Find Out Where the Friction Is in Your Leadership Team
Your managers are working flat out, but the numbers still slip, decisions stall, and too much routes back to you. This free diagnostic shows you exactly where work and decisions get stuck across your operation, and how you compare to similar organisations. So you can fix the right thing first.
About 8 minutes. No jargon. No email to start. Instant, personalised report.
Free. No obligation. Instant personalised report.
Choose this if
You want to know where the friction sits across your team: which decisions stall, where work piles up, and what to fix first. This looks outward, at your system.
Not your question?
If what really worries you is “Am I the bottleneck, and am I heading for burnout?”, start with the personal self-check instead.
Take the “Am I the Bottleneck?” checkThe Problem This Solves
“We need better leadership” is not a strategy. It is a symptom.
Most organisations know something is off but cannot pinpoint exactly where. Decisions take too long. Meetings multiply. Good people are stretched thin doing work that should not require them. The usual diagnostics measure engagement or culture in broad strokes. They do not tell you where leadership capability is strong and where it needs development.
This benchmark scores your leadership team across five critical dimensions and compares you against real data from similar organisations. The result is a sharper conversation about where to focus development spend, what to strengthen first, and what is already working well.
73%
of leaders say capability gaps are their biggest barrier to execution
McKinsey, 2023
3.5hrs
per week lost to unnecessary escalation
HBR, 2022
2.4x
faster decisions with clear decision rights
Bain & Company
40%
of initiatives fail from misalignment, not strategy
Bridges Consultancy
Before You Fix It, Diagnose It
When something is not happening on your team, there are only four reasons why
Each reason needs a different response, and only one of them is fixed by more training. Naming which one you are actually looking at takes about five minutes. Getting it wrong costs months and a budget spent on the wrong thing. This diagnosis is the gate that comes first. Once you have ruled out the three person-side reasons and confirmed the issue is friction, the next question is where it sits, and that is what the benchmark below answers.
Skill
They cannotYou will hear
“They have never done it well anywhere.”
The fix
Teach it. This is the only one more training actually fixes.
Will
They will not risk itYou will hear
“It is not worth the fight.”
The fix
Make it safe to try. They have quietly decided the downside is not worth it.
Blind spot
They had not noticedYou will hear
“Is that actually a problem?”
The fix
Name it plainly. Nobody ever told them it mattered.
Friction
They are not allowedYou will hear
“I would have to check with somebody first.”
The fix
Clear the block. The system will not let them, however capable they are.
Three about the person. One about the business.
Skill, will and blind spot all sit with the individual. Friction sits with the business. Because friction is the one with no course to sell against it, it is the one that gets misdiagnosed as the other three, friction wearing a skills badge. So check backwards: rule out friction first, then blind spot, then will, and only then skill. And the three person-side reasons rarely stay put. Left in place, a skill gap, a hesitation or a blind spot all harden into friction in the system, which is why so much of what looks like a people problem turns out to be friction once you look.
The one question that sorts it
“What would have to be true for you to do this?”
Listen for whose permission they name. If the honest answer is about someone else’s sign-off, a rule, or a resource they do not control, you are looking at friction, not a person who needs developing.
What This Benchmark Measures
Five Dimensions of Leadership Capability
Each dimension maps to a specific capability pattern we see consistently in leadership teams. Together, they show you exactly where you sit relative to other organisations.
Decision Velocity
How quickly and confidently decisions get made, without bottlenecking at the top.
Leadership Bandwidth
Whether leaders have the capacity to think strategically, or are consumed by operational firefighting.
Team Autonomy
Whether your people can operate, solve problems, and deliver without waiting for permission or direction.
Communication Clarity
Whether information flows clearly and consistently, or gets lost in translation between teams and levels.
Strategic Alignment
Whether everyone is pulling in the same direction, with shared priorities and a clear line of sight to what success looks like.
Who This Is For
Leaders who know something is off but cannot pinpoint exactly where
Most people leaders who take this end up having a much sharper conversation about where to focus development spend. It turns a vague sense that “we need better leadership” into something specific and measurable.
GMs and Heads of who feel the gap between strategy and execution
General Managers building the case for targeted investment
COOs and Operations heads trying to unlock capacity without adding headcount
Heads of function whose teams are capable but still escalate everything
What You Will Receive
Overall Capability Score
A single percentage showing where your leadership capability sits, benchmarked against real data from similar organisations.
Five-Dimension Breakdown
Where capability is strongest and where it needs development, in clear visual detail with benchmark comparisons.
Targeted Recommendations
Next steps mapped to your lowest-scoring dimensions. Not generic advice. Specific to your capability profile.
Shareable Report
A printable summary you can take straight to your leadership team or board.
Leadership Capability Benchmark: Eight Minutes to Clarity
No fluff, no trick questions. Just honest statements about how your organisation actually operates.
Respond honestly
Ten statements about how your organisation actually operates. No right answers, just reality.
See how you compare
Instant scoring across five dimensions with benchmark comparisons against similar organisations.
Get a clear next step
Recommendations matched to your specific capability profile, not a generic leadership checklist.
The Methodology Behind This Benchmark
Simplify to Amplify: SEE-SOLVE-SCALE
I have been using this benchmark with leadership teams over the past few months. It scores where leadership capability sits across five critical dimensions and compares against real data from similar organisations. Not engagement scores. Not culture surveys. A clear, data-backed picture of capability strengths and development areas. The five dimensions are drawn from established constructs in organisational behaviour, leadership effectiveness research, and the practical patterns observed across hundreds of leadership teams.
Jimmy Burroughes
Founder, JBL High Performance · nearly 3,500 managers transformed · 92.5% recommend rate
Ready to see how your leadership team compares?
Most leaders have a hunch. This benchmark gives you the data to confirm it, scored against real organisations, and the clarity to do something about it.
15 questions. About 8 minutes. Instant results. No obligation.