Before completing any Evans Learning Labs assessment, you predict your own scores. What happens when those predictions are wrong is often the most valuable part of the entire exercise.
Self-report instruments have a fundamental and well-documented limitation: people do not assess themselves accurately. Research on self-other agreement consistently shows that individuals' self-perceptions diverge significantly from how they are perceived by others and from objective measures of their behavior (Dunning et al., 2004).1 In leadership contexts specifically, the correlation between self-rated effectiveness and observer-rated effectiveness is often weak to moderate at best (Atwater & Yammarino, 1992).2
The mechanisms behind this are well understood. Self-serving bias leads people to attribute successes to their own skill and failures to circumstances. The Dunning-Kruger effect means that people with the least competence in a domain are also least able to recognize that gap (Kruger & Dunning, 1999).3 And motivated reasoning causes people to unconsciously interpret ambiguous evidence in ways that confirm their existing self-image.
Most self-assessment tools do nothing to counteract these tendencies. They simply ask respondents to rate themselves and accept whatever answers come back. The result is data that reflects aspiration more than reality.
The Evans Learning Labs approach introduces a deliberate intervention before every assessment: you predict your own scores across each domain before answering a single question. This prediction is recorded and held. After you complete the assessment, your actual scores are compared side-by-side with what you predicted.
This design has two effects. First, it forces explicit articulation of your self-model before the assessment can influence it. You commit to a prediction in writing, which makes the gap between expectation and outcome visible and undeniable. Second, it creates the conditions for productive discomfort -- the cognitive experience of discovering that what you believed about yourself does not match what the data shows.
Research on self-awareness in organizational contexts suggests that the ability to accurately predict how you will perform -- before you perform -- is itself a meaningful measure of metacognitive awareness (Church, 1997).4 Leaders who consistently over-predict their effectiveness tend to be less receptive to feedback and less likely to pursue development. Leaders who under-predict may have high standards or significant self-doubt. Both patterns carry diagnostic value.
The gap between predicted and actual scores is not treated as an error to be corrected. It is treated as data -- often the most actionable data the assessment produces.
Not all gaps are equal. The direction, magnitude, and domain-specificity of the gap each carry different implications for development.
When the gap is large and consistent across multiple domains, it often points to a more systemic pattern in how the individual constructs their self-narrative. When the gap is domain-specific -- strong prediction accuracy in some areas, significant divergence in others -- it tends to reveal where genuine blind spots are located versus where genuine self-awareness exists.
Development that is not grounded in accurate self-perception tends to address the wrong problems. A leader who believes their communication is excellent will not invest in communication development, regardless of what others experience. A leader who believes their strategic thinking is weak may avoid strategic conversations despite genuine capability.
The perception-versus-reality comparison does not replace external feedback -- 360-degree assessments, performance data, and direct observation all provide information that self-report cannot. But it creates a foundation for engaging with that feedback more productively. A leader who has already discovered a gap between their self-model and behavioral evidence is better prepared to receive and act on external data than one who has never been invited to examine that gap.
The prediction feature is not a gimmick. It is the mechanism through which a self-report instrument can begin to surface the blind spots that most self-report instruments reinforce.
The free Organizational Performance Assessment uses the same prediction-versus-results format as every tool in the toolkit. No account required.
Take the free assessment1 Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5(3), 69–106. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1529-1006.2004.00018.x
2 Atwater, L. E., & Yammarino, F. J. (1992). Does self-other agreement on leadership perceptions moderate the validity of leadership and performance predictions? Personnel Psychology, 45(1), 141–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1992.tb00848.x
3 Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121–1134. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121
4 Church, A. H. (1997). Managerial self-awareness in high-performing individuals in organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(2), 281–292. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.2.281