We’re happy to introduce our Leadership Growth Wheel—a comprehensive framework we’ve designed to help leaders at all levels identify their strengths, recognize gaps, and create actionable growth plans for continuous improvement. It’s a holistic framework we’ve designed to help leaders navigate their ongoing development journey.
The Genesis of the Leadership Growth Wheel
After decades of working with leaders across various industries—from Fortune 500 companies to nonprofits—we recognized a universal truth: effective leadership transcends industry-specific skills. Whether you’re leading a marketing team or a finance department, the core leadership competencies remain consistent.
“Leadership is not a linear thing, it’s not level one, level two, level ten. It’s like a wheel which has no beginning and no end. You have to constantly work on yourself to make sure your wheel is moving smoothly.”
This cyclical, continuous improvement philosophy became the foundation for our Leadership Growth Wheel—a visual representation of leadership competencies that applies to everyone from newly promoted supervisors to experienced CEOs.
Beyond Assessment: Creating an Action Plan
What sets our Leadership Growth Wheel apart from other leadership assessments is its focus on growth rather than mere evaluation. The goal isn’t just to take a snapshot of where you are now, but to come up with an action plan.
We’ve designed the framework to start with a self-assessment available on our KatAnu website. After completion, participants can join an office hour with us to review their results and receive guidance on developing a personalized action plan.
Importantly, we don’t expect anyone to score a perfect “10” in every area. In fact, “If you’re a 10 in every area of your wheel, you’re lying to yourself somewhere.” Instead, the objective is to create a relatively balanced wheel that allows for smooth “riding” through leadership challenges.
The Eight Domains of Leadership
Our Leadership Growth Wheel consists of eight domains, each encompassing three critical leadership skills:
1. Self-Leadership
The foundation begins with self-leadership domain focusing on:
- Self-Awareness & Self-Regulation
- Personal Vision
- Personal Mastery
This is around understanding yourself, regulating your responses, and developing personal mastery. We encourage leaders to ask: “What do I want to do? What is my journey? What am I passionate about?”
2. Relational Leadership
This domain focuses on building relationships through:
- Emotional intelligence (EQ)
- Psychological safety
- Conflict management
We firmly believe that “no person is an island” and “you cannot do this on your own.”
3. Strategic Leadership
Leaders must set vision and long-term objectives through:
- Strategic planning
- Change management and innovative thinking
- Decision-making
We emphasize the importance of “being able to analyze complex information and make informed decisions—timely decisions—and also be willing to make decisions even when we don’t know all the information.”
4. Team Leadership
Effective team leadership involves:
- Motivation (recognizing individual and collective motivational needs)
- Delegation (empowering others rather than “dumping” unwanted tasks)
- Team culture (building an environment where teams thrive)
We’ve found that “if you build a great team, you really don’t need to do much. The team’s got it.”
5. Adaptive Leadership
In our volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, we believe leaders must be adaptable through:
- Continuous improvement
- Problem-solving
- Empathy
“Empathy is one of the most important skills you need,” we emphasize. “If I come in with zero empathy for people who are dealing with whatever’s going on in their part of the world, my team is not going to be very conducive to delivering value.”
6. Operational Leadership
Day-to-day management requires:
- Process optimization and risk management
- Accountability (individual and team)
- Resource management
7. Stewardship Leadership
Being a good steward extends beyond immediate team concerns to include:
- Community impact
- Service orientation (servant leadership)
- Principled change management (ethical decision-making)
We challenge leaders to consider: “Are you making good ethical decisions? Are you being fair and inclusive in the workplace?”
8. Partnership Leadership
The final domain focuses on leading without authority through:
- Influence
- Negotiation
- Stakeholder management
We define this as “the ability to inspire and guide our teams and organization towards common goals without relying on a position of authority.”
Common Leadership Gaps and Strengths
Based on years of data collection, we’ve identified patterns in leadership strengths and weaknesses:
Common Challenges:
- Delegation (often confused with “dumping” unwanted tasks)
- Listening
- Giving and receiving feedback
- Conflict management
- Developing a personal leadership vision
We’ve observed that “not too many leaders have a personal vision. They often “fall” into leadership, and we think it’s important for leaders to know what their vision is.”
Common Strengths:
- Empathy
- Empowerment
- Decision-making
- Process optimization
- Risk management
Interestingly, we’ve noticed that leaders often excel at tasks that don’t directly involve people: “The things that people shine at are the things that are not people-focused, and the things they struggle with are nine out of ten times the people-focused [skills].”
Leadership Is for Everyone
A key insight we share in our workshops is that leadership extends beyond formal positions. “One of the takeaways from a webinar we did a couple of weeks ago is that everyone is a leader in some aspect of their life. You don’t need to be leading people to be considered a leader.”
This perspective makes our Leadership Growth Wheel relevant for virtually anyone seeking to improve their influence and effectiveness—whether managing a department or simply trying to have greater impact in their community.
The Self-Awareness Paradox
When asked if individuals accurately identify their leadership needs, we often hear responses like: “Oh, I am so self-aware. I don’t need help in self-awareness. Why don’t you help me in teaching how to tell my teams to do their job better?”
This echoes a common pattern we’ve observed: leaders often overestimate their self-awareness and underestimate their growth opportunities. Our Leadership Growth Wheel offers an objective framework to identify these blind spots.
Team Applications
Beyond individual development, we’ve designed the Leadership Growth Wheel to provide valuable insights for teams. When multiple team members complete the assessment, patterns emerge that may differ from what leaders anticipate.
“Leaders think they know for their teams,” we’ve found. “Yet when the scores came in from the leaders and the team, no, they’re struggling with… maybe accountability and influencing or negotiation.”
These collective insights help organizations target development resources more effectively, focusing on actual rather than perceived needs.
Balancing the Wheel: Individual vs. Team Strengths
We don’t believe a perfectly balanced wheel is necessarily the goal—especially at the team level. “You also have to be very discerning about: is this thing that I’m not very good at, do I really need to work on that? Or is there somebody on my team that’s so brilliant at it that I really don’t need to put myself out to learn more about it?”
This team-based perspective encourages leaders to focus on complementary strengths rather than trying to excel in every domain personally.
Our Leadership Growth Wheel offers a refreshing perspective on leadership development—one that recognizes leadership as a continuous journey rather than a destination. By providing a structured framework for assessing strengths, identifying gaps, and creating actionable growth plans, we’ve developed a tool that serves leaders at all levels.
For those interested in exploring their own leadership journey, our Leadership Growth Wheel assessment is available here.