Peter Drucker famously said that management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. It can be tough fathoming out what the right things are, particularly in difficult times such as these. For example, is it about hitting key performance indicators at the exclusion of everything else? Maybe it’s playing safe and doing everything "by the book"? Perhaps the trick is to outperform your colleagues?

Drucker also said that leadership is not magnetic personality - that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people - that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

It’s the idea of raising a person’s performance through leadership development which is compelling. There’s a win-win in that - a bottom line benefit for the organisation and self-development for the individual. But raising a person’s performance can translate into management by spreadsheet – an obsessive focus on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Although KPIs are important to the business they frequently contain blind spots; these blind spots can be particularly evident in the area of the people dimension or leadership development.

This is the point where managers often get uncomfortable; the people dimension, which is intangible and often lacks objectivity. Yet this is the area where real performance gains are to be found - gains which read directly to the bottom line.

So why is it that managers struggle with the leadership development and fail to become better leaders? Getting to grips with this challenge can be genuinely difficult, which is where psychometric tests can be very helpful – particularly when they provide real insight.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) can be a revelation for many managers. It’s as if the scales are lifted from their eyes as they discover why they and others behave as they do. With the MBTI, there are no right or wrong Myers-Briggs types – in fact all types are equally valued. Insights from the Myers-Briggs enable leaders to be more effective communicators and team leaders.

So, back to Drucker’s quote; an aspect of doing the right things is a leadership style which genuinely raises the bar and values performance, while supporting and developing individuals. But for managers to become leaders they need some development too. This is where leadership development programmes based on world class psychometrics such as the Myers-Briggs can make a real difference.