The science behind the LQ

The LQ Test is a short personality questionnaire. Below is how the score is put together, which studies it leans on and where it falls short.

How your LQ is calculated

You answer 40 statements about yourself and 8 short scenarios. Half of the statements point the opposite way (for example, “I wait for others to lead the way”), so agreeing with everything does not push your score up.

Each of the 8 traits gets a score from its 5 statements and 1 scenario. That score is compared with provisional norms (see below) and turned into a percentile.

The traits are then combined with weights that follow the research: traits with stronger links to leadership, such as drive and motivation to lead, count more than traits with weaker links, such as empathy. The weights are kept simple on purpose, because simple weights tend to hold up better on new people than finely tuned ones (Dawes, 1979). Because the traits are related to each other (van der Linden et al., 2010), the combined score is rescaled so that, as with IQ, the average is 100 and about two in three people fall between 85 and 115. Scores run from 55 to 145.

Your percentile is the share of people expected to score below you. The “group of 5” figure comes from a simple statistical model that assumes your LQ is moderately related to who ends up leading a group (a correlation of 0.35, deliberately lower than what large studies report). Treat it as a rough illustration only.

The research behind the 8 traits

For much of the 20th century, many researchers doubted that personality had much to do with leadership. An influential review by Ralph Stogdill (1948) concluded that a person who leads in one situation may not lead in another. Later re-analyses of the same kind of studies, starting with Lord, De Vader and Alliger (1986), found the links to be stronger and more consistent than people had assumed.

Studies that rotate people through different groups and tasks show that the same people tend to emerge as leaders again and again. In one re-analysis, between 49% and 82% of the differences in who emerged as leader came down to the person rather than the situation (Kenny & Zaccaro, 1983; Zaccaro, 2007).

The landmark meta-analysis by Judge, Bono, Ilies and Gerhardt (2002) pooled 222 correlations from 73 samples. Extraversion (.31), conscientiousness (.28), openness (.24) and emotional stability (.24) all predicted leadership. Agreeableness barely did overall (.08), although it mattered more for leading effectively (.21) than for being chosen as a leader (.05). Together the five traits predicted who emerged as a leader with a multiple correlation of .53.

Later work looked more closely. The assertive, take-charge side of extraversion carries its link with leadership more than the sociable side does (Do & Minbashian, 2014). A review of 25 individual differences and leader effectiveness found charisma (.57) to be the strongest trait-like correlate, followed by dominance (.35), creativity (.31), energy (.29), integrity (.29), achievement motivation (.28) and self-confidence (.24); among skills, decision making was strongest (.52) (Hoffman et al., 2011).

Wanting to lead matters too. People who enjoy leading, and who feel a duty to step up, are more likely to emerge as leaders and to do well in the role (Chan & Drasgow, 2001; Badura et al., 2020). Military cadets’ confidence in their own ability to lead predicted how they were rated in an Army summer leadership training program (Chemers, Watson & May, 2000). And self-monitoring, the habit of reading a social situation and adjusting to it, is linked to emerging as a leader (Day et al., 2002).

A short history, with a military accent

A good deal of this research was paid for by armed forces that needed to choose leaders quickly and well. The Ohio State Leadership Studies, which began in 1945, carried out a series of studies of naval leadership under contract with the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and an Air Force version of their leader behavior questionnaire was built from bomber crews’ descriptions of their aircraft commanders (Shartle, 1979; Stogdill & Coons, 1957).

The idea of “motivation to lead” was developed with 1,594 Singapore military recruits, along with two student samples (Chan & Drasgow, 2001). The U.S. Army Research Institute developed personality screens for new soldiers, first the Assessment of Individual Motivation and then the Tailored Adaptive Personality Assessment System, which the Army has used since 2009 to screen recruits for attrition and job performance (Kirkendall et al., 2020).

What your LQ can and can’t tell you

It can summarize how the way you describe yourself lines up with traits that, on average, go with emerging as a leader and being seen as effective. That makes it useful for reflection: which strengths to lean on and which habits to build.

It can’t tell you whether you will be a good leader. Being picked to lead and leading well are different things (Hogan & Kaiser, 2005). Some traits that help people get noticed, such as narcissism, do not make them more effective (Grijalva et al., 2015), and too much assertiveness can hurt as much as too little (Ames & Flynn, 2007). Skills, experience, intelligence, values and the situation all matter, and none of them are measured here.

Self-reports are easy to inflate. The test checks for attention, consistency and speed, but anyone determined to look good can manage it. Treat the top of the leaderboard with a smile.

The norms are provisional. They are estimates built from typical statistics for public-domain personality items, not from people who took this test, so treat every percentile as a rough guide. This site does not collect anonymous answers; if that ever changes, the privacy policy will say so first.

People in different cultures describe themselves differently. Some answer more modestly or stay closer to the middle of the scale, so LQs are best compared within the same language version.

A low score is not a verdict. Many of the skills that turn traits into effective leadership can be learned (Zaccaro, 2007).

About the questions

Most statements are adapted from the International Personality Item Pool, a public-domain collection used by researchers around the world (Goldberg et al., 2006). The rest, and all of the scenarios, were written for this test. No items are taken from commercial tests.

Scenario answers are scored by how closely they match the leader behavior the research describes as effective. Well-built tests made of scenarios like these predict job performance in their own right (McDaniel et al., 2001); the eight here are short and have not been validated on their own.

A few statements are paired with their opposites far apart in the test, and one question asks you to pick a specific answer. Together with the time you take, these checks flag rushed, random or contradictory answers.

Questions and answers

Is LQ like IQ?

Only in its scale: an average of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. IQ tests measure reasoning with right and wrong answers. The LQ Test measures personality traits, mostly through how you describe yourself.

How is this different from MBTI?

MBTI sorts people into types. The LQ Test scores traits on a continuous scale and weights them by how strongly each one is linked to leadership in research. Your archetype just names the overall shape of your profile.

Why did some questions feel repetitive?

A few statements are deliberately paired with their opposites, far apart in the test. That makes random or careless answers easy to spot.

Can I raise my LQ?

Traits are fairly stable, but behavior is not. Practicing the habits behind each trait, such as speaking up, following through and staying calm, changes how you act and, over time, how you see yourself.

Why was my result flagged?

Results are flagged when answers look rushed, random, contradictory or too perfect. You still see your score, but it isn’t posted to the leaderboard.

What happens to my answers?

They are scored in your browser. If you post to the weekly leaderboard, your answers are sent once so the server can check the score, and the board shows your nickname, LQ, archetype and country. See the privacy policy for details.

Disclaimer

The LQ Test is for education and entertainment. It has not been validated against real leadership outcomes. It is not a hiring, promotion, clinical or diagnostic tool, and it should not be used to make decisions about anyone.

References

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