What P×E measures, and how.

P×E measures the leader and the job separately, then compares them. This page lists our methods and the research behind each one.

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Each part of P×E has its own evidence.

The personality measure is an established instrument. The arena scan, Alignment and Adaptation are our own methods, and we are still developing them. Each card says which is which. We do not claim more than the evidence shows.

Established research base

Leader

The questions come from the International Personality Item Pool, which anyone may use for free. The scores cover the 30 facets of the Five-Factor Model. They describe how a person tends to act. Skill and future performance need other evidence.

P×E measure in development

Arena

The arena scan asks how much threat and how much stability people see in the same operation. The executive and chosen colleagues rate it separately. We show where they disagree, because the disagreement often points to the problem.

P×E interpretation in development

Alignment

The Alignment Map compares the leader’s scores with what the current job demands. The result is a working estimate of fit, used for development. We have not validated it for predicting how an executive will perform.

Reviewed against agreed evidence

Adaptation

In the debrief, the leader picks one specific change, either in how they work or in how the job is set up. At a later review we check the evidence we agreed on. Then we keep the change, adjust it or stop it.

When the executive and the team disagree, look there first.

Executive ratingLow stability

“Priorities change without warning.”

Team ratingStable system

“The rules are clear. The leader keeps changing them.”

An average of the two ratings would hide the problem. P×E shows both ratings and asks what caused the gap.

Some of our primary sources

Goldberg (1992); Johnson (2014)

International Personality Item Pool

Free, public personality items and scales, including the 120-item measure of the 30 Five-Factor Model facets.

Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt (2002)

Personality and Leadership

A meta-analysis that grouped the research on leader traits by the Big Five and tested how each trait relates to leadership.

Edwards, Caplan, and Harrison (1998)

Person–Environment Fit Theory

Explains why you measure the person and the environment separately before you judge how well they fit.

AERA, APA, and NCME (2014)

Standards for Psychological Testing

The accepted standards for showing that test scores are valid, reliable and fair, and that the test is given correctly.

Mumford, Campion, and Morgeson (2007)

Leadership Skills Strataplex

A study of leaders at lower, middle and senior levels. The skills a leader needs grow with the level, most of all business and strategic skills.

Tett, Toich, and Ozkum (2021)

Trait Activation Theory

A review of how the task, the people and the organization decide whether a personality trait leads to useful behavior at work.

Talk it through on a call.

A 30-minute call. Which jobs are your supervisors not taking on yet? What result would make this worth it?

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