Leadership Values Assessment

    A psychometric assessment that reveals the core drivers, motivations and values behind how you lead.

    FORMAT
    15 Minutes Online
    INCLUDES
    Individual Report
    Back to all solutions

    Our strongest values influence our leadership success. They also create our blind spots and biases.

    COA measures the 12 core drivers and 29 values that influence your leadership impact.

    What you value most is often connected to your biggest blind spots. COA makes that visible. For each of your top values, the report shows the specific risks it creates: where it distorts your judgement, and what your team is already noticing that you might not.

    The result is a practical values profile that helps you understand the patterns influencing your impact and identify where greater awareness could improve your leadership performance.

    COA Core Drivers Ranking report page
    COA Growth deep-dive report page
    The Leadership Values Report

    What's inside the report

    Every leader who completes COA receives a confidential report tailored to their values profile. Here's what's inside:

    Which of these sounds most like you?

    Leader A
    AUTHENTICITYINNOVATIONGROWTH

    Authenticity helps this leader build trust through honesty and integrity. Under pressure, the same instinct can harden into inflexibility or resistance to necessary adaptation.

    Leader B
    GROWTHCONSCIOUSNESSALTRUISM

    Their commitment to developing people is genuine. When overused, it can become constant improvement or protection from the discomfort others need in order to grow.

    Your top three drivers influence the decisions and trade-offs you make most often. COA shows what each driver contributes, how it may be experienced by others and where it is most likely to become overused.

    Sample · 01

    Where is your drive for growth helping you, and where is it making “good enough” impossible?

    Sample · 02

    What are you continually trying to improve that may first need to be accepted?

    Sample · 03

    Which difficult conversation is your team avoiding by staying productive and positive?

    When several team members complete COA, their profiles are combined to show where values reinforce one another, where they differ and where those differences may create tension. The team profile provides a shared starting point for conversations about decisions, trust, communication and performance. Available as a facilitated team add-on.

    What COA measures

    A sample of the drivers COA measures

    AUTHENTICITY

    Honesty · Integrity

    How strongly a leader stays anchored in their own values over external expectations. Builds genuine trust; can become inflexibility when adaptation is needed.

    GROWTH

    Growth Mindset · Learning

    The drive to develop through challenge and continuous learning. Produces resilience and openness; can tip into burnout or unrealistic standards.

    GRIT

    Optimism · Resilience

    The capacity to persist through setbacks without losing belief in the outcome. Produces tenacity under pressure; can make it hard to stop when stopping is right.

    AMBITION

    Achievement · Self-Discipline

    The drive to achieve against high personal standards. Produces focused performance; can deplete teams or mistake achievement for meaningful progress.

    CONSCIOUSNESS

    Awareness · Humility · Gratitude

    The degree to which a leader reflects on their own patterns and stays grounded. Builds self-awareness and presence; can tip into overanalysis.

    INNOVATION

    Change · Courage · Creativity

    The appetite for original thinking and challenging established approaches. Drives creativity and courage; can overwhelm teams or underestimate what execution requires.

    Where it gets used

    How individuals and organisations use COA

    Individuals

    Self-awareness

    See the values running your decisions, and what others see instead.

    Coaching

    Give your coach hard data to work from in the first session.

    Organisations

    Culture strategy

    Map the values running your culture and the conflict they create.

    Hiring

    Screen for values fit or values add before the first interview.

    Onboarding

    Show new hires how the team actually operates.

    Team development

    Reveal the values clashes behind team misalignment.

    The assessment

    The science behind COA

    12
    core drivers

    COA measures 12 core drivers expressed through 29 underlying values. Rather than describing only how you tend to behave, it examines what you are most strongly motivated to pursue, protect and prioritise.

    Select a row to go deeper
    The step by step process

    From assessment to action

    Define

    Define Your Values

    We translate values that sound good on a wall into specific behavioural requirements.

    Assess

    Complete COA

    Fifteen minutes online. No preparation needed.

    Reveal

    Receive Your Report

    A confidential individual report plus a team overlay showing where values align and where they clash.

    Apply

    Apply the Insights

    Results feed straight into hiring, onboarding, coaching and culture decisions.

    Discover your core values

    Take the COA assessment →
    Frequently Asked Questions

    COA values assessment FAQ

    • COA is a psychometric leadership values assessment for founders and senior leaders. It maps 12 core drivers and 29 underlying values to show what influences a leader's decisions, relationships and leadership impact. Unlike broad personality profiles, COA focuses on the motivations beneath behaviour and the risks that may emerge when strengths are overused.

    • COA is designed for founders, C-suite executives and senior leaders whose decisions carry significant organisational weight. It is especially relevant when a leader is stepping into a new role, preparing for scale, building a leadership team, navigating co-founder dynamics or beginning executive coaching.

      It is particularly valuable for:

      • •founders preparing to scale or build a leadership team
      • •co-founder teams navigating values alignment and recurring tension
      • •leaders preparing for a significant step change in scale
      • •leadership teams facing a funding round, board review or major transition
      • •executive coaches seeking a structured starting point for development
      • •investors using psychologist-led founder assessment during due diligence
      • •People and Talent teams using COA within leadership development programmes

    • The assessment takes 15 minutes online. A 90-minute psychologist-led debrief / feedback executive coaching session is included in the Premium tier. Many leaders find the deepest value emerges over the weeks following, as they begin to notice their patterns in real time.

    • Yes. When several team members complete COA, their results can be combined into a leadership team values profile. This shows where the team shares similar motivations, where meaningful differences exist and where those differences may be creating recurring tension around decisions, communication or ways of working. Team results are interpreted through a facilitated process rather than used to label or rank individuals.

    • COA was developed by business psychologists and has undergone iterative psychometric testing, including item analysis, factor analysis and reliability analysis. Its framework draws on established research in human values, motivation and occupational psychology. Detailed technical information about the framework, scoring approach, evidence base and appropriate uses is available from CAIA.

    • COA can add a structured values and motivation perspective to a broader selection process. It should not be used as a stand-alone hiring decision. Where COA is used in selection, results should be interpreted alongside structured interviews, relevant experience and evidence of capability.

    • COA is not an intelligence, clinical or technical-capability assessment. It does not determine whether someone is a good or bad leader. It shows the values and motivations most likely to influence their choices and the trade-offs those values may create.

    • COA can support psychologist-led founder and leadership team assessment during investment due diligence. It helps make values alignment, decision patterns and potential leadership risks discussable. It complements rather than replaces financial, commercial, market, reference and capability due diligence.

    • The COA assessment and individual report are available in English and German. Psychologist-led debriefs and team sessions are also available in both languages.

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