If you've ever taken a traditional leadership assessment or attended a corresponding one-off company-wide training, you've probably noticed that their broad scope creates a gap in addressing your needs. More often than not, these approaches to leadership development focus on general skills that we're told will drive our success at work, like listening, empathy, and persuasion. While these qualities are important, they aren’t exhaustive, nor do they account for the personal and complex drivers of what influences us daily.
When we show up at work, we bring our complete selves, not just our work selves, so it's essential to make investments in thriving behaviors like rest and emotional regulation, too, which are proven to impact how we lead and interact with others and the quality of our work.
Take rest, for example — it's not typically measured on assessments, but it plays an important role in our success. Studies show that 40% of people in corporate jobs get less than 6 hours of sleep a night and that even missing one night of sleep leads to decreased innovation.
Rest is just one of many thriving examples that illustrate how an investment in our home lives can impact us at work.
BetterUp has gathered billions of data points from others like you to help us understand the behaviors that lead to thriving as a person and inspiring as a leader.
Our Whole Person Model was developed by a team of 8 PhDs and 3 MAs with expertise in psychology and leadership, drawing from literature in management science, organizational psychology, and positive psychology. In addition, the WPM was reviewed by members of BetterUp’s Science Board — including the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, PhD.
Most assessments and training only address just one facet of your work, but BetterUp’s Whole Person Model (WPM) and Assessment help you gain a more comprehensive understanding of your strengths and areas for growth in your personal and professional life. The WPM was specifically designed to reflect behaviors that:
- We can change
- Directly or indirectly impact others, and
- Are linked to individual well-being, effective performance, collaboration, and leadership
BetterUp’s Whole Person Model accounts for mindsets, behaviors, and outcomes that drive your success at work.
The Whole Person Model has three core components:
- Mindsets - which are goals, beliefs, and emotions that motivate us to achieve an optimal state of working (e.g., growth mindset, optimism, self-awareness).
- Behaviors - which help enable us to act on our full potential. Starting from a place of strength, we can focus on building and improving behaviors that are lacking. Behaviors fall under two categories:
- Thriving Behaviors - investments across our personal and work life that support our thriving across cognitive, emotional, social, and physical dimensions (e.g., rest, focus, strategic planning, and emotional regulation).
- Inspiring Behaviors - these help us to empower others to perform at their best, whether you’re a manager or not (e.g., motivating others, guiding others, and including others).
- Outcomes - the beneficial results that come from positive mindsets and behaviors (e.g., resilience, productivity, performance, engagement, job satisfaction).
Rather than uncovering static, fixed qualities, the WPM helps you receive and act upon regular pulse insights that you can use to drive long-lasting behavior change.