension scores, 0 to 100. |
| Hybrid style | A result where no single style separates from the others. Recorded as a flag, not a fifth style. | Boolean flag set by the instrument when dimension scores are too close to separate. |
The twelve leadership skills
Capabilities rather than modes, scored 0 to 20 each. A leader can be strong at all twelve, so these do not trade off against each other the way types and styles do. Used in Chapter 3.
| Skill | Definition |
|---|---|
| Relational Intelligence | Reading people accurately and adjusting to them. The capacity to know what is actually going on with a person before they say it. |
| Listening and Synthesis | Taking in what is said across a room and returning a version of it that is clearer than any single contribution. |
| Process and Systems | Designing repeatable ways of working so that outcomes do not depend on who is in the room. |
| Tactical Execution | Turning intent into sequenced, owned, dated action and closing it out. |
| Developmental Focus | Deliberately building capability in other people, including when it is slower than doing the work yourself. |
| Drive and Intensity | Sustained personal energy applied to a goal, and the willingness to keep pushing when the novelty has gone. |
| Clarity and Directness | Saying the actual thing, early, without softening it into ambiguity. |
| Strategic Vision | Seeing where the business needs to be beyond the current cycle and describing it concretely enough to act on. |
| Adaptive Agility | Changing approach when the evidence changes, without treating the change as a personal defeat. |
| Inspirational Communication | Making people want to follow. Connecting the work to something worth doing. |
| Analytical Precision | Working from evidence, distinguishing signal from noise, and being exact where exactness matters. |
| Influence and Persuasion | Moving people who do not report to you. Building agreement without authority. |
AI readiness dimensions
Four dimensions, scored 0 to 100 each. They deliberately exclude tool adoption, spend and pilot counts, which measure activity rather than readiness. Used in Chapter 4.
| Dimension | Definition |
|---|---|
| Placement | Whether the leader can name where AI would most change business outcomes, and whether AI work starts from a business outcome rather than from a tool or vendor demo. |
| Restraint | Whether the organisation has deliberately decided what it will not automate yet, checks process and data readiness before scaling, and is willing to say not yet. |
| Ownership | Whether AI is owned at leadership level rather than handed to IT or a vendor, whether people still own the important calls, and whether a failed initiative would have a named human owner. |
| Momentum | Whether AI is treated as an ongoing capability rather than a one off project, whether loops are short and honestly reviewed, and whether a concrete result could be shown to a board. |
Index terms
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Dominant type or style | The highest scoring dimension for a respondent within one instrument. Where two tie exactly, the first in the instrument’s scoring order is recorded. |
| Dimension score | A respondent’s score on one dimension of one instrument. Comparable to other dimensions within the same instrument, never across instruments. |
| Reporting floor | The minimum number of responses required before a cut is published. Set at 30 and applied without exception. A cut below the floor is published as a count with no figures. |
| Edition window | The calendar period whose completions an edition reports. Quarterly and non cumulative, so editions can be compared as independent snapshots. |
| Completion | A response that reached scoring and was written to the record. Abandoned attempts never enter the sample. |
| Self selected sample | A sample made of people who chose to respond rather than being drawn at random. It describes who measured themselves, not the population at large. |
Quote these definitions
Leaders ADAPT (2026). Leadership metric library. https://www.leadersadapt.com/leadership-metrics/
Free to quote with attribution and a link. If you are building a competing or complementary measure and want to align definitions so results can be compared, write to [email protected]. Comparability is more useful than exclusivity.