CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle + Profilingvalues: The Most Powerful Combination for Leadership Development

You're a leader – and you know that great leadership requires more than expertise. But which assessment will truly move the needle? The answer: Not one, but two. The combination of the CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle and Profilingvalues gives you a leadership portrait that no single tool can deliver alone.

In this article, you'll learn what both assessments offer, why they complement each other perfectly, and how to integrate them step by step into your leadership development.

What Is the CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle?

The CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle from Gallup is more than just the standard assessment. It includes:

• CliftonStrengths® 34 – your complete talent profile with all 34 talent themes, ranked from 1 to 34.

• CliftonStrengths® for Leaders Report – a leadership-specific report showing how your talents shape your leadership behavior.

• Manager-specific Insights – concrete recommendations for deploying your top talents in leadership situations: from delegation to conflict resolution to team building.

The bundle answers the question: How do I lead authentically – based on my natural talents?

The Four Leadership Domains

Gallup organizes the 34 talent themes into four leadership domains:

• Executing: Talents like Discipline, Achiever, Focus – leaders who get things done.

• Influencing: Talents like Communication, Self-Assurance, Activator – leaders who persuade and energize others.

• Relationship Building: Talents like Empathy, Relator, Developer – leaders who hold teams together.

• Strategic Thinking: Talents like Strategic, Learner, Analytical – leaders who think ahead and spot patterns.

Key insight: No domain is 'better' than another. Great leaders exist in every combination – but they need to know where their strengths lie to deploy them consciously.

What Profilingvalues Contributes to Leadership Development

While CliftonStrengths® shows which talents you have, Profilingvalues shows how you make decisions and evaluate values. The assessment is based on formal axiology by Robert S. Hartman and measures your judgment competence in three dimensions:

• Intrinsic: How do you evaluate people, relationships, and yourself? → Reveals your emotional intelligence as a leader.

• Extrinsic: How do you handle practical tasks, structures, and results? → Reveals your operational leadership behavior.

• Systemic: How do you process principles, rules, and overarching contexts? → Reveals your strategic judgment.

The unique advantage: Profilingvalues distinguishes between self-perception and world perception. As a leader, you learn not only how you evaluate the world – but also how you see yourself. This discrepancy is often the key to hidden leadership blocks.

Why the Combination Is So Powerful

Each assessment alone delivers valuable insights. But together, a three-dimensional leadership portrait emerges:

The Three Insight Levels of the Combination

1. Recognize congruence: Where do talents and values align? Example: Someone with the talent 'Empathy' AND a strong intrinsic orientation is perceived as an authentically empathetic leader. This is a genuine strength.

2. Uncover tensions: Where do talents work against one's own value orientation? Example: A leader with the talent 'Activator' (Influencing) but a low extrinsic orientation may experience inner conflicts – they can energize others but lack their own results orientation. This explains chronic dissatisfaction despite external success.

3. Activate potentials: Where are untapped leadership resources? Example: Someone with 'Strategic' in their Top-5 but an underdeveloped systemic dimension in Profilingvalues has the talent for forward thinking – but doesn't use it because they don't evaluate overarching systems as relevant. Coaching can target precisely this.

In Practice: How to Use Both Assessments

Phase 1: Assessment Completion (Week 1)

Start with both assessments in quick succession. Recommendation: First CliftonStrengths® 34 (approx. 45 minutes), then Profilingvalues (approx. 20 minutes). Both in a quiet environment, without time pressure.

Phase 2: Individual Evaluation (Week 2)

In a professional coaching session, both profiles are discussed individually:

• CliftonStrengths®: Which talents shape your leadership style? Which domain is strongest? Where are your shadow talents (rank 30–34)?

• Profilingvalues: What's your judgment balance? Where are there discrepancies between self- and world perception? What does this say about your decision quality?

Phase 3: Integration Coaching (Week 3–4)

Now both profiles are overlaid. The coach identifies together with you:

• Sweet spots: Talents supported by your values → maximum leadership impact.

• Friction zones: Talents that contradict your value orientation → this is where energy leaks occur.

• Growth zones: Potentials you can activate through conscious values work.

Phase 4: Leadership Action Plan (Week 4–6)

Based on the insights, you develop a concrete plan:

• 3 leadership situations where you consciously deploy your sweet spots.

• 1 friction zone to work on over the next 90 days.

• Feedback loops with your team to validate the change.

Case Study: COO of a Tech Startup, Zurich

Starting point: Marco (name changed), 41, is COO of a growing tech startup with 60 employees. He's known for his analytical sharpness, but his team complains about a lack of empathy and micromanagement.

CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle:

• Top-5: Analytical, Strategic, Achiever, Focus, Learner

• Domain emphasis: Strategic Thinking (3 of 5) + Executing (2 of 5)

• Insight: Marco leads strongly through data and results. Relationship Building talents rank 28–34.

Profilingvalues result:

• World perception: Very high extrinsic and systemic orientation, low intrinsic dimension.

• Self-perception: Surprisingly high intrinsic dimension – Marco sees himself as 'relationship-oriented.'

• Discrepancy: Marco's self-image doesn't match his world perception. He *believes* he leads empathetically, but his judgment patterns show he primarily evaluates people by their performance.

The insight: Marco's micromanagement isn't a control compulsion – it's the consequence of his strong Achiever talent (CliftonStrengths®) combined with an extrinsically dominated world perception (Profilingvalues). He unconsciously sees employees as 'function carriers,' not as people.

The intervention:

• Conscious separation of 'strategy meetings' and 'people meetings' – the latter may not be about results.

• Weekly 15-minute conversations with direct reports without an agenda.

• Targeted activation of his 'Learner' talent for people rather than just data.

Result after 6 months: Team engagement increased by 38%. Turnover dropped from 23% to 8%. Marco himself reports 'a new way of leading that feels authentic for the first time.'

Who Is This Combination Suitable For?

• Leaders who want to grow beyond standard development programs.

• C-level executives who want to reflect on their decision quality at the highest level.

• New leaders who want to develop a conscious leadership style from the start.

• HR and People leaders who want to anchor evidence-based leadership development in their organization.

• Coaches and consultants who want to expand their methodology with two complementary assessments.

The Scientific Framework

The combination of both assessments is grounded in three scientific traditions:

• Strengths Psychology (Donald O. Clifton, Gallup): Over 50 years of research shows that leaders who know and deploy their strengths have 6x more engaged teams.

• Formal Axiology (Robert S. Hartman): Mathematical value theory provides a manipulation-proof instrument for measuring judgment competence.

• Positive Psychology (Martin Seligman): Well-being and peak performance arise from deploying strengths in alignment with personal values – exactly what the combination of both assessments enables.

Your Next Step

The combination of the CliftonStrengths® Leadership Bundle and Profilingvalues is the most comprehensive assessment package for leaders that we offer at PurposeCoach®.

In 4–6 sessions within 90 days, you'll develop a deep understanding of your leadership style – and a concrete plan to take it to the next level.

👉 Book a free consultation now

Sources & Further Reading

• Gallup (2024): CliftonStrengths® for Leaders Report – gallup.com/cliftonstrengths

• Rath, T. & Conchie, B. (2008): Strengths Based Leadership – Gallup Press

• Clifton, D. O. & Harter, J. K. (2003): Investing in Strengths – Gallup Press

• Hartman, R. S. (1967): The Structure of Value – Southern Illinois University Press

• Seligman, M. E. P. (2011): Flourish – Free Press

• Drucker, P. (1967): The Effective Executive – Harper & Row

• International Coach Federation (ICF): coachingfederation.org